Olivia Troye is a former Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor to former Vice President Mike Pence and career national security professional. She joined Stuart Stevens on Lincoln Square, reflecting on about her time working in the first Trump Administration and what was the final straw that made her say enough.
“I resign in that summer [2020] and go public with my criticisms about Trump. That summer, I just, I already knew that he was likely not going to want to leave the White House,” said Troye, who writes the Olivia of Troye newsletter on Substack. “I was really angry at the Lafayette Square clearing, if you all remember that, of what happened there. During Black Lives Matter, and they cleared out the square in a very aggressive way. And I know people that got hurt during that. And I had been walking the grounds, and I saw families out there exercising their First Amendment rights. And then after that, I was like, ‘I can’t do this anymore.’”
So can the Republican Party find its way back after Trump is gone? Troye is skeptical.
“I think the machine is so entrenched now. All of the money making, the corruption, the grift, the setups around it, the media landscape, which I’ll say is also playing a role here. … I don’t see an incentive for any of these people to backtrack and decide that moral courage and integrity and ethics is matters more. And then maybe they should try to right the ship, so to speak.”
Jump into more with Stuart Stevens and Olivia Troye right here on Lincoln Square.
