El Pasoan working for Pence says not following CDC guidelines allowed virus to spread inside White House

WASHINGTON, DC -- As the nation struggles to understand the events surrounding President Trump being hospitalized for Covid-19 treatment, a former White House insider told ABC-7 that warning signs about the coronavirus were given to the Trump Administration months ago.

Olivia Troye, an El Paso native and former advisor for Vice President Mike Pence and the White House Coronavirus Task Force, said she started tracking the lethal virus in January when it began spreading throughout China.

The nation first met Troye last month when she broke her silence about the inner workings of the White House during the pandemic, and the refusal by staffers to follow Centers for Disease Control Guidelines in battling the spread of Covid-19.

In an interview Friday, Troye said seeing the president and others in the White House becoming infected did not surprise her.

“I can say that having worked in the White House personally, you don't see these protocols followed. There is no sense of real social distance happening, and you see the immediate staff around the President and Vice President, they don't wear masks. They have meetings where they'll have larger gatherings of people where no one really has a mask - only one or two people will. Really, they're putting each other at risk," the ex-White House staffer told ABC-7.

As the virus made its way around the globe, Troye and the others on the task force saw what the numbers were looking like and advocated for ways to try and prevent the spread.

She claims Trump and others in his administration didn't take the virus seriously from the beginning and then tried politicizing the message rather than protecting the American public.

Ultimately, she said Americans are now seeing that the virus doesn't discriminate as it infected the Commander-in-Chief.

"It's incredibly frustrating to watch this develop. Quite frankly I am surprised it has taken this long for one of our main senior people in the White House to become positive just because of the surroundings and behavior," she explained.

Troye also points to the moment that Trump may have been exposed to the virus by one of his closest advisors, Hope Hicks, who tested positive just before the president himself was diagnosed with Covid-19.

"I'm very surprised that Hope Hicks, when they found out that she was positive that they still let the President get on Marine One with her and take off and head to a fundraiser. I mean at that point, you really should be concerned about the immediate safety of his family like Jared Kushner and immediate staffers like Steven Miller and other staffers on that trip and the President himself,” she said.

Troye was born and raised in El Paso and graduated in 1995 from Coronado High School. The White House contends she was recently fired from her position, but Troye maintains she resigned.