'The fear was real': Former Trump officials recall 'Gestapo'-like White House under 'enforcer' Johnny McEntee
November 09, 2021
Two former Trump administration officials spoke out Tuesday night about what it was like working in the White House under former president Donald Trump's so-called loyalty enforcer, Johnny McEntee.
After being hired to head the Presidential Personnel Office in 2020, the 29-year-old McEntee effectively became "deputy president," working to ferret out "traitors," according to a new book by ABC News' Jonathan Karl.
Olivia Troye, a former aide to Vice President Mike Pence, told MSNBC on Tuesday night that Karl's description of McEntee is "very accurate."
"It actually gave me chills because it reminded me what it was like when Johnny was appointed," Troye said of the book. "The fear was real, it was well-known that there were social media checks being conducted. I had a conversation with Gen. (Keith) Kellogg directly where he told me to watch my every move, to be careful."
Troye added that she "chuckled a little" when she read a story in Karl's book about a low-level staffer at the Department of Housing and Urban Development who was called out for liking an Instagram post about Taylor Swift.
Troye said something similar happened to her when, after a tense White House meeting where she lost an argument, she went back to her office and played Swift's music loudly.
"I had a colleague knock on the door, and he said, 'Are you trying to get fired?'" Troye said. "I was super confused. I said, 'For being blunt in meetings?' He said, 'I don't think she's [Swift is] a fan of Trump. So if somebody hears that, you should watch your back.'"
"When you talk about the Gestapo... this is sort of how this White House was run, and that's what I fear for the future of our country, when some of these people are in power like this and they remain in power," Troye said.
Miles Taylor, former chief of staff for the Department of Homeland Security, agreed that Karl's book was accurate.
According to Karl's book, one of McEntee's henchman, 25-year-old Josh Whitehouse, tried to remove Taylor's name from a plaque listing prior staffers after he wrote an op-ed criticizing Trump.
"That same person who tried to pry my name off the plaque was the same person staffers at DHS were worried was literally going to come in and shoot up the place," Taylor told MSNBC. "His response to that was, 'If they support Trump, then they have nothing to worry about.' That sounded eerily to me like one of Hitler's lieutenants who famously said, 'You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide.' These were the type of people Donald Trump surrounded himself with at the end."
Watch below.
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