Natalie Harp was ‘devoted’ to Christian minister before finding Trump, brother reveals
White House aide Natalie Harp was reportedly devoted to a popular Christian minister before joining President Donald Trump’s team, her estranged brother has revealed.
Harp, 35, was thrust into the political spotlight last month after it was reported that she was one of the select few who got to ride with Trump during a secret escape from Air Force One amid a potential assassination threat from Iran.
Reports started to emerge of Harp’s unusual close relationship to the president, including that she slept in the locker room at Trump’s Bedminster golf club and even hopped in the trunk of an SUV to stay near the president.
Preston Harp has now revealed details about his younger sister’s role in Pastor David Jeremiah’s congregation when she was a girl.
“I mostly went to the youth group on Sundays,” Preston told Raw Story, but “my sister chose to go with my parents to his sermons with all the adults and older people.”
Jeremiah is the senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church, which has several locations across southern California. He is also the founder and host of Turning Point for God, a broadcast ministry with programs airing across the country seven days a week.
“It is a megachurch financed by rich conservative Republicans,” Preston said of Jeremiah’s congregation. “Anytime there was a sermon about people who didn’t believe ‘the gospel’ the way [Jeremiah] dogmatically interpreted it, [they] were said to be damned to hell.”
Preston said that Natalie started attending Jeremiah’s sermons when she was about 13. He recalled that his mother and sister worked in the church office around 2010, when Natalie would’ve been about 19.
“I can’t remember exactly cause I haven’t lived at home since 18,” in 2006, Preston said, adding that he “got kicked out for having ‘doubts’ about their version of Christianity.”
The Independent has reached out to Pastor Jeremiah for comment on Harp’s involvement in the church.
Jeremiah was one of several well-known pastors who helped Trump win over evangelical voters during his 2016 presidential campaign, according to J. Derrick Lemons, the department head of religion at the University of Georgia.
Lemons wrote in a paper published in The Australian Journal of Anthropology in October 2022 that Jeremiah was among the evangelical leaders who asked Trump “planted questions” during a large gathering of pastors in New York City in June 2016.
But Jeremiah later “pulled back” from Trump, Lemons told Raw Story. “My sense is that he became uncomfortable with what Trump kind of turned into.”
“I’m a little surprised that Natalie Hart grew up in his church,” Lemons said. “David Jeremiah is the type who would talk about faith and how important it is to live out your faith and public life…he’s not particularly political.”
