Natalie Harp is not Melania’s rival, but her much-loved replacement

This is not an article about Natalie Harp but about Trump’s half-missing wife: Melania has made it. It took twenty years, two presidencies – one of which is an epic of disasters and is almost halfway through – an incalculable number of unwelcome public appearances, hands that slipped away and disgusted little kisses, but in the end she has attained the supreme power of the wives of the rich: complete independence from her husband without having to divorce, with the harmless replacement of the female figure accompanying him on official engagements. Melania has always shown well above-average skills when it comes to stepping back; how long did it take her to realise, during this second term, that the role of representing her husband needed to be outsourced? Barely a year. So Donald had to fall back on someone else. Natalie Harp is a White House aide; her full title is Special Assistant to the President and Executive Assistant to the President, with a salary of $150,000 a year.

Harp had a rare bone tumour. Two courses of chemotherapy had failed to work and a serious medical error had further compromised her condition; she later recounted how she had recovered thanks to an immunotherapy treatment. She publicly stated that it was thanks to Trump and his Right to Try Act that she had gained access to the treatment. (Experts dispute this: the treatment was an off-label use of a drug already approved by the FDA and was not dependent on the law signed by Trump). The fact remains that with this ploy, she curoured herself in Donald’s favour and ended up at the White House.

This other blonde does not appear to be an inconsequential one either; Natalie has the face of the less pretty but likeable sister from an American sitcom. She’s 35 and a former presenter on One America News; she’s earned herself the oldest job in the world: the powerful man’s handbag. She’s the chief lady-in-waiting, tasked with staying close to him – as in: glued to him. To be the pen, the glasses and the notebook of the man in charge. Ah, and the lady always has a printer in her handbag. The set-up is straight out of an old empire: the chief fixer stands in the shadow of the sovereign and must gauge his mood every morning, and then present the world to him in the form in which the tyrant is supposed to receive it. Natalie must be quite capable if, last July, when Trump was taken off Air Force One in Ankara via a confidential procedure for security reasons, she was among the small group of aides who accompanied him, alongside Dan Scavino and Walt Nauta. The ministers had to wait, but she did not. The story of the printer – which is the only detail that’s really interesting at the moment – has been going on for a while. For years now, Harp’s role has been to shadow The Donald and transcribe articles, comments and various bits and bobs found online onto paper. Then her role expanded: she also has access to the ‘Truth’ account. It’s a curious sequence of events: the complex world we’ve created has produced Trump; Trump generates an unprecedented volume of news; the whole of the internet then comments on Trump; Natalie prints out things from the internet; and Trump wants to read on paper what the world thinks of him. Back to the toner with the DeLorean.

Printer metaphor aside, I keep seeing Melania everywhere in this story. Nobody needs a new First Lady, of course; there’s no reason to turn the ‘lady with the folders’ into the President’s new girlfriend. Nobody believes it, not least because the reality is far more amusing: Harp is replacing Melania – with Melania’s wholehearted approval – who has finished playing the role of the ever-present, well-presented backdrop, with a smile that costs her dearly, even in her wrinkles. Melania detests the privileges of visibility that come with power. That woman is my ode to millionaire privacy; she seems like one of the ‘Old Money’ set, so keen is she to step aside and not be where everyone else would love to be.