A conservative California upbringing paved Natalie Harp's way to Trump

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

See more from the L.A.Times in Google Search.

Set us as preferred WASHINGTON — Natalie Harp has never been in the spotlight quite like this.Before the 35-year-old White House aide made headlines for her close access to President Trump, much of her early life was spent in Southern California, where she was home-schooled and attended a mega-church on Sundays — a quiet upbringing that, her brother says, was defined by conservative values and Christian teachings.Their mother taught them at home using educational materials written from a biblical worldview.

The family would attend services regularly at Shadow Mountain Church in El Cajon, where pastors would deliver sermons like the one from a recent Sunday, calling on God to use its thousands of congregants “in a way that turns this world upside down.” “We were raised with the idea that America was God’s gift to the world and it’s the only place that people really live in freedom,” Preston Harp, her brother, told The Times.Years later, in 2019, Harp’s ascent into Trump’s orbit began, when she went on Fox News to credit a healthcare bill Trump signed into law with saving her from a rare form of cancer — a story that later caught the president’s attention.As that relationship took hold, the California family bubble she’d been raised in was bursting behind the scenes, culminating with her father’s suicide in July 2020.

A month later, Harp emerged on the national stage, introducing herself as a “formerly forgotten American from California” at the Republican National Convention, where she declared her devotion to Trump.“I wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for you,” she said.Now, she spends her days working as a special assistant to Trump, a man she has described, in highly personal letters, as her “guardian and protector.” In those letters, published by the Daily Beast, she has thanked th...