A former Pence assistant berated Trump’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic that is still ravaging the US in a new video on Thursday. The former aide is a new member in the growing list of former Trump team officials now criticizing him and, in some cases, supported his Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
Olivia Troye who served as a Homeland security adviser to Trump’s deputy Pence on Coronavirus in her 2 min video exposed Trump’s failure in dealing with the deadly disease. The lead staffer accused President of selfishness and said that he only cared about himself and winning another 4-year at White House. Troye who assailed Trump’s response as part of the President’s coronavirus task force headed by Pence.
“Towards the middle of February, we knew it wasn’t a matter of if COVID would become a big pandemic here, it was a matter of when,” said Troye, who left the White House in late July. “But the President didn’t want to hear that, because his biggest concern was that we were in an election year, and how was this going to affect what he considered to be his record of success?”
At one coronavirus task force meeting, she said that the President suggested “maybe this COVID thing is a good thing.”
“I don’t like shaking hands with people. I don’t have to shake hands with these disgusting people,” Troye claimed the Republican expressed at a meeting.
White House was quick to respond to the allegations hurled at President and accused the lady of being a disgruntled staffer who didn’t speak her mind as a team member. Trump on Thursday evening said he didn’t not know Troye but claimed she had been goaded into issuing such remarks.
“The people get a hold of her and say, “Let’s say some bad things about Donald Trump,” he said.
“Every time somebody leaves government – 99% of the time I’m not going to know these people. And they leave on a basis of almost like it is a personal thing with me.”
Vice-president, Pence also blasted his former subordinate:
“I haven’t read her comments in any detail, but it reads to me like one more disgruntled employee who’s left the White House and now has decided to play politics during an election year,” Pence said of Troye, in response to a question from a reporter. “I think my staff has indicated that she made no comments like that when she was serving on our team here at the White House coronavirus task force.”
Pence added he “couldn’t be more proud of the work we have done all along the way and the leadership that President Trump has provided.”
White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere said, “Outside of generally watching the White House Coronavirus Taskforce from the overflow staff room, this disgruntled former detailee was never in private meetings with the President and her assertions have no basis in reality and are flat out inaccurate.”
And Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Pence’s national security adviser, said in a statement Troye was “disgruntled that her detail was cut short.”
“Ms. Troye directly reported to me, and never once during her detail did, she every express any concern regarding the Administration’s response to the Coronavirus to anyone in her chain of command,” said Kellogg.
