A former White House aide who helped coordinate the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, has on Thursday sharply criticized President Donald Trump in a video, and said she planned to vote for Democrat Joe Biden instead.
Olivia Troye, who was an aide to Vice President Mike Pence, served as a top organizer for the White House Coronavirus Task Force that Mike Pence leads.
“The truth is he doesn’t actually care about anyone else but himself,” she said in the video. “If the president had taken this virus seriously …. he would have slowed the virus spread, he would have saved lives.”
Troye also said that Donald Trump in one COVID-19 task force meeting allegedly remarked remarked that the pandemic might be a "good thing" because it prevented him from having to shake hands with "disgusting people."
Troye said the president was referring to his supporters, reports Business Insider.
"When we were in a task-force meeting, the president said, '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 says in the two-minute video.
"Those disgusting people are the same people he claims to care about. These are the people who are still going to his rallies today, who have complete faith in who he is."
In this new ad @OliviaTroye reveals that during a COVID task force meeting, President Trump said "Maybe this COVID thing is a good thing. I don't have to shake hands with these disgusting people." WOW. pic.twitter.com/1W1tQgZCWv
— Republican Voters Against Trump (@RVAT2020) September 17, 2020
Trump told reporters he never met Troye. He said she was let go but wrote a “beautiful letter” praising the administration on her way out.
In that letter, released by the White House, Troye said it has been an “absolute honor” to work on the coronavirus task force but did not offer praise for Trump or Pence.
Pence, in comments to reporters, described Troye’s words as sounding like those of a disgruntled employee who was playing politics during an election year.
White House spokesman Judd Deere said Troye was not directly involved in the coronavirus task force and did not meet with Trump privately. He called her statements “flat out inaccurate.”