Former President Trump’s onetime White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, told delegates at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday that Trump was upset that cameras were not on him when he visited an ICU. What she didn’t mention: The scene followed a mass shooting in El Paso.
On Wednesday, Olivia Troye, a former White House national security official under Trump, filled in the blanks.
“She’s talking about the day of the El Paso shooting,” Troye said on CNN Newsroom with Jim Acosta.
Grisham, who said she would be voting for Vice President Kamala Harris, told delegates on Tuesday night that Trump mocked his supporters and referred to them as “basement dwellers.”
“I saw him when the cameras were off,” Grisham said. “On a hospital visit one time, when people were dying in the ICU, he was mad that cameras were not watching him. He has no empathy. No morals. And no fidelity to the truth.”
Troye, who is from El Paso, Texas, said her aunt was inside the Walmart that day.
“That was very personal for me,” Troye told Acosta.
In 2019, a white gunman opened fire on Latino shoppers at the Walmart, killing 23 people and injuring 22 others.
While Trump was at the ICU, Troye was briefing then Vice President Mike Pence about what was happening at the Walmart and also telling people in the White House her aunt was inside.
Troye, one of many high-profile former Republicans supporting Harris and slated to speak at the convention this week, said Trump’s behavior amid a national tragedy weighed heavily on her — particularly when it was so personal.
“As an American, think of me… not a former Trump official, think about being just a human being in that situation and seeing the president of the United States, hearing them talk that way,” Troye said. “These are the people from your hometown community, and that that could have been my aunt in the ICU. She was just very lucky that day, that someone pulled her away, she saw the shooter.”
“That’s very real for me and the staff,” Troye added.
