Richard Grenell, former US ambassador in Berlin, will become Donald Trump’s new envoy for special missions and will therefore be deployed to global hotspots. The closest confidante of the future American president is also a good acquaintance of Sebastian Kurz. Six years ago, Grenell even described the former chancellor as a “rock star.” Grenell last stayed in Vienna in August, where he performed for Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, among others, in a hotel in the city center.
Even before Trump confidant Grenell took his post as US ambassador in 2018, he had expressed sympathy for Kurz on Twitter.
As acting ambassador in Berlin, he then told the ultra-conservative online medium ‘Breitbart’ that he wanted to support conservative movements in Europe and came out as a fan of the ÖVP chancellor, who was in coalition with the FPÖ at the time: ‘I think Sebastian Kurz is a rock star,” he said in June 2018.
Outrage over canceled lunch
A few days later, German media reported that Grenell wanted to host a lunch at his Berlin residence for the Austrian Chancellor, who was in town. The US embassy in Germany told the news magazine “Spiegel” that the initiative came from Kurz. After massive public criticism of the date, which did not correspond to diplomatic customs, the meal was eventually canceled “for scheduling reasons”.
No photos together, but attending the same events
Joint photos of Grenell and Kurz, who congratulated the American on his upcoming appointment via X on Sunday, cannot be found in accessible image archives. However, they both attended events organized by Axel Springer Verlag at the time, such as the ‘World Economic Summit’ in Berlin in January 2019 or the ‘Bild Dinner’ at the Munich Security Conference in February 2020. In the latter case too, the American and the Austrian can meet each other.
“He and Ric know each other very well,”
“He (Kurz, note) and Ric (Grenell, note) know each other very well,” confirmed Republican activist Matt Mowers in August, who at the time organized a performance for Grenell in Austria. It remained unclear in the summer why the Trump confidante came to Vienna at all during the intensive election campaign in the US and spoke for almost an hour with Fox News presenter Guy Benson about American politics in a hotel in the city center. A meeting with Kurz was not planned because, as far as he knew, he was not in Vienna, Mowers said when asked.
Bosnian Serb politician sought audience in Vienna
In addition to businessmen from Central Europe, the president of the Bosnian Republika Srpska at the time, Milorad Dodik, was in the audience and clearly tried to gain an audience. After Dodik himself was placed on a US sanctions list in 2022, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on his son Igor and daughter Gorica in 2023 and, most recently, on companies linked to the Dodik family in June 2024. On the other On the other hand, Grenell had already shown great interest in the Balkans in 2020 as Trump’s special envoy for the negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo.
Career as a neoconservative in the civil service
Unlike many other confidants and colleagues of Donald Trump, Grenell can also look back on a longer career in the public sector. When he served as spokesman for the U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations in New York during the era of President George W. Bush (2001-2009), he seemed a staunch neoconservative.
In the days before the start of the US attack on Iraq in March 2003, he eloquently defended the Bush administration’s argument, seen as factually contradictory, that Saddam Hussein’s regime had weapons of mass destruction and that the The US had to strike preemptively.
Source: Krone
I am Ida Scott, a journalist and content author with a passion for uncovering the truth. I have been writing professionally for Today Times Live since 2020 and specialize in political news. My career began when I was just 17; I had already developed a knack for research and an eye for detail which made me stand out from my peers.
