Richard Grenell can’t keep season ticket holders from leaving the once-nonpartisan Kennedy Center, where he’s president of the board of trustees, but apparently, Grenell thinks he has a chance at being California’s next governor.
Grenell, who is also a Trump administration diplomat, is reportedly eyeing a run to replace term-limited Gov. Gavin Newsom—but only if former Vice President Kamala Harris jumps in the race.
“I want to see if Kamala [Harris] runs,” Grenell said in an early clip of a Politico podcast, obtained by the Daily Beast. “If Kamala runs, I think there’s a whole bunch of Republicans who are going to have to take a look at it, not just me.”
In February, he suggested he might throw his hat in the race based on the right’s disdain for Harris alone.
“If Kamala Harris runs for governor, I believe that she has such baggage and hundreds of millions of dollars in educating the voters of how terrible she is, that it’s a new day in California, and that the Republican actually has a shot, and I wouldn’t say no,” he told reporters in Munich.
Grenell might want to hold off on calling out other people’s baggage, though. Even right-leaning publications were pointing out how he’s been a loose cannon in the White House.
Last week, law enforcement sources told the New York Post that a backdoor deal Grenell made with Venezuelan President Nicolàs Maduro might inadvertently encourage Caracas officials to secure extra bargaining chips by directing the Tren de Aragua cartel to kidnap more Americans.
Grenell even managed to push some of the GOP away when he pleaded with Romanian officials to get accused sex offenders Tristan and Andrew Tate back into the U.S.
“This was yet another example of Grenell going outside the chain of command to pursue his own goals, rather than the president’s,” an anonymous White House official told the Post.
Of course, Grenell’s messy handling of his diplomatic position is telling, given that the guy couldn’t land a Cabinet position despite reportedly doling out thousands of dollars to MAGA influencers to buy some online PR.
If that’s true, he’s going to need some really deep pockets going forward.