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Opinion | Natalie's Magnificent Obsession

The New York Times (Maureen Dowd, Opinion) · back to the audit

Opinion | Natalie's Magnificent Obsession. By Maureen Dowd. Aug. 22, 2026, 7:00 a.m. ET. This human printer runs -- but not out of ink.

I've spent my career watching officials maneuver and scheme, often in absurd ways, to get closer to presidents. But I'd never seen anything like the photo of Natalie Harp dashing after President Trump's golf cart in Scotland three years ago. I'd also never heard of a staffer jumping into the trunk of an S.U.V., as Harp did, when she was denied a seat in the motorcade.

The hit horror movie "Obsession," about a man who wishes for more adoration from a young woman, who falls under his spell and maniacally provides it, is playing out on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Like others, I winced when I first heard Senator Jon Ossoff, the Georgia Democrat, refer to how Trump liked to "travel with Natalie." Was he gratuitously turning a salacious spotlight onto a White House aide?

But as it turns out, with three little words, Ossoff pulled a string and unraveled something really dark and deranged at the innermost circle of Trump's White House.

The president's proclivity for surrounding himself with sycophants -- and attractive young blondes -- is well known.

But this relationship is pathological, and a source of great irritation among other courtiers. It is Trump distilled to his essence: cult leader and his most rabid follower, narcissist and his most flattering mirror.

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