Kimberly Guilfoyle was supposed to be out of sight, out of mind. Her loyalty to President Donald Trump and MAGA was rewarded with a Greek odyssey, a low-stakes but glamorous ambassadorship in Athens. It also came with the added benefit of her being on the other side of the world to her ex-fiance Donald Trump Jr.
But Guilfoyle appeared not to learn the lessons from the ancient history of her new home — she flew too close to the sun and was forced to resign as the U.S. ambassador to Greece on Tuesday, having lost the trust of Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“The White House has received Ms. Guilfoyle’s formal resignation,” a White House official told the Washington Examiner.
Guilfoyle steps down from her post, her Icarian journey complete, under a storm cloud of scandal and has provided Democrats on the House oversight committee, who are likely to be back in the majority next year after the Nov. 3 midterm elections, with more evidence of corruption they consider to be endemic in the Trump administration.
But before that, Democrats are trying to capitalize on the Guilfoyle controversy as a way to win that majority as many of the party’s candidates campaign on allegations of Trump administration corruption before those elections.
With three weeks until Election Day, Democrats have homed in on their closing message to one that combines allegations of Trump administration corruption to cost-of-living concerns — accusations exacerbated by Guilfoyle’s reported appeals before her Senate confirmation last year to Trump donor Eric Deters to pay her $100,000 American Express credit card bill in exchange for help from the administration with his personal tax and legal matters.
Until the Wall Street Journal reported last week on Guilfoyle’s text messages to Deters, the former Fox News personality and ex-wife to Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) had kept a low profile in Greece, other than a splashy feature article in the New York Times this year that described her as “the talk of Athens.”
Then, hours after Rubio arrived in Greece, in part, to deliver a landmark speech on the importance of Western civilization against the backdrop of the Acropolis, he had to grapple with headlines about Guilfoyle and her credit card.
“Honey please I need you to get this done for me today,” Guilfoyle had written to Deters.
Rubio was reportedly “extremely pissed off” at Guilfoyle after defending her as “a strong ambassador” before more allegations were published, including accusations Guilfoyle improperly accepted gifts and services, such as a luxury trip this year to the World Economic Forum in Davos on the private plane of Greek executive Alexandros Exarchou.
She additionally allegedly threatened Greek officials, reportedly telling guests last month at a reception that the United States could undermine Greece if it wanted and getting angry at Greek counterparts for not inviting her to a dinner the country hosted for Eric Trump at Davos.
“You guys walk around thinking that because some source told you something and you reported it, it’s the gospel,” Rubio told reporters in Greece after the second report dropped. “It’s not the gospel. It’s not the gospel for me. That’s not the way we do things.”
Guilfoyle denied any wrongdoing, first, through her attorneys and, secondly, in a lengthy social media statement after new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia announced on Tuesday during her maiden press briefing that the Trump administration had asked for the ambassador’s resignation amid a State Department inspector general investigation into her conduct.
“I have dedicated my professional life to fighting for justice, standing up for what is right, and defending the values that make America exceptional,” Guilfoyle wrote on Tuesday. “I will not allow false accusations to define my decades of public service.”
Trump went on to distance himself from her minutes later, telling reporters as he departed for Alaska that Guilfoyle “wasn’t a member of my family” and that she had been “doing a good job” but he “didn’t like what we were reading.”
Regardless, Democratic National Committee communications director Kendall Witmer welcomed Guilfoyle’s resignation on Tuesday as the “latest in a long line of Trump administration officials who have had to resign in disgrace.”
“Guilfoyle is only leaving because she was caught red-handed,” Witmer said in a statement. “Her departure won’t change the unfortunate reality for Trump and Republicans: the American people know this administration is corrupt and are going to hold them accountable this November.”
Former Republican National Committee communications director Doug Heye quipped that any administration, Republican or Democratic, can “never go wrong hiring actual professionals.”
“Did anyone actually think this would go well?” Heye asked the Washington Examiner. “Yet again some self-created outrage du jour makes it harder for Trump to say how he’s going to lower prices and end the war.”
But Heye downplayed Democrats’ allegations of corruption, contending the party may have more success mounting the argument that it is more that “Trump is focused on arches, bad ambassadors, and a war no one asked for rather than what voters are saying is important to them,” including affordability.
At the same time, the Trump administration appears mindful of the corruption allegations, even though the president has remained unrepentant about the likes of his triumphal arch and the war against Iran.
For example, Trump surprised reporters last month when, in reaction to a question, he announced that his eldest son, who dated Guilfoyle for six years — four of which they were engaged — before the couple separated in 2024, would repay Umar Kremlev, the Russian oligarch who allegedly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the younger Trump’s wedding in the Bahamas in May to Florida socialite Bettina Anderson.
But as Trump’s average approval rating hovers around net negative 21 percentage points, an Associated Press-NORC poll published on Tuesday found that 56% of U.S. adults perceived Trump to have put “a lot” of emphasis on his personal businesses during his second administration, while 54% told pollsters he has done the same for the business interests of his family and friends.
The same poll found, too, that about one-quarter of people think Trump has prioritized the country as a whole “a lot,” whereas about 1 in 10 told pollsters he has concentrated “a lot” on people like them.
TRUMP SAYS KIMBERLY GUILFOYLE WASN’T A MEMBER OF HIS FAMILY
Regardless, other Republicans are shrugging off the Guilfoyle controversy, with RNC press secretary Natalie Baldassarre, for instance, pivoting to criticize Democrats for their “love” of lecturing voters on corruption but for having “no issue taking millions of dollars from shady billionaires and opposing a congressional stock trading ban to pad their own pockets.”
“Republicans are the only party that has cut taxes, put workers first, and created thousands of American jobs,” Baldassarre told the Washington Examiner. “Democrats will reverse all these achievements on day one and then get mad when prices rise and more jobs disappear.”