New and unattributed reporting from The Daily Mail is fueling speculation that “special envoy” and acting Kennedy Center president Ric Grenell is on his way out of the Trump administration.

According to multiple sources, the longtime gay White House official has alienated so many members of the administration that his continued service in that role has become untenable.

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Grenell, described by two former colleagues as “a ruthlessly ambitious ass**le,” was the first out gay member of the Trump administration, climbing his way to the ambassadorship in Germany and later acting Director of National Intelligence in the final, chaotic days of Trump’s first term.

Grenell, 59, was appointed “special presidential envoy for special missions” early in Trump’s second term, a consolation prize after his pestering campaign for Secretary of State fizzled.

Grenell lost out despite allegedly bribing conservative social media influencers to talk him up online for the position. The winner of that White House competition, Marco Rubio, didn’t forget about Grenell’s campaign, according to sources.

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That insider campaign followed another for vice president, when Grenell was caught floating himself to aides at Mar-a-Lago to be Trump’s running mate, according to one source close to the White House.

In July, Grenell earned contempt from Rubio and others in the administration who said his “freelancing” as special envoy damaged U.S. diplomatic negotiations to swap out Americans held in Venezuela for purported Venezuelan gang members detained in El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison.

Soon after, Grenell was frozen out of the administration’s most high-level and sensitive foreign policy decisions, according to four diplomatic sources who’ve worked closely with him. The one-time public relations consultant has since been left to manage the fallout from Trump’s disastrous takeover of the Kennedy Center.

The unceremonious push out of foreign policy was around the same time that Senate investigators discovered Grenell was allegedly treating himself and those he described as potential donors to the Kennedy Center to lavish parties at the next-door Watergate Hotel; Grenell reportedly spent tens of thousands of dollars wining and dining unidentified guests, as well as self-dealing with friends and political allies for contracts at the presidential memorial.

In a letter addressed to “Ambassador Grenell”, a title the former diplomat ordered Kennedy Center subordinates to call him, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D) wrote, “I have ample reason to be concerned by reports and information that cast doubt on your stewardship of the institution.”

“Contracts, invoices, and facility use agreements reveal that you operate the Center for the enrichment of your friends and acquaintances, to dole out political favors, and as a playground for the President of the United States and his allies,” Whitehouse said in the unvarnished takedown.

Grenell’s tenure was marked as well by a mass exodus of artists protesting programming changes at the once-respected cultural institution, plunging ticket sales, the jaw-dropping (illegal) name change Grenell helped facilitate, and finally the performing arts center’s unceremonious closure for “renovation and revitalization” (which could involve drastic demolition, just as Trump did to the White House’s East Wing).

The corruption investigation and failed Kennedy Center stint aside, perhaps most consequential to Grenell’s inevitable downfall has been his relationship with Trump’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, known around the West Wing and Washington as the “Ice Maiden.”

“Susie f**king hates his guts,” one Trump family source said. 

Wiles regularly makes jokes at Grenell’s expense inside the Oval Office, and Grenell and his lackeys are known around the West Wing as “the misfit toys caucus,” according to the source. 

Animosity between Grenell and the president’s doorkeeper extends back to the 2024 campaign, when Wiles denied the transphobic LGBTQ+ conservative group Log Cabin Republicans a primetime speaking slot at the Republican National Convention.

“He screamed at Susie, and he told her, ‘You’re the reason why we’re going to lose this f**king election!'” the White House source said. The confrontation left Wiles uncharacteristically on the verge of tears.

“He berated Susie Wiles,” the source said. “That’s why he doesn’t have… a big job. It’s why he was never considered for Secretary of State.”

“I would say he’s extremely self-serving and ruthlessly ambitious,” one veteran diplomat who’s known Grenell for decades said. “And he can be really nasty.”

“He is bombastic and incredibly sure of himself for reasons that I don’t frankly understand,” said one former Trump official. “He was obviously on the wrong side of the administration when it came to Venezuela and Rubio,” they added.

“His 15 minutes of fame have passed.”

“Early on in the administration, Ric Grenell was going to be this swashbuckling problem solver who was gonna crisscross the globe, fixing things,” said a diplomat who worked with Grenell in Venezuela. “And that burned out.”

“Now he’s reduced to reducing the Kennedy Center.”

Grenell has privately told close friends that he plans to leave the Kennedy Center later this year, according to the Mail. It’s probably just as well, seeing as the center is scheduled to be closed for two years of renovations starting on July 4.

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