This story has been updated with comment from the White House.

After President Donald Trump escaped Turkey in a catering cart alongside his close aide Natalie Harp, the 35-year-old drew the attention of a senator and set off a media frenzy, adding a human-interest layer to a long-running debate over how closely Trump’s aides have tied their public identities to him.

That prompted her estranged brother to speak publicly about what he called her “unhealthy obsession” with Trump, telling Raw Story that he especially objected to his sister’s repeated claims that Trump saved her life during her cancer battle.

“Donald Trump wouldn't save your life if you didn't have insurance,” Preston Harp, 38, said in a phone interview from Masaya, Nicaragua, where he now lives.

“To me, it's a meaningless statement. He didn't save her life. He just changed the law that happened to work in her advantage, and that's great.

“I literally see people's lives getting saved every time that I come to the hospital here [in Nicaragua], and it's all for free, and I don't see anybody sleeping outside the hospital. I don't see anybody dying outside the hospital like I literally did in L.A.”

Natalie Harp spoke at the Republican National Convention in 2020 about being “the victim of a notoriously deadly medical error,” and later being diagnosed with a rare terminal bone cancer.

“I wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't for you,” Natalie said, addressing Trump and saying that his signing of the Right to Try law gave her access to experimental drugs that beat her cancer.

She compared him to George Bailey, the hero of “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

“They didn't give me the right to try experimental treatments, Mr. President, you did, and without you, I'd have died waiting for them to be approved.”

Preston, who said he has not spoken with Natalie since their father died in July 2020, said he could not afford insurance while living in the United States and previously flew to Nicaragua for medical treatment before moving there. Last year, he suffered a serious motorcycle accident, and he said physical therapy at the public hospital has been free.

“Think about how large the military budget is, and how that money could be used for the public good with public hospitals,” Preston said. “That would be Donald Trump saving people's lives if he made a public health system and cut the military budget.”

Preston Harp (provided photo)

Preston said he became a registered member of the Peace and Freedom Party, a socialist group, when he was about 18 after reading Howard Zinn's “A People's History of the United States.”

He said he and Natalie “weren't allowed to” talk politics by their mother, with whom he also has not spoken since his father's death.

“She didn't want my point of view ever to be shared with Natalie,” Preston said.

He said his mother was “extremely conservative,” while his father supported Republicans such as Bush and Ronald Reagan, but “when he saw the level of depravity that is Trump’s that he started changing.”

Preston recalled Natalie writing letters to Trump and President George W. Bush as a child.

As Trump’s son Eric Trump and MAGA supporters criticized CNN and other media outlets for speaking with Preston, he said he has received criticism as well.

“I got a death threat in my email, but I just laughed it off,” Preston said.

The White House responded to Raw Story's questions with a statement.

"Natalie Harp is one of the most loyal and hardest-working aides on President Trump's team," said Davis Ingle, White House spokesman. "The Fake News’s continued attacks on President Trump and his Administration prove exactly why trust in media is at historic lows. The media should get back to reporting real news and stop regurgitating Trump-Deranged liberal talking points."