Grennell: Foreign Diplomats Excited the ‘U.S. is Back’

Former U.S. spokesperson to the United Nations Richard Grennell said that “an excitement that the U.S. is back” is spreading across the Middle East in the midst of President Donald Trump’s first overseas trip, during an interview Tuesday on “The Laura Ingraham Show.”

Grennell, the longest-serving U.S. spokesperson at the U.N., said he speaks with foreign diplomats from all over the world regularly and has asked them about the president’s reception in the Middle East. After visiting Saudi Arabia and Israel thus far in his nine-day trip, Trump has begun to usher in a new era of optimism for the region, Grennell said.

“U.S. media outlets send political reporters to cover foreign-policy stories. It’s a silly game.”

“And I can tell you unequivocally that there is, across the region, an excitement that the U.S. is back, that the U.S. has a leader that is going to implement, you know, policies that are going to go after terrorists,” Grennell said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Trump during a joint news conference Monday he wanted the president to know “how much we appreciate the change in American policy on Iran, which you annunciated so clearly just an hour ago.”

“I want you to know how much we appreciate your bold decision to act against the use of chemical weapons in Syria,” Netanyahu said. “And I want to tell you also how much we appreciate the reassertion of American leadership in the Middle East.”

The president’s tough stance on Iran — which he outlined in his Sunday speech on uniting to combat violent extremism at the Arab Islamic American Summit — was welcomed by both Israel and Saudi Arabia, even though both countries have a history of religious animosity. Grennell noted Saudi Arabia refused to join the U.N. Security Council due to President Barack Obama’s push for a nuclear agreement with the Iranian regime.

Grennell said Saudi officials also canceled meetings with the Obama administration because U.S. policy was “tilting toward Iran” and “sending a terrible message that the number-one state sponsor of terrorism, Iran, would somehow be rewarded with billions of dollars.”

The former U.S. spokesman at the U.N. said the new administration’s leadership is bringing together Sunni Arabs and Israeli Jews.

“I think, you know, the reality is is that Donald Trump has united Arab and Israeli diplomats in welcoming U.S. leadership and welcoming the end of the Obama administration,” Grennell said, “That’s just a fact.”

“I’ve seen reports that there were already calls between Saudi Arabia and Israel on a staff level,” Grennell continued. “And so I am hopeful that we can get to the point — I mean, we right now do have a common enemy. And so that should be helpful in trying to coordinate the defeat of this common enemy.”

Noting that many — but not all — of the governments in the region want to stamp out the threat of violent extremism, the former U.S. diplomat noted that many Middle Eastern countries are “scared” by the renewed vigor with which radicalization has taken place in recent years.

“And so they want to see U.S. leadership there,” Grennell said. “Certainly the president’s trip has been wildly successful when you look at it through the eyes of the Arab and Muslim diplomats. They’re very excited to have U.S. leadership. They’ve been craving U.S. leadership.”

Although Trump has been welcomed and praised abroad during his first overseas visit as president, the former diplomat denounced the U.S. media for undermining and minimizing the importance of the president’s trip.

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“This is a really important time and Donald Trump had a total pivot in the Middle East, which is going to benefit America,” Grennell said. “But you’re not really seeing it in the U.S. media coverage, and that’s because we send — U.S. media outlets send political reporters to cover foreign-policy stories. It’s a silly game.”

Grennell said the “silly stories” written by U.S. reporters covering Trump’s trip are a disgrace to the important international relationships that Trump is trying to rebuild and the steps he is taking to reassert American leadership on the global stage.

“They’re literally doing these stories because they don’t understand — they’re reporters who cover politics. They’re gossip reporters,” Grennell said. “What they aren’t is substantive policy reporters who understand the difference between, you know, a huge, hundred-billion-dollar arms-trade deal now and what they had before, and the implications between the Sunni and Shia problem, and what’s happening with 50-plus world leaders from Muslim-majority nations coming together and are pleased with new U.S. leadership.”

“They don’t get what’s happening,” Grennell added. “And so I think we as the public have to demand better news coverage and demand that U.S. news outlets send substantive reporters, not the gossip reporters, on these trips.”