The staffer pulling Trump’s strings while the press just laughs

U.S. President Donald Trump with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 16, 2026.

REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
John Stoehr
August 20, 2026 | 08:39AM ET

The Washington press corps is Donald Trump's true constituency. He speaks for them, brings attention to them, enlarges their standing, enriches their bosses, even when, or especially when, he attacks them. They are not going to tell an "old-man narrative" about him the way they told an "old-man narrative" about Joe Biden. If they can avoid it, they will.

Yes, I know. The over-the-top backlash against Jon Ossoff has been suggestive. Mere hours after his joke, about Trump preferring "travel with Natalie" over doing the hard work of being president, there was a coordinated effort to attack the Georgia senator. The collective freak-out suggested that Trump is sensitive to the appearance of needing a full-time babysitter (from White House aide Natalie Harp). Some liberals believe the right is trying to stop old-man narratives from forming, even at the risk of bringing more attention to Trump's age. Indeed, according to Brian Stelter, "Google searches for Trump’s executive assistant Natalie Harp spiked by 5,000 percent. News outlets hurried to meet the demand for information."

I think they're wrong. Just because people are talking about something does not mean the press corps will talk about it, too. Remember, these "professionals" choose to be humiliated by the president on live TV. He calls them pigs. He calls them traitors. He calls them scum. Yet they don't defend themselves and they don't defend each other, because politics is just a cynical game. For them, there are no consequences. All that matters is attention, and for that reason, every deviation from the norm can be rationalized in terms of Trump being Trump.

Last month, Times podcaster Ezra Klein asked "the Trump whisperer" if she felt he has "changed with age or that age is slowing him in meaningful ways." Maggie Haberman said she "didn’t notice anything meaningfully different." But in an interview she did with the president in preparation for her book, what leaped to her attention was that Trump was "pure Trump."

He was focused on revenge and was "very obsessed with the renovation projects," she said. "It’s Day 17 of the war, and he’s telling us: Here’s my models of the ballroom," she said, adding that he "didn’t have a care in the world." She said she didn't "subscribe to this dementia conversation" but also that Trump isn't "some fundamentally different human being."

"I think he is much more himself, which is a product of age in general."

Maggie Haberman can find a thousand ways of saying "dementia" without saying it. That's why they call her the "Trump whisperer." And her word games are a reminder of the fact that the older Joe Biden got, the more justified the press corps was in telling "an old-man narrative" about him. However, the older Donald Trump gets, the more justified the press corps is in telling an "old-man narrative" about Trump becoming more purely himself.

Some believe the media might finally be turning against Trump. They point to Haberman's book, Regime Change (with Jonathan Swan). In it, they characterize Harp as Trump's nanny. She reassures the president, encourages him and comforts him. She apparently leaves him "love letters." She stands ready to present him with glowing praise that has been posted to social media whenever Trump is melting down, like a toddler. She helps write some of his Truth Social posts. During an interview, Haberman described Harp as Trump's "binky."

But "binky," or security blanket, is not a sign of a turning tide. Haberman's casual use of the word is the tell. It suggests the degree to which she and others have internalized Trump's deterioration. It's so normal as to be invisible. When it does come to the fore, as it did this week, it's set in the context of politics as usual. Short of a game-changing event, and I have no idea what that might be, the press corps won't make his age an issue. He is a Republican. The press corps is his true constituency. If he were a Democrat, that would be different.

It should be a scandal, though

From yesterday morning's Times: "She never takes a day off, not even on Sunday. She works out of the Oval Office and she’s got a regular seat on Marine One. She texts with world leaders on the president’s behalf. She stays up late with him drafting social media posts."

Here, the "she" is White House executive assistant Natalie Harp. If it's true that she's involved in drafting Trump's posts, late into the night, when no one else is around, that would make her one of the most powerful people in the world. Unelected, unvetted, unchecked.

And unhinged.

She got into a screaming match one time with the Secret Service when there was no more room in the car. So she got into the trunk. Officials from Trump's 2024 campaign tried to keep her away from the president, but she spent the summer sleeping in the women's locker room at his golf resort. She leaves him notes saying "you are all that matters to me” and “I don’t ever want to let you down” and “I want to bring you joy [and] feel like we can get through a day without ever having to talk ‘work.’” She says Trump cured her bone cancer. (He didn't.) She quotes him like she's quoting scripture. Her brother suggested that crushing on powerful men is a habit going back to her teens when George W Bush was in office. "Since she was like 16, she's had an obsession," Preston Harp said. "Her dream came true finally."

With his social media posts, the president moves markets. He influences the global order. He negotiates terms of war and peace. He defines the national conversation. And he issues threats, as he did when he promised Iran that "a whole civilization will die tonight."

But who's writing them? Is it a deranged 35-year-old woman who bears a striking resemblance to Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, and who, according to the Times, "is never not there, ever-present with a wide smile and her eyes fixed on the president"? Harp shows Trump drafts for Truth Social, then logs into his account to publish them, The Guardian said. These have included AI-generated content of the Obamas as apes, of Trump as a pilot dropping shit on No Kings protesters, and of Trump as the pope and Jesus Christ.

How much is she shaping world events?

If Trump's "binky" were a scandal, we might know.