A former aide to Vice President Mike Pence ripped President Donald Trump’s coronavirus response and claimed the president isn't looking out for Americans.
During an interview set to air Tuesday on “NBC Nightly News,” Olivia Troye told Andrea Mitchell that Trump undermines guidelines created by the White House coronavirus task force.
She said Trump ignored experts’ advice to wear a mask when he held his rally over the summer in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
"He's not actually looking out for you," Troye said. "He's not looking out for these people. He's not looking out for them. He just wants you in that audience so he can have the camera shot of, you know, his fanfare and the people around him. But the truth is, he's putting those lives at risk.”
Troye left her role at the White House in July. She served as a homeland security and counterterrorism aide to Pence for two years and also worked as his adviser on the coronavirus task force. Last week, she announced she will vote for former Vice President Joe Biden in the upcoming election.
During a preview of the interview, which aired on NBC's "TODAY" show, Troye said it was “very challenging” to work on the coronavirus task force. She said things would “suddenly” change “because that wasn’t really what the president wanted."
“It’s very hard when you're trying to actually base things on facts and science and on the data to have a president that wasn't focused on that,” she said. “He was really focused on public image, messaging and it was really more about, you know, his personal agenda than really the agenda that the task force had at hand, which was how are we going to save and protect Americans.”
When Trump proposed that people inject themselves with disinfectant to help fight the virus, she said it was “embarrassing.”
She also said she was in the Situation Room when the president said “COVID’s probably a good thing” because he won’t have to shake hands with people anymore. Trump called people “disgusting” and said shaking hands with people can be “gross.”
"I can't believe you would even say that out loud,” she said of Trump’s hand shaking comments. “These people are suffering right now and you're worried about or you're happy about the fact that you don't have to touch them anymore.”
Troye noted that before she left her job, she saw more political public affairs people interfering with scientific reports.
“There was a lot of political pressure internally to word things in the right way,” she said.
She also disagreed with Trump’s claims that the country is rounding the corner with the virus. She cited the death toll and said the virus “is not going away.”
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