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US elections: Pence aide slams Trump on coronavirus; urges people to vote for Biden

WION Web Team
Washington, United StatesUpdated: Sep 18, 2020, 10:58 AM IST
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Photograph:(WION Web Team)

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Troye accused Trump of saying COVID-19 was good stating 'I don't like shaking hands with people. I don't have to shake hands with these disgusting people.'

Ahead of the US elections, a former Mike Pence aide has released a video revealing how the US President Donald Trump carelessly avoided doing better to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Olivia Troye, who worked for Pence's team and was a part of the coronavirus task force set up by the trump administration, released a video claiming "the truth is he doesn't actually care about anyone else but himself."

Troye was Pence's former homeland security advisor and has claimed that working for Trump was "terrifying". She alleged that the President was more concerned about his reelection in the upcoming US elections.

"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. "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?"

The biggest allegation sha has made against the President in this video is that during one of the meetings she was a part of, Trump said maybe COVID-19 is a good thing because "I don't like shaking hands with people. I don't have to shake hands with these disgusting people."

While the White House denied these accusations by calling this a personal revenge for being fired by the administration, Donald Trump did not rubbish these accusations but simply stated that she was a "lower level person".

Talking to local reporters, Trump said, "I don't know her. She worked for the Vice President. She was on the task force as some kind of lower level person. I have no idea who she is."

Pence, too, rubbished the accusations by calling Troye another "disgruntled employee".

"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 told local reporters. "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."

The WHite House has also claimed that Troye was fired by the administration, and while leaving she wrote the "most beautiful going-away letter," Trump said.

Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Pence's national security adviser, said Troye never complained about the handling of the virus during her time at the White House. "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," he said in a statement.

However, the letter released by the White House, does not offer any praise for the President or the Vice President. While Troye does claim that it was an "absolute honor" to serve at the taskforce, but she has not mentioned the same about working with Trump or Pence.

This is not the first former Trump administration employee to protest against re-election of Trump. Miles Taylor, former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, and former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci are few of the other big names, along with several more who have urged people to vote for Biden instead of Trump.

Recently, investigative journalists, Bob Woodward, released a book in which he has provided proof of Trump admitting that he downplayed the coronavirus response intentionally.

He has also been accused of forcing CDC to pre-maturely release the COVID-19 vaccine to satisfy his campaign agenda for the elections scheduled on Nomber 03.