Donald Trump has ‘personally told’ ex-aide Richard Grenell he will run for president in 2024. Honest
![Gay former Trump official Richard Grenell](https://www.thepinknews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/GettyImages-1195642234-scaled.jpg?w=792&h=416&crop=1)
Gay former Trump official Richard Grenell (Getty/Milos Miskov)
Richard Grenell has claimed that Donald Trump is planning to run for president again in 2024.
The minor ex-Trump administration figure, who served a three-month stint as acting director of national intelligence, claimed in an interview with Newsmax on Monday (25 January) that he’s “personally” spoken with the leader about his plan to run in 2024.
Grenell told the outlet: “He’s going to decide what he wants to do. He’s told me, personally, multiple times that he does want to run again, so we’ll see if that holds, and how that comes about.”
The Republican operative, who was placed in charge of disastrous LGBT+ voter outreach efforts in 2020, played down suggestions that Trump plans to break away from the Republican Party.
He said: “Clearly, Donald Trump is a Republican and should run as a Republican… it’s like a sports team, your party is not always perfect and you try to get it better. If you don’t like an aspect of something that’s going on then you work to make it better, but you don’t abandon it.
“I believe that the Republican Party is the best place, Donald Trump is the head of the Republican Party still, let’s make no mistake about that.”
In reality, there is no such position as “head of the Republican Party” – and now he is no longer president, Donald Trump holds no formal role in the GOP.
He has no control over the Republican National Committee, led by Ronna McDaniel, while Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy hold sway as the respective Senate minority leader and House minority leader.
Richard Grenell often shares his deep, meaningful and definitely real conversations with Trump.
Richard Grenell has frequently shared sycophantic accounts of his conversations with Donald Trump, with the ex-president appearing to demonstrate levels of lucidity and intelligence that are rarely reported by independent witnesses.
![Former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell](https://thepinknews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/GettyImages-1228340851-scaled.jpg)
Former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell (Getty/Anna Moneymaker)
Earlier this month, Grenell claimed that Trump spent some of his last hours in office discussing “gay conservatives” with him.
Ahead of the leader’s departure, he tweeted: “Just got a final call from president Trump 45. He was in great spirits reflecting on the past four years.
“We talked personnel choices, America First successes, MAGA rallies, gay conservatives and California politics. Serving America in his administration was the honour of my life.”
As he departed his seat-filling cabinet role in June 2020, Grenell claimed: “President Trump presented me with a going away gift – my cabinet chair. Acting cabinet secretaries do not get chairs but president Trump wanted me to have mine because, as he said: ‘You are the first openly gay cabinet secretary and it’s a big deal.'”
Oddly, Grenell contradicted himself just months later, when he claimed that the leader “didn’t care” about his sexuality and had no interest in representation.
Despite his previous suggestion that Trump considered it a bid deal, Grenell insisted: “He doesn’t look for identity politics or people to put in boxes and parade out right before elections.
“The fact of the matter is, is that president Trump doesn’t care that I’m gay… and I think that that’s what gay and lesbians have longed for is.”