Top Trump official rallies behind president amid backlash for 'dictator' attack on Zelenskyy

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Richard Grenell, President Donald Trump's special envoy for special missions, defended Trump's recent criticism of Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy as being a "dictator," saying that the president is focused on what is best for the American people.

While speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland, on Friday, Grenell said: "I'm so thankful that we have a president who's concentrating on peace. And that's what Donald Trump has just said: 'You know, let's stop.'"

"Remember that we handed Joe Biden total peace in the Middle East and total peace in Europe. He handed us a war in the Middle East and a war in Europe," he added. 

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Grenell is a former U.S. ambassador to Germany and previously served as Trump's Acting National Intelligence Director.

Pressed by a reporter on whether he stood by Trump recently calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a "dictator," Grenell said, "I think when you reject having elections, and you're not moving towards that way that people get angry about that."

"I think the American people are really frustrated with Zelenskyy. I think that there's a big frustration that he's not making great choices for peace," he added. "And again, when the American people are spending hundreds of billions of dollars, there is a frustration."

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"What President Trump is saying very clearly: 'We have to stop this war,'" he explained. "He's somebody who is concentrating on saying to both sides: 'Let's talk to both sides and figure out how we stop this.'"

"But I want to say that's really important in this conversation is Donald Trump has done something different than Republican foreign policy leaders have done for 25 years," he emphasized. "We articulate very clearly under Donald Trump, we don't do regime change. We are going to deal with the countries that are in front of us. And our criteria is not how do we make that country better [but] how do we make America better, stronger and more prosperous for the people that live here." 

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Grenell, who is a resident of California, also shared that he "may not be able to resist" running against former Vice President Kamala Harris if she decides to run to be California's next governor.

"Honestly, it's not in my plan unless Kamala Harris runs for governor," he said.

"I mean, here's the thing. We already know who she is. We've spent hundreds of millions of dollars to define who Kamala Harris is," he went on. "If she thinks that she's going to run for governor of California, but a Republican is going to win, and I may not be able to resist trying to run against her."

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Grenell has previously floated running for California governor as a Republican. He expressed interest in running to replace current Governor Gavin Newsom during the recall vote against the Democrat in 2021.

Despite the state's notoriously liberal and leftist policies, Grenell has said that California is a "magnificent state" and expressed: "We deserve better than the failed leadership and partisan politics of our elected officials."

Grenell also criticized California political leaders for botching the response to the recent Los Angeles wildfires.

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He said that the Trump administration will be attaching strings on future federal funding to California to ensure such a disaster does not happen again.  

"There are going to be conditions," he said. "As a Californian, I'm all for it because I don't have faith that if we went back and we just gave California hundreds of millions of dollars, they were going to go back to their same old ways of not giving us enough water [and] having dangerous situations on the ground when it comes to forestry. It's going to happen again."