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WASHINGTON — President Trump’s envoy for special missions Ric Grenell said Friday that he’s considering running against Kamala Harris for California governor next year.
Grenell, 58, told reporters at the Munich Security Conference that he believes the former vice president is vulnerable if she attempts a political comeback after her blowout loss to Trump on Nov. 5.
“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,” Grenell said.
“I wouldn’t say no” to running, he added.
It’s unclear if Grenell, who is well-known for trolling Democrats on social media, has taken any concrete steps toward exploring a campaign.
Golden State Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, is term-limited and filling his position has been discussed as a possible next-step for Harris, 60.
Harris has been elected statewide three times before — twice as California’s attorney general, in 2010 and 2014, and as US senator in 2016 — before carrying the state as the Democratic presidential nominee with 58.5% of the vote to Trump’s 38.3%.
Her closest statewide election was in 2010, when she took scored a narrow 46.1% victory over GOP attorney general nominee Steve Cooley at 45.3%.
California Democrats are reeling from the aftermath of last month’s wildfires in Los Angeles, which caused more than $250 billion in damage. Outraged residents and Republicans blame local Democratic policies for contributing to the infernos and lack of water available to extinguish them.
Grenell’s amorphous current role includes serving as Trump’s point person on Los Angeles reconstruction. He’s also served as a foreign emissary — including recently traveling to Venezuela to broker the release of six Americans and an agreement by socialist strongman Nicolas Maduro to accept deportees.
He additionally is Trump’s interim executive director of the Kennedy Center in Washington.
In Trump’s first term, Grenell served as US ambassador to Germany, a role in which he helped block construction of the Nord Stream 2 Russian natural gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea, which the Biden administration later allowed to resume.
He also brokered a diplomatic agreement between Serbia and Kosovo and served as acting director of national intelligence in 2020, becoming the first openly gay person to occupy a cabinet-level post.
