An El Pasoan’s journey from the Trump White House to Democratic National Convention speaker
by Robert Moore, El Paso Matters
August 20, 2024
At this time four years ago, El Paso native Olivia Troye had just left the Trump White House over frustration with the administration’s COVID-19 response and other issues. On Wednesday night, she took the stage at the Democratic National Convention to tell the nation why it’s important that Vice President Kamala Harris defeat former President Donald Trump in November.
“So to my fellow Republicans, you aren't voting for a Democrat. You're voting for democracy,” Troye said at the end of her three-minute speech to the convention. “You aren't betraying our party. You're standing up for our country.”
She told the convention that as a national security expert, a Latina, and the daughter of a Mexican immigrant, “being inside Trump's White House was terrifying.”
In an interview with El Paso Matters the day before her convention address, Troye said the Nov. 5 election is an important moment for the country.
“I am hoping to be part of the permission structure and encourage Republicans, independents, conservative voters to support Kamala Harris and Tim Walz for a better future, not only for the country, but for the (Republican) party in many ways, because we have to defeat Donald Trump,” she said.
Troye, 47, is among several prominent Republicans, including Trump administration officials, who are being featured at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
“Donald Trump is a liar. He lies to people. He has no connection to the people that he pretends to actually stand for and represent. He can't stand them,” she told El Paso Matters.
Troye was born and raised in El Paso, graduating from Coronado High School in 1995. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in political science.
She said she was a lifelong Republican, even while growing up in predominantly Democratic El Paso.
“I'm a person that believes in strong defense, strong foreign policy, limited government, which is why I think things like Project 2025 are the antithesis of what the Republican Party actually stands for, because it really advocates for government overreach,” Troye said.
As a conservative, she said she sees the Democratic ticket as a clear choice in this election.
“I don't agree with Kamala Harris on every issue. But the one thing that I know that I can trust her and Tim Walz to do is to protect our freedoms, our individual freedoms.”
Working in the White House
Troye moved to Washington, D.C., after graduating from college, and has worked at the departments of Defense, Energy and Homeland Security. In May 2018, she was named
Pence’s special advisor for homeland security and counterterrorism.
In February 2020, Trump made Pence chair of the administration’s Coronavirus Task Force. Troye served as the vice president’s chief staffer on the task force, putting her in the room for many of the administration’s decisions about how to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
She resigned in July 2020, and two months later released a video through a group called Republican Voters Against Trump. In the video, she said Trump didn’t take the virus seriously and his inactions led to additional COVID deaths.
The video, which included Troye endorsing Democrat Joe Biden for president, provoked an angry response from the Trump administration. Keith Kellogg, Pence’s national security advisor, said he fired Troye because her performance was lagging. Troye said Kellogg was “telling a bald-faced lie to protect the president.”
In addition to the handling of the pandemic, Troye had other problems with Trump. Her mother is an immigrant from Mexico and she has family members who were migrant farmworkers. She felt Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric dehumanized and threatened her own family – a fear brought home on Aug. 3, 2019, when a white supremacist gunman killed 23 people in an El Paso Walmart, saying he wanted “to stop the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”
“My aunt was in that Walmart,” Troye said. “The only reason she was thankfully saved was because of some other amazing good Samaritan El Pasoan who pulled her to safety. She saw the shooter firsthand.”
She said she was also sickened in June 2020 when Trump urged a heavy-handed response to people protesting after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer.
“When you have a president advocating for shooting protestors — Americans — I couldn't get over the fact that that is the president of the United States advocating for the shooting of other Americans,” said Troye,who said she witnessed Trump make the comments in a Cabinet meeting.
Speaking out, facing threats
After resigning and endorsing Biden, Troye continued to criticize Trump in the months leading up to the 2020 election, and again after Trump supporters attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to block congressional certification of Biden’s election.
In the lead-up to the 2024 election, Troye continued her criticism of Trump and has been frequently featured in national media. She has been one of the leaders of the Republicans for Harris group, and shared the stage with the vice president at a Michigan event days before Biden announced he would step aside as the Democratic presidential nominee.
Her criticism of Trump has triggered numerous threats, forcing Troye to reshape her life.
“It has definitely changed my entire way of life and living and being. I'm very guarded being out in public. I have to be careful. The whole thing is ridiculous. I think about where I can take my dogs,” Troye said.
“I even think about my medical care, my doctors, my dentists. I have to think about who they are. Can you believe that?”
Troye takes the threats seriously, but said she won’t shy away from speaking out on what she sees as the defining issues of our time.
“I do think about the implications for my family, quite frankly, and my neighbors who surround my house. But I think that the stakes are so high that it's worth the risk, and I have to do everything I can as a first-hand witness to really try to educate the American voters on how this is very different,” she said.
Troye is one of two El Pasoans with featured roles in the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. El Paso U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar is chairing Thursday’s final night of the convention, when Harris will formally accept the party’s presidential nomination.
Even though they come from different political viewpoints, Troye said she has valued Escobar’s friendship and support.
“She has really stood by me with all the death threats and all of the hate I've gotten. She has really been one of my strongest allies and supporters and just a champion for me. I think it's a sign of humanity and who El Paso is,” Troye said.
6:45 p.m. Aug. 21: This story has been updated to include Olivia Troye's remarks to the Democratic National Convention.
Disclosure: Olivia Troye is a financial supporter of El Paso Matters. Financial supporters play no role in El Paso Matters’ journalism. The news organization’s policy on editorial independence can be found here.
This article first appeared on El Paso Matters and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
