Bombshell revelations about Trump's Covid response

A former White House staffer who quit her role as part of Donald Trump’s coronavirus taskforce has lambasted the president’s “horrifying” response to the pandemic.

Olivia Troye, former Homeland Security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, has revealed how she became disillusioned over Trump’s continuous downplaying of the virus despite repeated warnings of its severity by the US’s top medical experts.

Following Trump’s impromptu public appearance at a church nearby the White House during Black Lives Matter protests, Ms Troye had hit breaking point and quit her role over the continued “embarrassing behaviour” of the president and his inner circle.

“This is the reality show that is the White House,” she told Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes.

She said Mr Trump’s handling of the pandemic, which has led to a near 10 million known cases, has led to “too many” preventable deaths.

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“We shouldn’t be in this situation we’re in today,” she said.

Ms Troye has spoken out in recent weeks over the president’s continued mishandling of the pandemic, providing a terrifying eye-opener into his responses to medical advice during key meetings.

“It would go in one ear and out the other… It was a daily struggle to figure out how we would overcome this dynamic with the President, and the truth is, we were never going to win," she told CTV last month.

She told 60 Minutes his dismissive behaviour was further evidence the president was shaping into a “dictator”.

“It’s actually horrifying to watch our leader of this country behave in such a manner, it’s embarrassing,” she said.

“I don’t know that he listens to anyone but himself.”

Ms Troye says Trump, who lost the closely-fought US election on Sunday (AEDT), was behaving like an “out-of-control teenager” as he unleashed baseless accusations of electoral fraud as the election appeared to be slipping away from him.

“He has a really hard time accepting the truth or reality,” she said.

President-elect Joe Biden has moved quickly to build a new taskforce to tackle the pandemic that has led to more than 235,000 deaths in the US – more than 70,000 more than any other country.

Biden named a former surgeon general, Dr Vivek Murthy, and a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, David Kessler, as co-chairs of a coronavirus working group set to get started, with other members expected to be announced Monday.

“On Monday I will name a group of leading scientists and experts as transition advisers to help take the Biden-Harris plan and convert it into an actual blueprint that will start on January 20, 2021,” Mr Biden said during his victory event.

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