President Trump has forced out his ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle. She faced allegations of misconduct before and during her tenure at the U.S. Embassy in Athens, which she has denied.
Transcript
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
President Trump has forced out his ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle. She is a prominent MAGA figure. She had a lengthy engagement to Trump’s oldest son until the relationship ended.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Guilfoyle faced unflattering stories about trying to profit from her position. Now, the president and his family have profited in many ways during his second term. In this case, someone who was no longer on her way into the Trump family was accused of demanding money for herself, which she denies.
MARTIN: NPR’s diplomatic correspondent, Michele Kelemen, is following this story and is with us now to tell us more about it. Good morning, Michele.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Good morning, Michel.
MARTIN: So tell us what led to this removal.
KELEMEN: So The Wall Street Journal had a series of recent stories about Guilfoyle. And there were many allegations of misconduct, including that she asked a Trump donor for $100,000 to pay off a credit card bill in exchange for using her contacts within the administration. Democrats on Capitol Hill started writing letters to Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling for investigations, and this was happening while Rubio was in Athens. And he sounded annoyed when reporters asked him about it last week, as you can hear.
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MARCO RUBIO: We don’t conduct these things in a press conference on a tarmac in a foreign country because you wrote a story or somebody else wrote a story ’cause some source gave it to you. So get that out of your head, ’cause that’s never the way it’s going to work with me. It’s a game that’s been played for a long time, but it’s not a game we’re going to play.
KELEMEN: But fast-forward to yesterday, when President Trump called for her to resign, saying he didn’t like what he was reading about her. He said he didn’t even talk to Guilfoyle, who announced on X that her time as ambassador is coming to an end.
MARTIN: So is this the end of the story?
KELEMEN: Not if Democrats have their way. Gregory Meeks, who’s on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, says her resignation is not a substitute for accountability. He thinks that Congress and the inspector general need to conduct more oversight into her conduct and potential abuse of taxpayer dollars. Serving as an ambassador is a position of public trust, he told NPR in a statement, not a business opportunity. I also talked to retired career diplomat Eric Rubin, who says this looks really bad for the U.S. Take a listen.
ERIC RUBIN: I think Europeans are snickering. I think there are people in Greece who are snickering, and that’s not good for us. We should have somebody who’s respected and who carries the weight of the position.
KELEMEN: Guilfoyle says she worked tirelessly to advance Trump’s America First agenda in Greece. She dismissed the allegations against her, saying she intends to vigorously defend her name, reputation and integrity.
MARTIN: And what does this mean for the embassy?
KELEMEN: Yeah. The State Department says there’s an experienced deputy chief of mission who’s ready to assume the role. That’s happening in a lot of places around the world, Michel, where President Trump has not even named an ambassador. He’s named very few career diplomats, and that’s something that Rubin is really worried about.
RUBIN: We’ve always had political appointees as ambassadors. We’ve always had some with no apparent qualifications. But from a historical trend, which included the first Trump administration, of having at least 60% or so of our ambassadors be career professionals, we’re now down to about 5%.
KELEMEN: Just a tiny fraction. And many embassies are run by, you know, the deputies, as I said. You know, all ambassadors, career and political, have to be vetted. They have to get through Senate confirmation. And that could get a lot tougher for Trump political appointees after all this news about Kimberly Guilfoyle.
MARTIN: NPR’s Michele Kelemen. Michele, thank you.
KELEMEN: Thank you.
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