Donald Trump Aide Natalie Harp Reportedly Devoted to Megachurch Pastor Before POTUS

Trump aide Natalie Harp attended sermons by California-based megachurch pastor David Jeremiah as a teenager, her estranged brother Preston told Raw Story. Jeremiah later joined a 2016 meeting aimed at winning evangelical support for Donald Trump, while letters published by the Daily Beast set out Harp's devotion to the president in her own words.

For context, the Daily Beast published the letters in full. 'You are all that matters to me,' Harp wrote to Trump. 'I don't want to ever let you down.' The words are striking, although they do not explain what drew her to Jeremiah as a child or establish any direct link between the two relationships.

Natalie Harp And The Pastor's Sermons

Preston said his sister began attending Jeremiah's sermons when she was 13. Around 2010, he said, Natalie and their mother worked in the church office. He described the congregation as 'a megachurch financed by rich conservative Republicans'.

The siblings' experiences of church differed. '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.' They were spending their Sundays in different rooms of the same church.

Preston also said he was put out of the family home at 18 because he doubted Christianity. He recalled that Natalie preferred Jeremiah's company at church to spending time with him. That recollection cannot establish why Natalie made that choice or whether she later saw Jeremiah and Trump in similar terms.

Jeremiah, originally from Toledo, Ohio, now leads a megachurch in California and the ministry Turning Point for God. He was among the pastors Trump met in 2016 while seeking evangelical support.

Natalie Harp's Church And Trump's Campaign

Professor J. Derrick Lemons, head of the Religion Department at the University of Georgia, has written about Christian leaders involved in Trump's appeal to evangelical voters. He examined a meeting at a New York City Marriott hotel where Trump fielded questions from influential pastors.

Lemons later found that particular questions had been planted. Jeremiah, who had denied endorsing Trump the previous year, asked about the candidate's position on Israel. Trump held the meeting as he tried to win over the evangelical base.

'In an unofficial way, the whole meeting was set up like a multilevel marketing scheme primarily built on selling a product (Candidate Trump) to friends,' Lemons wrote. His description is an assessment of the gathering, not evidence of Jeremiah's personal motives.

Lemons also wrote that 'These pastors had experienced a conversion to Donald J. Trump like the conversion to Jesus Christ they had encouraged in many in their congregations.' Jeremiah subsequently distanced himself from Trump. Lemons speculated that he had become 'uncomfortable with what Trump kind of turned into'.

What Natalie Harp's Letters Show

Harp's own words offer a narrower account of her feelings towards Trump. The letters show the strength of the commitment she expressed to him, but neither they nor Preston's recollections establish that one loyalty caused or replaced the other.

'I'm a little surprised that Natalie Harp grew up in his church,' Lemons said. He described Jeremiah as a pastor who spoke about living out faith in public life, adding that 'he's not particularly political'.