Curious Vienna appearance

Trump envoy calls Kurz a “rock star”

Diplomat Richard Grenell (right) came out as a fan of the then Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz in 2018

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/APA, AFP)

Richard Grenell, former US ambassador in Berlin, will be Donald Trump's new envoy for special missions and will therefore be deployed to global hotspots. The close confidant of the future US President is also a good acquaintance of Sebastian Kurz. Six years ago, Grenell even described the former chancellor as a "rock star". Grenell was last in Vienna in August, where he appeared before the Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, among others, in a city center hotel.

Even before Grenell, a Trump confidant, took up his post as US ambassador in 2018, he had signaled his support for Kurz on Twitter.

As acting ambassador in Berlin, he then told the ultra-conservative online medium "Breitbart" that he wanted to support conservative movements in Europe and came out as a fan of the ÖVP chancellor, who was then in coalition with the FPÖ: "I think Sebastian Kurz is a rock star," he said in June 2018.

Fuss over canceled lunch
A few days later, German media reported that Grenell wanted to host a lunch for the Austrian Chancellor, who was in town, at his Berlin residence. The US embassy in Germany told the news magazine "Spiegel" that the initiative had come from Kurz. After massive public criticism of the date, which would not have been in line with diplomatic conventions, the dinner was finally canceled "for scheduling reasons".

No joint photos, but attendance at the same events
No joint photos of Grenell and Kurz, who congratulated the American on his imminent appointment via X on Sunday, can be found in accessible image archives. However, both attended events organized by Axel Springer Verlag at the time, such as the "World Economic Summit" in Berlin in January 2019 and the "Bild Dinner" at the Munich Security Conference in February 2020. The US-American and the Austrian could also have met at the latter.

"He and Ric know each other very well", 
"He (Kurz, note) and Ric (Grenell, note) know each other very well," confirmed Republican activist Matt Mowers in August, who organized an appearance by Grenell in Austria at the time. It remained unclear in the summer why the Trump confidant had come to Vienna of all places during the intense election campaign in the USA and spent just under an hour discussing US politics with Fox News presenter Guy Benson in a city center hotel. A meeting with Kurz was not planned, as he was not in Vienna as far as he knew, Mowers said when asked.

Bosnian Serb politician sought an audience in Vienna
Alongside businesspeople from Central Europe, the President of the Bosnian Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, was sitting in the audience at the time, visibly seeking an audience. After Dodik himself had been placed on a US sanctions list in 2022, the US Treasury Department had sanctioned his son Igor and daughter Gorica in 2023 and, most recently, companies associated with the Dodik family in June 2024. On the other hand, Grenell had already shown great interest in the Balkans in 2020 as the then Trump special envoy for negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo.

Career as a neoconservative in the civil service
In contrast to many other confidants and supporters of Donald Trump, Grenell can also look back on a longer career in the civil service. When he worked as a spokesman for US ambassadors to the United Nations in New York during the era of President George W. Bush (2001-2009), he was a staunch neoconservative.

In March 2003, for example, in the days before the start of the US attack on Iraq, he eloquently defended the Bush administration's argument that Saddam Hussein's regime had weapons of mass destruction and that the USA therefore had to strike pre-emptively.