Good morning and welcome to the Daily Beast’s Cheat Sheet on Substack, where we’re bringing you the stories you need to know now—and that we’re not afraid to publish.
For days, questions about why Donald Trump has 35-year-old Natalie Harp Krazy Glued to his side have been reaching a crescendo. But in the sturm und drang there was no proper insight into how Harp interacts with Trump, because a protective shield was thrown up by the White House and MAGA, bristling with faux outrage at Democratic rising star Jon Ossoff for daring to say “travel with Natalie.” This morning, we finally have that insight, in jaw-dropping detail: The author Michael Wolff has revealed to The Daily Beast two letters Harp sent to Trump in 2023. Every word of them is astonishing—and can only fuel the serious national security concerns about what is going on. We’ve got them all. And there is more information this morning about who has raised the alarm on Harp, and why. We’ve got the details, and we’ve got the unreal video she made about Trump a decade ago. Also this morning, Trump melts down about his green slime Reflecting Pool scandal, RFK Jr. is triggered by the real cost of his “MAHA” food being exposed; and Trump is battered by not one Navy scandal, but two.
“I miss the days when you used to call, during my Talkshow days, and we’d talk about everything and nothing. I want to get back to that synergy. We shouldn’t have to talk about work all the time!!” The author Michael Wolff is revealing two letters Natalie Harp sent to Donald Trump this morning in The Daily Beast, giving a deeply troubling insight into the relationship between the 80-year-old president and the 35-year-old, $150,000-a-year special assistant and executive assistant to the president. The letters were so concerning that when they were found in 2023 in the pile of printouts “the human printer” Harp gave to Trump, they were circulated among his campaign staff and passed to Wolff. Harp wrote them during, or immediately after, a trip Trump took her on to his golf courses in Scotland and Ireland; she was 31, and he was 76.
We have seen limited extracts from the letters before because Wolff published them in his best-selling book All or Nothing, and The New York Times followed his revelations by obtaining some portions of them. But never before have we been able to read the full, disturbing extent of Harp’s thoughts. This morning there are very serious national security questions about Harp, who is a conduit for foreign leaders to Trump, and who did not apply for a security clearance for a year while she accompanied the president everywhere and had unfettered access to his Truth Social account. The letters will fuel those questions—which deserve full, transparent answers from the White House.
Maggie Haberman, who followed Wolff’s lead on the letters and published a small portion of them in The New York Times, is giving more insight into just how deep the concerns about her run. “Most of her colleagues have been uneasy with her for some time,” she said, confirming Wolff’s revelation that the Secret Service were worried.
On the new edition of Inside Trump’s Head, Michael Wolff joins Joanna Coles to break down the deeply intimate letters to Donald Trump that is he publishing. And he is disclosing how they raised alarms among Trump’s 2024 campaign staff, as well as the Secret Service. Wolff explains exactly why he was given the letters, and why he is publishing them now. He reveals how the campaign staff around Trump were in “revolt” at Harp’s presence, prompting them to pass the letters to Wolff. And he describes how they were first discovered, in the pile of printouts she would give him, and circulated widely inside the campaign, where Harp’s presence was of increasing concern.
If anyone thought the letters were a one-off, think again. Because this morning, an extraordinary video Natalie Harp made in 2017 about Trump has emerged—and it raises yet more concerns about the woman by the president’s side. In the video she makes extraordinary, and factually unsupported, claims that she was the victim of medical malpractice of which she is the only survivor. That miracle—one not recorded in any medical journals—is only the start of her journey, claiming that it caused her cancer, and linking it somehow to the rise of Trump. Tom Latchem has the details.
The elite D.C. media spent months ignoring Natalie Harp’s inescapable presence beside Trump—but The Daily Beast did not. We weren’t deterred by name-calling, or seduced by offers of access. That’s because we report for you, our subscribers, not the approval of politicians. If you’re already a subscriber, thank you for supporting independent media. And if you’re not, it’s never been easier to join our community here, or at www.thedailybeast.com.
The all-in, no-holds-barred brawl inside MAGA to be the new Karoline Leavitt is fully under way. It is exactly what is needed by a president who is beset by the economic consequences of his own war of choice, a national security scandal over his '“human printer” companion, 35, and whose first lady simply vanished for a month. A soap opera set of twists in the battle for succession, overseen by The Apprentice’s ringmaster himself. So this morning, we have two developments. First, that MAGA knives are out for
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.