Trump loyalist Richard Grenell is weighing a run for California governor, and he says former vice president Kamala Harris could make the decision for him.
In an exclusive early clip from this Sunday’s episode of The Conversation podcast with Politico’s Dasha Burns, Grenell revealed he recently spoke with President Donald Trump about jumping into the 2026 governor’s race, once Democrat Gavin Newsom is termed out.
Grenell is a longtime aide to the president, and already juggles three jobs. He’s Trump’s special missions envoy, Trump’s hand-picked head of the Kennedy Center, and last month, Live Nation added Grenell to its board of directors. He also served a brief stint as acting director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term in office.
“I want to see if Kamala [Harris] runs,” Grenell told host Burns. “If Kamala runs, I think there’s a whole bunch of Republicans who are going to have to take a look at it, not just me.”
Grenell said Harris running for California governor would influence his decision.
“If she runs, it is going to make me have to take a look at it. Right now, I’m not running [for governor],” he added.
It isn’t the first time Grenell has dangled a run for office.
“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, and I wouldn’t say no,” he told reporters February in Munich.
And back in 2021, he was reported to be laying groundwork for a potential run against Newsom during the failed recall.
Grenell was installed by Trump as head of the Kennedy Center in February as part of a drastic conservative overhaul of the iconic arts center which he criticized as being too liberal. His appointment, replacing longtime president Deborah Rutter, sparked backlash across the arts community.
Trump said on Truth Social that Grenell “shares my Vision for a GOLDEN AGE of American Arts and Culture” and would be overseeing “daily operations” to ensure “NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA”.
Grenell echoed that mission, declaring at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February that he wanted “to make art great again.”
Former Fox News host Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco, sheriff of one of California’s largest agencies, are also expected to run.
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