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The Daily Mail this week published¹ a striking portrait of Richard Grenell, the former acting director of national intelligence and once a central foreign policy figure in Donald Trump’s first administration. The headline was blunt. It described a downfall, an exile to a construction job, and an implosion driven by ego, feud, and internal humiliation.
For readers in Washington, it was a story about factional warfare inside Trump world. For readers in the Balkans, where Grenell has played a consequential role, it was something more. It was a signal.
According to the Daily Mail, Grenell, who once rose through the ranks of Trump’s movement and briefly led the United States intelligence community in 2020, now finds himself running the Kennedy Center as it prepares for a two year closure and major reconstruction. The paper reports that President Trump announced plans to shutter the institution for a massive overhaul, leaving Grenell presiding over what one source described as a venue in turmoil. A source who worked with Grenell at the Kennedy Center told the Daily Mail that staff were blindsided and feared the institution might be dismantled entirely.
The Daily Mail frames the move not as promotion but as exile. It cites four diplomatic sources who claim that Grenell has been pushed out of the administration’s most sensitive foreign policy decisions and effectively removed from high level influence. It portrays him as a combative insider whose style, described by former colleagues as ruthless and abrasive, has finally cost him access.
Grenell has not publicly responded in detail to the broader thrust of the article, though he denied a reported altercation with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and insisted that he maintains a friendly relationship with her. The Daily Mail states that Wiles did not confirm his denial.
The portrait painted by the tabloid is vivid and personal. It describes an argument at the Republican National Convention in 2024 in which Grenell allegedly shouted at Wiles over speaking time. It quotes a source claiming he told her she was the reason the election would be lost. It alleges that the confrontation froze him out of consideration for Secretary of State in a second Trump term. Grenell and other campaign staff deny that the blow up occurred.
As a reporter who has tracked Grenell’s activities in the Balkans for years, I read the Daily Mail piece not for its drama but for its implications.
The question is not whether Washington insiders trade insults. The question is whether the informal authority Grenell once wielded in fragile democracies still carries weight.
The Daily Mail reports that Grenell was locked out of talks on Venezuela after clashing with Secretary of State Marco Rubio. It describes a tactical dispute over how to handle Nicolás Maduro. According to the paper, Rubio pursued maximum pressure while Grenell advocated a different relationship rooted in negotiation and pragmatism. Two diplomatic sources and a State Department source told the Daily Mail that Rubio, backed by Wiles, successfully elbowed Grenell out of the Venezuela portfolio.
If accurate, that account matters because it describes a shrinking formal mandate. It suggests that Grenell’s ability to operate as a roving envoy has been curtailed.
According to the Daily Mail, Grenell attempted to arrange a quiet meeting in May 2025 between President Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia and Donald Trump in Florida. The meeting never happened. Sources told the paper that Wiles personally blocked the encounter, leaving Vucic in what they described as an awkward position. The official explanation from Belgrade at the time was that Vucic cut short his trip due to a hypertensive episode.
In May 2025, we reported that Vucic’s abrupt departure from the United States functioned as a diplomatic smokescreen. Multiple sources with direct knowledge told us that the meeting had been sought and refused². — Gunpowder Chronicles.
The Daily Mail now echoes that account through its own sourcing.
The tabloid adds an additional layer. It claims that Grenell’s interest in the Florida meeting was not limited to Serbian American relations but tied to business projects involving Jared Kushner’s investment firm, Affinity Partners. The paper reports that Grenell was instrumental in brokering a 500 million dollar luxury hotel and memorial complex in downtown Belgrade under a 99 year lease with the Serbian government. It states that the deal may have fallen through. Affinity Partners did not respond to the Daily Mail’s request for comment.
However, research conducted by The Gunpowder Chronicles team indicates that the project has in fact been formally withdrawn. As reported³ by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on December 16, 2025, Affinity Partners scrapped the planned $500 million redevelopment of the former Yugoslav General Staff complex in Belgrade amid mounting legal and political controversy. According to RFE/RL’s reporting by Nevena Bogdanovic and the Balkan Service, the withdrawal followed indictments filed by Serbia’s Prosecutor’s Office for Organised Crime against senior officials over the removal of the site’s protected cultural heritage status.
A spokesperson for Affinity Partners told RFE/RL that the firm was “withdrawing our application and stepping aside at this time,” stating that “meaningful projects should unite rather than divide.”
The RFE/RL report further noted that the Serbian government had signed a 99-year lease granting Kushner’s firm development rights over the NATO-bombed General Staff site, which had been designated a historical monument. The project had faced sustained opposition from civil society groups, architects, and opposition figures before being formally abandoned.
The Serbian government signed a 99-year lease allowing a company owned by Jared Kushner to turn a former Yugoslav Army headquarters in Belgrade into commercial space. Some in Belgrade questioned the propriety of offices and residences being built into a structure bombed by NATO in 1999 and designated as a historical monument. [© RFE]
This intersection of politics and business has long shaped perceptions of American envoys in the Balkans. When diplomatic access overlaps with commercial ambition, small states become arenas for influence trading.
The Daily Mail also reports that Grenell continued to operate his private firm, Capitol Media Partners, while serving as a special presidential envoy. It cites public wealth tracking estimates placing his net worth between one and five million dollars and references retainer stipends and stock options tied to private sector work.
None of this is illegal on its face. But in Kosovo and Serbia, where corruption and foreign leverage are constant anxieties, such details feed a narrative that political intervention is rarely neutral.
As Trump’s special envoy for Serbia and Kosovo negotiations, Grenell played a central role in political manoeuvres that culminated in the collapse of Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s first government. A European Parliament report published⁴ in February 2021 later documented how statements by Donald Trump Jr and Senator David Perdue regarding potential troop withdrawals were amplified during a moment of political fragility. Kurti’s coalition fell after a no confidence vote.
French and German diplomats publicly criticised the intervention at the time. Grenell denied engineering the outcome.
Shënim:
Redaksia, diplomacia. dk nuk e merr përgjegjësinë për pikëpamjet e autorit në shkrimin e botuar!
Respekt!
