All the president's friends, from Natalie Harp and Daniel Penny to Andrew Tate

The Guardian

22-02-2025

There are three tried-and-tested strategies for getting into Donald Trump's inner circle. No 1: be young, blond and so obsessed with the president that even the Secret Service think it's kinda weird. That strategy certainly seems to have worked out well for Natalie Harp, a former far-right cable host who is now an official aide to Trump.
Harp is what the New York Times diplomatically termed 'devoted'. During the campaign, she became known as the 'human printer' because she followed Trump around with a portable printer – even sometimes running after him on the golf course – to hand him hard copies of flattering coverage. The 34-year-old also reportedly offered to go to prison for Trump, and told the billionaire he is her 'guardian and protector in this life'. According to excerpts from Michael Wolff's new book on Trump, the 'Natalie situation' became so intense that Secret Service agents deemed her 'a potential danger to herself as well as to the president'. But all's well that ends well: now she's helping to run the country!
Strategy No 2: kill an unhoused man. Last year, a Manhattan jury found Daniel Penny, a 26-year-old former Marine, who is white, not guilty in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely, an unhoused Black man. Penny has become a celebrity in rightwing circles, and was recently hired by venture capital giant Andreessen Horowitz (whose founders are big Trump fans) as a deal partner in its American Dynamism practice. Penny has also recently been spotted schmoozing with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. No doubt it's not long before he gets a job in the Department of Defense.
Strategy No 3: be a self-professed 'misogynist influencer' accused by authorities of sexually exploiting women. There's nothing that will win Trump's sympathy faster than a misogynist in a spot of legal bother: sexual predators of a feather flock together. In a move pretty much anyone could have seen coming, the Trump administration has decided to lend a helping hand to manosphere influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate, who are dual US and UK nationals. Earlier this week, the Financial Times reported that the Trump administration had asked Romanian authorities to lift travel restrictions on the brothers, who were arrested in 2022 and indicted in mid-2023 on charges of human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women – charges they deny.
Andrew Tate is also facing a separate civil action from four British women who have alleged rape and coercive control between 2013 and 2016. As you can imagine, those women are deeply concerned that the Trump administration seems to be interfering in the case and have asked them to leave authorities alone to 'do their jobs'. The lawyer for the victims also noted that Trump was 'interfering in due process' not just in Romania, but in the UK, where the Tates are pending extradition.
Why is the Trump administration, which has a lot on its plate, seemingly going out of its way to help the Tates? As Matt Shea wrote in an explainer for the Guardian, the 'alliance … has been in the making for a long time. Paul Ingrassia, one of the lawyers Andrew Tate hired to fight his human-trafficking case, was recently sworn in as the White House liaison for the Department of Justice. Tate has also been friends with Donald Trump Jr since 2016, and Alina Habba, who holds the high-ranking political adviser role of counselor to the president, has said she is a 'big fan' of Andrew Tate. He has a lot of friends in high places.
There might also be a bit of quid pro quo at play as well. Tristan Tate boasted on X in November that the brothers had helped Trump win the US election, claiming 'millions of young men in Europe and the USA have a healthy rightwing approach to politics that they would NOT have if Andrew Tate had never appeared on their phone screens'. That's broadly true: the Tate brothers have helped radicalize a generation. And they continue to be useful propagandists for Trump. As Shea notes: 'The Trump administration and Tate are both promoting a conspiracy theory that USAid and the mainstream media have worked together to fabricate charges against Tate. By supporting him, the Trump administration is forging a new axis of disinformation to go after the press and the very idea of justice and due process.'
While the Tates are useful to Trump, the Trump administration might literally be the brothers' get-out-of-jail-free-card. After Trump won the 2024 election, Andrew Tate tweeted that his case would be dismissed. 'Watch this space ;-),' he said.
Oh, believe me, I've been watching this space, and it's getting more and more dystopian every day. Meddling with the Tates's case is just the start. Trump has made it very clear that he doesn't think the law applies to him or any of his friends, tweeting: 'He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.' He has also likened himself to a 'king'. This isn't bombast: Trump has told us time and time again he thinks he is above the law and can do whatever he likes. We must take him at his word.
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