President Donald Trump said Monday there might be 30 people interested in the United Nations ambassador post that opened up last week, including David Friedman and Ric Grenell, both ambassadors in his first administration.

Trump made the comments to reporters in the Oval Office, days after the White House pulled the nomination of Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., due to the razor-thin majority that Republicans have in the House.

"We have a lot of people that have asked about it, and would like to do it — [former Israel Ambassador] David Friedman, [former Germany Ambassador] Ric Grenell and maybe 30 other people," Trump said. "Everyone loves that position. That's a star-making position. And so we'll see what happens."

However, Grenell, Trump's envoy for special missions, told Newsmax last week that he was a "hard no" on the post, saying, "that's not something I want to do."

"As President Trump said, there's a lot of good people. He'll pick somebody good. It won't be me. I don't want to go there. That's not in my future," Grenell told Newsmax on Thursday.

Trump last week asked Stefanik to "remain in Congress" given the Republicans' 218-213 majority.

"We don't want to take any chances, so I went to Elise and I said, 'Elise, do you mind?'" Trump said last week. "We don't want to take any chances. It's as simple as that. It's basic politics. It's politics 101. She's very popular. She's going to win."

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