“The president has a longstanding practice of giving Christmas gifts to people in his orbit,” the White House said in a statement
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NEED TO KNOW
- Donald Trump reportedly gifted Natalie Harp and two other female White House aides $45,000 each in cash
- Harp, 35, deputy director of Oval Office operations Chamberlain Harris, 26, and communications adviser Margo Martin, 31, all received the money, according to reports, which cited financial disclosures filed by the White House
- “The president has a longstanding practice of giving Christmas gifts to people in his orbit,” the White House said in a statement
Donald Trump reportedly gifted Natalie Harp and two other female White House aides $45,000 each in cash.
Harp, 35, deputy director of Oval Office operations Chamberlain Harris, 26, and communications adviser Margo Martin, 31, all received the money as a “cash gift for the holidays,” outlets including CNN and Politico reported, citing financial disclosures filed by the White House.
Harp, Harris and Martin all make annual salaries of $150,000, per publicly disclosed White House documents.
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The White House commented on the reports on X, sharing a statement that read, “The president has a longstanding practice of giving Christmas gifts to people in his orbit, including at times employees and aides, both in government and in his time in the private sector.”
“The gifts at issue here have nothing to do with any of these individuals’ official government duties, and, therefore, are entirely permissible under relevant legal and ethical standards,” it added.
Walt Nauta, director of Oval Office operations — who makes a salary of $175,000 — also received a $20,000 “gift for holidays,” according to his financial disclosure statement.
PEOPLE has contacted the White House for comment.
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Harp has made headlines over the past few weeks after New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman spoke about how she was chosen to accompany the president as he secretly switched planes en route from Turkey in July.
On Aug. 14, The Independent reported that Harp, White House deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino and Nauta had joined Trump on the flight from Turkey.
“I can guess why Natalie Harp and Walt Nauta and Dan Scavino were with him,” Haberman, 52, said. “Natalie Harp, because she is sort of his binky, for lack of a better way of putting it, a comfort blanket.”
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Nauta served a “similar” purpose for Trump, according to Haberman.
Haberman also suggested that Scavino and Harp could have been on the flight because they have some control over his social media.
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Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff also questioned Trump’s relationship with Harp during a campaign rally speech last month.
“He doesn’t want to do the job,” said Ossoff. “He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.”
Harp, a former television anchor on the pro-Trump news network One America News, has served as special assistant and executive assistant to Trump, 80, since 2025.
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In November 2024, Haberman and Swan reported that colleagues referred to Harp as a “human printer” during the presidential campaign that year, because she followed Trump with a portable printer so she could give him information in hard copy.
In June’s Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, Haberman and Jonathan Swan reported that Harp would leave the president private notes in “personal spaces.”
According to the book, one of the “adoring letters” that Harp “left in his personal spaces” during Trump’s time out of power included the line “you are all that matters to me.”
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White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE in June, in response to the book, that “no president has cultivated as much loyalty among their staffers and administration officials as President Trump; this is a testament to his commitment to our country and its people.”
“Natalie Harp is a beloved White House Official,” Desai added at the time.
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