President Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic showed a “flat out disregard for human life” because his “main concern was the economy and his reelection,” according to a senior adviser on the White House coronavirus task force who left the White House in August.
Olivia Troye, who worked as homeland security, counterterrorism and coronavirus adviser to Vice President Pence for two years, said that the administration’s response cost lives and that she will vote for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden this fall because of her experience in the Trump White House.
“The president’s rhetoric and his own attacks against people in his administration trying to do the work, as well as the promulgation of false narratives and incorrect information of the virus have made this ongoing response a failure,” she said in an interview.
Troye is the first Trump administration official who worked extensively on the coronavirus response to forcefully speak out against Trump and his handling of the pandemic.
But she joins a growing number of former officials, including former national security adviser John Bolton and former defense secretary Jim Mattis, who have detailed their worries about what happened during their time in the administration while declaring that Trump is unfit to be president.
The amount of criticism Trump has faced from former aides is unprecedented in the modern presidency, and it could pose a political risk to his reelection campaign as some of the aides who have spoken out are pressuring other former colleagues to join them.
Troye had an inside view of the White House’s pandemic response, which polls show is hurting Trump with voters, and her review of the effort is scathing.
She said in an interview that she would be skeptical of any vaccine produced ahead of the election because of worries its release was due to political pressure.
“I would not tell anyone I care about to take a vaccine that launches prior to the election,” she said. “I would listen to the experts and the unity in pharma. And I would wait to make sure that this vaccine is safe and not a prop tied to an election.”
Though Troye played a behind-the-scenes role during her time in the White House, she was a major participant in the task force’s work, attending and helping to organize “every single meeting” it held from February until July, she said.
She worked closely with Pence on the administration’s response, including establishing an agenda for each meeting, preparing the vice president and arranging briefings for him, writing and editing his comments and dealing with the vice president’s political aides.
She was often pictured sitting against the back wall of the Situation Room near Pence in photos posted to social media.
Her assistant would send the seating chart to officials across the administration, who in turn would consult with her about the workings of the group and Pence.
She described herself as a lifelong Republican who voted for every one of the party’s nominees before 2016.
Troye did not vote for Trump because she didn’t like his rhetoric.
“But I got past it and accepted he was our president,” Troye, 43, said of the election result.
Troye said that she worked in the administration because she hoped Trump would morph into a stronger leader after a divisive campaign and that she had respect for other Trump officials, such as Pence.
“I still have a lot of respect for the vice president,” she said. “I worked very loyally for him to do everything I could for him. I don’t want this to become a speaking-out-against-him thing.”
The novel coronavirus has infected more than 6.5 million Americans and has killed nearly 200,000 — a toll Troye said has been exacerbated by Trump and his administration’s mishandling of the pandemic and by the conflicting messages he and his top aides have disseminated to Americans on masks, social distancing and other public health precautions.
Trump, she said, was not usually focused on the virus but would often “blindside” the task force and administration officials with public comments, such as his support for hydroxychloroquine, his Twitter attack on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over the agency’s guidance on the reopening of schools, his skeptical comments about masks and his public musings about “herd immunity.”
Many of his comments were the opposite of what had been discussed in the White House Situation Room, where task force meetings were often held, and were at odds with scientific recommendations or the administration’s own data, Troye said.
The administration, she said, missed months to slow the spread of the virus because the president and other key administration officials refused to embrace masks, even as members of the task force and health officials “repeatedly begged” Trump to do so.
“The mask issue was a critical one. If we would have gotten ahead on that and stressed the importance of it, we could have slowed the spread significantly,” Troye said. “It was detrimental that it became a politicized issue. It still lingers today.”
Senior aides to Pence held a contemptuous view of the administration’s scientists and tried to project a far too rosy outlook about the virus with cherry-picked data — and key public health agencies including the CDC were marginalized throughout her tenure, Troye said.
Advisers were afraid to express positions contrary to the president’s views because they feared a public denunciation or “that they would be cut out,” she said.
“At some point, every single person on the task force has been thrown under the bus in one way or another,” Troye said. “Instead of being focused on the task at hand, people were constantly wondering what was going to drop next or when you’re going to get reprimanded or cut out of a process for speaking out.”
Troye said the White House did not quickly resolve problems with coronavirus testing in the early months as the virus spread, though she concedes those hitches were not personally Trump’s fault.
Trump rarely attended task force meetings and was briefed only on top-level discussions by Pence or the government’s public health officials.
When Trump attended one meeting, Troye said, he spoke for 45 minutes about how poorly he was being treated by certain personalities on Fox News.
“He spent more time about who was going to call Fox and yell at them to set them straight than he did on the virus,” she said.
Troye said Trump was constantly looking to reopen states and schools — even when others feared it would be unsafe — and would regularly disregard what his advisers suggested.
“There were a lot of closed door conversations I have had with a lot of senior people across the administration where they agree with me wholeheartedly,” she said, of her assessment on Trump.
White House spokesman Judd Deere said that Troye’s “assertions have no basis in reality and are flat out inaccurate” and that “the truth is President Trump always put the well-being of the American people first.”
With seven weeks until the election, there is a concerted effort by a coterie of former Trump administration officials to push more aides to speak out, particularly boldface names who can secure national media attention and aides who can tell damaging stories in detail.
The president, for his part, has described many of those critical as “disgruntled former employees” who were not cut out for his administration.
Administration officials note that a number of former employees also have praised the president extensively and that the president has overwhelming support in his own party.
Some former and current officials say they do not think ex-Washington officials will move many voters in key states.
But Miles Taylor — who worked in the Homeland Security Department between 2017 and 2019, including as chief of staff — said compelling narrators with first-person testimonials can influence voters.
“Is the voice of an ex-Trump official going to change millions of votes? No. But if you can change the minds of several tens of thousands of people in swing states, it could absolutely impact the election,” said Taylor, who has formed a Republican anti-Trump group called Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform (REPAIR).
Troye is joining the group and this afternoon she released a video detailing her problems with Trump’s handling of the pandemic through Republican Voters Against Trump.
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
Taylor said it had been difficult to secure marquee names to speak out against the president because “the president has done a very effective job of creating a culture of fear.”
According to people familiar with their views, those privately critical of Trump include Mattis, former White House chief of staff John F. Kelly, former secretary of state Rex Tillerson, former top economic aide Gary Cohn and former homeland security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.
Kelly is among those most torn about what to do, according to people who have spoken with him.
He describes the president in derisive terms — a narcissist who does not understand the military, cares only about his political fortunes and is unqualified to be president, the people said.
He declined to comment for this article but has told others he is undecided over whether he should speak out more before the election, citing his previous role in the military and his concern about generals speaking out against elected presidents.
Beyond the fear of being attacked, there are other reasons that former advisers have not spoken out publicly.
Some of them are still staunchly Republican — even if they dislike Trump — and do not want to publicly support Biden.
Some, like Nielsen, would have to defend their own roles in some of Trump’s most contentious decisions.
Taylor said he is encouraging former officials such as Mattis and Kelly to see that now is the time to break their self-imposed reticence.