Bloomberg News

WASHINGTON – Vice President Mike Pence’s national security adviser told reporters Tuesday that he had fired a former Pence aide who filmed an ad last week criticizing the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic.

“I fired her,” Keith Kellogg, a retired general who advises Pence, said of Olivia Troye, who formerly worked on Pence’s coronavirus task force.

“The reason I fired her is because her performance started to drop,” Kellogg said. “I’m the one who escorted her off the compound.”

Troye denied that she was fired and said Kellogg was trying to protect President Donald Trump.

“Sad that Gen. Kellogg is telling a bald faced lie,” she wrote in a tweet. “I resigned on my own accord & was asked to stay. He never escorted me out.”

Troye filmed an ad last week for the group Republican Voters Against Trump in which she endorsed Joe Biden and accused Trump of showing “disregard for human life” during the pandemic. She said Trump’s “biggest concern” during his government’s response to the outbreak has been how it would affect his reelection campaign.

Troye taped an interview with NBC News that was being broadcast Tuesday.

The White House has sought to rebut her remarks and has called her a disgruntled former employee.

“What she has said I’ve never heard,” Kellogg told reporters. “What bothers me about what Olivia said is, by insinuation, the disparagement of the task force, the vice president, and the president of the United States.”

Troye said in an interview with the Washington Post that she still respects Pence, reserving her criticism for the president. She also said she would not advise “anyone I care about” to take a coronavirus vaccine that the Trump administration approves before the election.

She joined a growing number of one-time administration officials, including former national security adviser John Bolton and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who have publicly criticized the president’s response to the virus and his broader leadership.