Behind the Scenes: Richard Grenell's Journey Through U.S. Diplomacy

[Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to her on West exec the podcast about everything you need to know about working in the executive branch brought to you by the American Cornerstone Institute executive branch for America program I'm Evelyn Lim vice president of policy and programs at the American Cornerstone Institute and I'm so excited to have our distinguished guest Ambassador Rick grenell joining us on the show Welcome Ambassador thank you for being here today yeah thanks for having me it's a pleasure to be here so you've had a very distinguished career in the executive branch um serving at the highest levels of Public Service in our government uh tell me about your career path my career path well uh I I was always interested in politics and the media and uh did a variety of political jobs I think a turning point for me was in 2001 I became the spokesman at the un uh for the US mission to the UN so I worked for four different us ambassadors to the UN I saw a lot of different style I saw uh Wars uh it's a multilateral institution of 193 countries so I I saw a lot of different styles of diplomacy what works what doesn't work and then um after 8 years of working there at and at the state department I uh joined in on the Trump campaign in 2016 and worked really hard for Donald Trump I believe that President Trump at the time was somebody who learned the lessons of the Iraq War and of Afghanistan and the problems of trying to um take democracy our type of democracy and and move it into other countries without kind of a a flavor in that country we were exporting our style of diplomacy of uh of democracy and it really wasn't working and we had all sorts of problems and and I think very few people were able to see it and adjust and Donald Trump was one of those people and taking on the system so I I really uh I think was moving in that same direction at the same time Donald Trump was on the rise and uh I joined the campaign and from there uh I I think uh it was an incredible ride president Trump won in 2016 as everyone knows and then I became US ambassador to Germany and then he asked me to be acting Director of National Intelligence for a short period of time while they found a a dni a permanent dni and I did that for uh three or four months uh under the condition that they would find somebody else it really wasn't my top desire to do that job but I I said that I would do that and uh now I'm in the private sector so um that is a lot of stuff for us to talk about on this podcast so we talk this podcast is really supposed to be about how the executive branch works and everybody talks about how Personnel is is policy um and obviously I think that is part and parcel about the policies and following the policies of the president but I think it's also about a person who can execute on those polic icies and you talked a little bit about um serving 8 years at the UN and then eventually becoming Ambassador um how did those years prepare you for one of the um I think coolest jobs in in the executive Ranch being the Ambassador it certainly has a very cool title but um but how did it prepare you for kind of the Diplomatic mission of being an ambassador well certainly I saw for eight years I work inside the security Council there are 15 members of the security Council uh and and they they rotate 10 of them rotate every two years and so it what's really interesting is I got to see all sorts of styles of diplomats right there were so many foreign ministers that came through heads of state and ambassadors so uh 193 countries each having an ambassador and I was there for 8 years I saw hundreds of different diplomats how they interacted with each other how they made their arguments how persuasive they were how persuasive they weren't uh how how they were able to articulate um the policy were they too detailed were they not detailed enough and uh how they interacted with their staff and the media uh as a part of this and so I really got to learn for 8 years what uh works and what a what a real good representative of your country looks like and the the lesson that I've learned is that at 193 countries there's 192 countries that do not apologize for pushing their own policies it's one country that gets in trouble when we put ourselves first and somehow we're called radical uh for putting ourselves first but that that's a crazy idea at the UN because at the UN everybody puts themselves first I've been in tens of thousands of diplomatic meetings and I've never been in a one that that doesn't start and finish with the other country asking America for something they want something from us they articulate it they're really good at zeroing in and saying this is what I need you need you to vote this way I want this program we need more money for this they know how to ask and so I learned that if you're going to represent your country and the taxpayers are paying you to represent your country you better represent them you don't represent Elites and you don't try to go there and and be somebody that's trying to uh represent the country where you're going to there's this whole concept at the state department that if you're the US ambassador to Germany for instance that you should be us not Germany you're not going there to do a travel log and to talk about how great Germany is they have their own Ambassador in Washington who is pushing uh how great Germany is and what what people should be uh doing and thinking about Germany it's our job as us ambassadors to represent America and the American government and the American president and the American people and so I was just really cleare eyed after working at the UN of what works and and I became that Ambassador that really was unapologetically representing America and I remember one time uh when many in the German media didn't like it they didn't like having somebody who was so uh forceful and advocating for America CU they were used to people coming there and and trying to say how great Germany was and how you know Wonderful the relationship was and and really glossing over some of the problem s and and so when I became very forceful representing Germany I remember uh this being an issue in the media and it coming up in one of Chancellor merkel's cabinet meetings where one cabinet official was complaining that gee that ambassador from America seem so strident and the the reaction from Chancellor Merkel was really interesting that that she ended up saying to the cabinet um this is what our ambassador need to be like we need to be much more forceful he is just representing his country and we need to be thankful that we know exactly what the Trump Administration believes and is saying there is no beating around the bush she valued that now ultimately I'm not sure she valued every part of that uh but uh I do know in cabinet meetings she pushed back I do see that as being something that would be very helpful is just knowing a clear policy coming from the United States obviously I think that goes back to having a president that is also very clear in what he wants which I guess makes it easier for you to do your job um but but generally you mentioned taking on kind of the system I see that in in in many ways that that could be not only the media um how Europeans view Americans but also within the state department that's that's a a different way of doing business from kind of Decades of of diplomacy look I um I I'm not a fan of Washington DC I I don't like living there uh I've always tried to live there as uh little as possible I don't like to be a part of the system the people that I I feel like are very one-dimensional and not very friendly and not very trustworthy so I've always chosen to live outside of Washington even though I've been working for administrations and working in politics for more than 25 years I value uh the reformers on the outside and and one thing that I will say is I I think the American people need to really understand that we're never going to get the Washington DC types to uh reform themselves it it is just not going to happen all of the people that live in Washington DC the reporters the lobbyists the bureaucrats uh they all politicians they all want Washington DC to be the greatest best city it's why they cheer for the sports teams in Washington and they wear Washington uh Sports uh hats and now we have generations of people who call themselves washingtonians it's it's a whole city to itself that was never the founders concept it was go to Washington and represent the rest of America and then go home and let someone else bring their skill set that's the Jeffersonian principle of Washington DC but we don't have that right now we have people who live work go to church go to school and and they're all in Washington they want that City to be bigger and better and it's never going to see an economic downturn because the people people voting for budgets and more money and more programs all live in Washington DC it would literally be like go coming to Los Angeles where I live and coming from the outside and saying here I've got this great idea for all of you people in Los Angeles let's get rid of movies and no one would do it they would shoot you they would they would they would crush you and and the reality is is that we on the outside of Washington have to understand that Washington DC is never going to reform itself the only answer is is to send people from the rest of America to Washington DC who are committed to having their social life their Church their family back home not in Washington DC and that's how we're going to bring the flavor of America and the values of America to our our government I view it very much like the Hunger Games it's a good analogy I um also live outside of DC um and I try to only go back very minimum when I'm uh asked to I think I I agree with you I think it's also just having uh a good perspective of talking to people outside of DC about how their government is working and one of the interesting things I think is that they're always shocked when you tell them stories about some of these things because like like you said they believe that the government is kind of just uh seeking our best and we're all kind of you know going forward seeking what's best for America and I think um sometimes unfortunately that's not always the case um just to talk a little bit about your uh tenure as um Director of National Intelligence um it is you mentioned it was um a short tenure just uh taking that on um at the request of the president I think um people don't really understand obviously because there's not a lot um that is known about the Intel Community but from what you can tell us um how is that really organized and um what's kind of like a day-to-day in the in the Intel Community well kind of pivoting off Washington DC see uh uh the system that doesn't always always work you know my first intelligence briefing was in 2001 I've had tens of thousands of briefings um it is uh I've seen I I've seen raw intelligence um from all sorts of different sources and on different issues uh and I've been doing it since 2001 but when when I was asked to be the acting director dtor to come in while we found a found a replacement uh the media immediately jumped on me and said he doesn't have any intel experience to which my my comment was actually I'm an expert on the consumption of the Intel which is the whole purpose of why we have intelligence the whole reason we have intelligence is to inform our public policy officials of factual information that they may not have access to so that we can make better public policy decisions Intel exists for Public Policy officials I as the consumer for decades felt like I was actually the perfect person to come in and reform for a couple of months I could have had the job as dni if I wanted it as a permanent job uh but I didn't want that and and I said no but I I knew that the president needed somebody needed a change uh immediately and needed someone to come come in in a temporary fashion while they found a permanent so I agreed to do that and the vacancies act requires you if you're going to be in an acting job to be Senate confirmed in something and so because I was Senate confirmed for US ambassador to Germany I had to keep that US ambassador to Germany job while I was acting so I I technically was doing both it was during covid so we were kind of all truncated but um I was doing both job jobs so I came into the dni uh position really free to to do the right thing and on my first day I was given by the team uh five or six I can't remember the the exact number five or six reports that the American taxpayer had paid for from outside groups like ernston young and some consulting firms that had looked at uh the office of the Director of National Intelligence and they had come up with outside groups nonpartisan had come up with some ideas of how to reform odni remember the uh odni uh group was formed after 911 because our intelligence agencies weren't talking to each other and so the bureaucrats in Washington said hey we have too many uh uh bureaucratic institutions not talking to each other so why don't we create another bureaucratic institution I think it was a dumb idea but I I was not a part of that so uh it it in theory was designed to be 200 people that were that was going to coordinate they would coordinate between the in agencies it Behemoth and blew up into 2500 3,000 people and it became a competitive body to the Intel agencies not a coordinating body and so these reports were pretty clear of trying to reform it and on my first day when I was handed these reports and the career staff said you should read these cuz this is the problems that we have and these are the solutions that have been recommended by outside sources I took them home over the next couple of days I read them and there was a theme to all of the different reports there were the same things that they were saying are the problems and so I started implementing those boy did I hit a wasp net in Washington DC because Adam Schiff and all these crazy lefties came at me saying why is this temporary political guy doing politics at at odni and I couldn't get real journalists to report the truth and I kept saying these aren't my ideas these are the ideas that the American taxpayer has paid for time and time again and no one in the positions before me had enough backbone to implement these it took the temporary guy who didn't need to be confirmed who didn't need the Applause of Washington DC to say there's some really good ideas here that are not partisan and so I began to make those changes uh another change that I made was there was an individual uh I'm not going to say his name but there was an individual running one of the counterterrorism centers that everyone was complaining about everybody said he was terrible and uh really the reports on him from his deputies and the the people down uh the way were really terrible and and the career people asked me to get rid of them and and so I did and I replaced this career guy who uh had had terrible reviews and wasn't doing his job with uh a a woman who was the number three person there not the number two but the number three who everyone told me was really running the place and was really smart and so I before I replaced him I called her in and I said hey you're getting great reviews people love you uh they think you've got great ideas do you want the top job and she was like oh I I'm like the number three person I think I'm supposed to move up to two before I do that and I was like oh don't know those are Washington rules those aren't my rules and so I said if you want the job think about it and let me know she came came back to me the next day with a uh I can't remember if it was one pages one page or two page but a memo that said here are the things that I would do to change this place this is what needs to be done she was so thoughtful she was so prepared she just needed a little push and so I gave her the job and do you know what the media did the media attacked me for firing the straight white guy and not promoting the woman and I thought I here is an upside down World in Washington DC uh where the gay odni uh leader just hired a woman and somehow I'm getting hit because I went after the white guy I I it was unbelievable unbelievable and yet it's so typical of Washington I tell you that story because I've learned the lesson over time that uh you have to do the right thing and you cannot care what the criticism is from the crowd especially the crowd in Washington DC I actually think that when the crowd in DC attacks you in a very strong way it's because you're over the target you know exactly what the problem is and you're zeroing in on it and they are threatened so in many ways if I'm being ignored by the media I think it's probably because I'm a seat warmer and I'm not trying to reform the place I I can tell you as someone who lives outside of Washington DC who will never run for political office I am somebody who believes that the American people are filled with common sense and they want Washington DC politicians to be uh filled with common sense they don't want this gotcha style of of not being thoughtful of splicing one person's comments and pretending like it's the whole story and and I go to Washington DC and I put on my hat to represent the American people not to represent Republicans Or democrats or Californians but to represent everybody to the best of my ability and to me that means bring common sense just think about what what's good for the American people and be brave that um unfortunately is a a very hard I think thing to find in a lot of people not if you had uh the upbringing that I did from my mother if if you were raised by my mother you would know that that that is uh an easy thing to do she's raised four kids and they're all strong and she uh she demands that you do the right thing that's that's amazing um I just wanted to ask one more uh question um it's one that we ask um all our guests on the show and um because a lot of people who who want to listen to the show who are listeners are are thinking about joining the executive branch and so what would be your best advice for somebody who uh wanted to go into the Diplomatic core or into the intelligence Community look I I think the answer to every question in the world is always balance is to try to make sure that you uh stay in a in a in a symbiotic balanced uh date right so you don't go too far overboard on anything and that's I think you know I'm a Christian and that's part of the the idea of Christianity is is Grace every morning uh restructuring a resettling uh trying to figure out what did I do wrong yesterday and and I love the concept of new mercies every morning and I think I try to apply that to your career into your life and to your friendships is to seek balance and so I think it's a long answer to say I do believe that people should do Public Service I think that you should get a job in Washington DC with an Administration that you believe in but don't get trapped into one thing where you you just do one thing your whole life this ride that we call life is so cool and amazing and you can do a zillion different things so do it all try to go into business try to go into politics live life loud and I came to that conclusion after uh I had non hodkin lymphoma stage 4 in 2013 it was a terrible disease I thought I was reaching the end of my life in 2013 and I beat it I beat it and I beat cancer and and I'm a better per I never want to go through it again but I'm a better person because of it because I I live life with no regrets and I try to uh look at all the different things in the world and say I I'd like to do that I'd like to try that why can't I uh you know pursue that so um I'm not always successful at it but I I certainly am trying and I think that people should do that if you're sitting at home and you think it'd be cool to work in the Intel Community go do it just you can do it you can go work on a campaign you can go apply but uh you know it's about who you know Network be very aggressive about meeting different people and uh you can do it and and see if you like it you don't like it go do something else well I think that is great advice uh thank you so much for joining us it was a pleasure getting to know you better getting to hear um all of the amazing things that you worked on um in both the bush and the Trump admin and uh hopefully we can have you back on sometime because I think there's a lot to talk about awesome thanks for having me all the best