A former advisor to Vice President Mike Pence says she had to convince then-President Donald Trump not to send federal troops to shoot at her friends and their families.
Olivia Troye, homeland security advisor to former Vice President Mike Pence, appeared on CNN Tuesday morning to discuss her warnings of the authoritarian threat she believes the Republican presidential nominee now poses.
"I walked those grounds outside the White House the day that Donald Trump suggested we shoot protesters and Americans," Troye said. "I had friends there in that square with their families. They were peacefully protesting."
Troye said this was one of just many "horrifying conversations" during which his former staffers convinced Trump not to deploy the military against those he swore to serve and protect.
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The former Pence advisor warned potential Trump voters to consider the Republican presidential nominee's recent campaign claim that he'd willingly sic the military on "enemies from within" — and not to assume he only meant immigrants.
"What he's really talking about is anyone who actually presents an existential threat against him, whether it's the media, whether it's Americans, whether it's protesters," Troye said. "It's really just authoritarian tendencies."
Troy was joined on CNN by Kevin Carroll, ex-senior counselor to the homeland security secretary John Kelly, who echoed her concerns that Trump's next team of White House staffers would be unwilling to say the word that repeatedly prevented such actions: No.
"He wanted to use the military to shoot migrants, including women and children, crossing the Rio Grande," Carroll said. "He wanted to invoke the Insurrection Act to use federal troops against protesters during the George Floyd demonstrations....On Jan. 6, part of the plan was again, to invoke the Insurrection Act to use federal troops if protests broke out after Mike Pence refused to certify the election."
According to Carroll, "Trump was just itching to misuse the military."
