The major fallout between Donald Trump and Elon Musk last year had a last-minute push from President Trump’s closest aide Natalie Harp, Ted Cruz insinuated at a recent podcast as he said Natalie just printed Elon Musk’s social media post in which he claimed that Trump’s name is in the Epstein Files and presented it in front of the president without any filter. Senator Ted Cruz said he was present at the Oval Office when the drama unfolded, when he went to seek the president’s support for a school-choice provision.Cruz, a Republican senator from Texas, said he was meeting Trump at the White House in June 2025 to seek the president’s support for a school-choice provision when Musk’s post suddenly derailed the discussion. According to Cruz, Trump’s aide Natalie Harp printed out Musk’s post and handed it directly to the president.Musk had posted on X that it was “time to drop the really big bomb,” alleging that Trump was in the Epstein files and claiming that this was the reason the files had not been made public. Musk later added that the truth would eventually emerge.Cruz described the moment as an extraordinary interruption to what had been a policy discussion.“So what happens when something gets tweeted is [it’s] printed out,” Cruz said in an interview on Patrick Bet-David’s PDB Podcast. “Natalie comes in, printed on a piece of paper and hands it to him. And he literally reads that tweet.”Cruz said he watched Trump’s reaction as he read the post.“I’m sitting in the Oval, and his knuckles turn white,” Cruz recalled, adding that Trump was extremely angry.The senator joked that he learned “some curse words” he had not previously known and said the meeting over school choice effectively ended at that point.Ted Cruz’s revelation came at a time when there are a lot of questions on Harp’s influence on Trump. Harp has an unusual role as one of the aides who regularly puts information from the internet in front of Trump. She has been dubbed the president’s “human printer” because of her reported practice of printing news stories, social-media posts and other material for him to read.Harp joined Trump’s orbit in 2022 after working as an anchor and host at the conservative One America News Network..Musk had been a prominent ally of Trump and played a major role in the administration’s efforts to reduce federal spending through the Department of Government Efficiency. But their relationship deteriorated publicly in June 2025, with the two men trading increasingly hostile accusations.Musk’s Epstein-related allegation marked a particularly serious escalation. Trump subsequently denied wrongdoing and publicly attacked Musk, while Musk continued his criticism before the feud eventually subsided.Cruz, who said he is also friends with Musk, said he was relieved that the two men eventually repaired their relationship.“It was not good for America to have the two of them battling,” Cruz said, describing the moment he witnessed in the Oval Office as being like “a hand grenade thrown in the middle of everything.”
