I don’t know what has happened to Ric Grenell. I used to have a lot of respect for him and appreciated that he didn’t have to make everything about his gayness. But that Ric Grenell, who served admirably as Donald Trump’s ambassador to Germany, is gone, replaced by a petty political hack who will apparently say anything to boost the former president and his favored candidates.
Some have suggested that Grenell is vying to be Trump’s (historic™) vice president, which might explain his recent attacks on Ron DeSantis.
Grenell showed his nasty side this week by accusing DeSantis of being “homophobic” in an interview on Megyn Kelly’s show and claimed that suburban women would refuse to vote for him. Kelly ran a clip of a DeSantis campaign video showing all the things Trump has done to usher in the era of Trans Supremacy sweeping the nation.
Grenell praised Trump for “not taking the bait on these radical [transgender] policies.” He faulted the video for featuring a snippet of RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel saying she wants to bring more gays and lesbians into the party. “That was crossing a line,” Grenell said, by going after gay adults.
“I’ve worked way too hard in my career to allow a presidential candidate to dial us back like that. I believe that Ron DeSantis ruined his chances for 2028 [sic]. Nobody wants to see a homophobic take over the Republican Party again. And I know I’m gonna get attacked for this, but the reality is, is that he was wrong,” said Grenell. “I’m not going to sit back and allow this migration, and thank God for Donald Trump and Melania Trump, who also are not going to let us go there.”
Kelly pushed back, saying, “To me, that ad overall seemed aimed at the trans community, and the push for trans rights and suggesting Donald Trump had been an early leader and standing up for trans rights, saying Caitlyn Jenner could use the women’s bathroom and trans women could be in his beauty pageants. That seems what he was focused on.”
“When I look at his actual policies, I don’t see anti-gay,” Kelly added. “I mean, I see somebody’s trying, like you said, to try to protect children from having this stuff come into the classroom agendas, which I think you agree with. But apart from the ad, which I’ll accept your position as a gay man was offensive to you, is there a policy that he’s pushed that you think is a problem or radical?”
Grenell tried to change the subject back to suburban women, but Kelly wasn’t finished. “I get it. You made that point. What in terms of pol—I’m looking for what’s he done in Florida because he’s been there, you know, as a governor since ’18, or proposing now that you think is radical?” she asked.
Grenell then said the quiet part out loud: “I’m not in Florida, so I’m not going to be able to give you any specific Florida policies.”
I don’t doubt for a second that if DeSantis had a “homophobic” policy, Grenell would know all about it and be shouting it from the rooftops. Nevertheless, after admitting he had no evidence to support his claim, he doubled down, alleging that DeSantis is “going after gay adults.”
Grenell didn’t explain why anywhere from 64 to 81% of LGBT voters chose Biden over Trump in 2020. Or how the “homophobic” DeSantis was supported by women (53%), white women (58%), and suburban voters (58%) in his 2022 reelection. Exit polls show that DeSantis appeals to a wide swath of voters, which could portend a successful general election campaign.
Recommended: On the Same Day California Democrats Named August ‘Trans History Month,’ They Passed a Bill to Make Parents History
Grenell went after me on Twitter not long ago because I wrote an article praising U.S. Senate candidate and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s efforts to protect the Ohio Constitution from special-interest groups. Grenell falsely accused me of being a “surrogate” for LaRose (a laughable claim) and dug through my Twitter history to find a couple of tweets criticizing Trump, including one where I said he needed to stop running to Maggie Haberman at the New York Times every time he had a story to break (does anyone disagree?). I tweeted back that it was beneath him to lie about me to score political points for Bernie Moreno, who is running against LaRose. Grenell supports Moreno, and Trump has also signaled his support for the wealthy car dealer who ran for an open Senate seat in 2020 and lost to now-Senator J.D. Vance. (Never mind that not long ago Moreno was calling Trump a “lunatic” and a “maniac” and liking a tweet from Rep. Dan Crenshaw calling then-Rep. Liz Cheney a “principled leader” with “backbone” for voting to impeach Trump.)
For the record, LaRose was my state senator, and I campaigned against him in his first primary. But I thought he did a good job as senator and supported him in his second term and subsequent secretary-of-state races. Also, for the record, LaRose has endorsed Trump.
Again, this kind of hackery is beneath someone with Grenell’s credentials. The smears and lies suggest that the Trump campaign fears DeSantis way more than they’re letting on.
Watch the entire interview here:
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