Trump Considering Richard Grenell to Replace Haley at the UN

Trump Considering Richard Grenell to Replace Haley at the UN

When UN Ambassador Nikki Haley announced her resignation, US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell’s name popped up.

President Donald Trump shot down the suggestion, but it seems his top advisors kept pushing the idea and now Trump may very well replace Haley with Grenell.

A source told The Washington Examiner after Haley’s announcement that Grenell is “a family favorite.” Grenell is also a favorite of Trump. From Politico:

But in recent days, several of Trump’s closest advisers have put forward Grenell’s name again, pointing to his seven-year stint as the United States’ U.N. spokesman.

Grenell met with officials at the White House last week to discuss the job, according to two administration officials. At a separate White House meeting on Wednesday, several members of the president’s national security team mentioned Grenell’s name when asked to recommend their favored candidates for the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. position, two other administration officials said.

Grenell is perfect for the job and has experience in the UN to back it up. He previously served as the longest US spokesman for the UN from 2001 to 2008 and worked with four different ambassadors. During that time he became close to Trump’s national security advisor John Bolton, who worked as the ambassador to the UN.

His position as spokesman gave him national security experience as he developed communication strategies on the War on Terror and nuclear weapons programs in Iran and North Korea.

Grenell became the first openly gay spokesperson for a Republican presidential candidate in 2012 when Mitt Romney appointed him as his national security spokesman.

Trump nominated Grenell as his ambassador to Germany in September 2017, but the Senate dragged their feet on his confirmation. The chamber finally confirmed Grenell in April 2018, which made him the first highest ranking openly gay official in a Republican administration.

Grenell received a non-Hodgkins lymphoma diagnosis in June 2013, but has been in remission since September 2013.

I just got the news….”your blood work is boring” says the best cancer doctor in the world! 5 years cancer free! #omg #crying #GoGetTested #earlydetection @cityofhope pic.twitter.com/AbTHfCHlLZ

— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) August 17, 2018

Grenell also received praise after he worked with his counterparts in Germany to deport a 95-year-old Nazi camp guard from New York to Berlin. From Vox:

A judge stripped Palij’s citizenship in 2003, and he was ordered deported in 2004. (He lost an appeal in 2005.) But the US struggled to find a country that would accept Palij, who was born in a part of Poland that is now part of Ukraine. Ukraine, Poland, and Germany all refused to take him. This year, Germany finally agreed to accept him.

“They saw this as a moral obligation,” US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell told reporters on a call Tuesday morning. Grenell also said that President Donald Trump made the issue a personal priority, and he credited two German cabinet members, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, for working closely with the US government on Palij’s case.

Yesterday I got to see a former Nazi guard deported from the U.S. after decades of hiding. Today I honored the victims of the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. pic.twitter.com/HlLr20n6vK

— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) August 22, 2018

Thank you Amb. @RichardGrenell for sharing the riveting details of Nazi Palij’s deportation—a task that required true resolve & leadership. Delighted to present a shofar that survived the war, a symbol of our freedom, as a small token of our appreciation. https://t.co/N2eQOQJDSS pic.twitter.com/6YopCq31oN

— Dov Hikind (@HikindDov) September 28, 2018

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