There aren’t many things that leave the learned Sebastian Gorka searching for words.
But one of them is trying to predict what President Donald Trump would say is his proudest accomplishment in his still-budding but prolific second term.
“Wow,” the president’s senior director for counterterrorism says when asked the question by The Lion’s Chris Stigall. “Look, I live in a SCIF, a classified information facility, 12 hours a day, and you have to leave your mobile phones outside. And when we come out of the SCIF, we open them up and we say, ‘Oh my gosh, what did the president do in the last 30 minutes?’
“Because, if it’s not a peace treaty with Armenian [and] Azerbaijan, it’s deploying the National Guard to make the streets of D.C. safe again. Or it’s the $4 trillion he brought back from the Middle East during the trip. On and on and on.
“Proudest moment? There’s too many of them to list right now.
“Because it looks imminently possible, I think if you ask me a few weeks from now, he will definitely say bringing a cease fire, a peace treaty to Ukraine, that will be his biggest.”
One of the things Trump has done is to try to repair some of the damage done by the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan – most catastrophically the terrorist bombing at Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate, killing 13 U.S. servicemembers and some 160 Afghan civilians, while also wounding another 45 American military personnel.
On Monday, a day before the four-year anniversary, President Trump greeted the Gold Star families who lost loved ones in the attack and signed a proclamation commemorating “one of the darkest days in our Nation’s history.”
That incalculable injury was followed by insult, the proclamation recounts.
“In what will be remembered as one of the most shameful and heartbreaking moments in our Nation’s collective memory, Joe Biden checked his watch — and time stood still — as a Sailor, Soldier, and 11 Marines returned home in flag-draped coffins, solemnly escorted by their brothers and sisters in arms.”
Gorka called the ISIS suicide bombing “a needless act that would never have happened if President Trump had been the Commander in Chief – one of the most embarrassing for the nation, and horrific for those 13 families …”
He said the families were welcomed at the White House under Trump – though never by Biden – “because we care, and we don’t do this for, you know, photographs with grieving families. …
“Last year the President went to National Arlington Cemetery. Why? Because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refused to, and because the families wanted somebody there who cared, and that’s my boss, President Trump.”
One thing the administration has yet to accomplish is holding accountable those who perpetrated the Russia hoax and other wrongdoings in the past decade – something Stigall notes that conservatives are increasingly adamant in calling for.
Patience, Gorka urges. Criminal investigations and prosecutions take time in a just society.
“My father was a victim of a communist show trial where they just lied about him,” Gorka says, “and at the age of 20, after being tortured, he was given a life sentence. That was my father in communist Hungary.
“That’s not what we do. We don’t do show trials. We don’t say, ‘arrest [Obama CIA Director John] Brennan now and throw him into the super max.’ No, the whole point of our side is, we believe in the Constitution. We believe in law and order and the fact that we are equal before Lady Justice who wears a blindfold.
“So, all I would say is one thing: my friends, Kash Patel, Pam Bondi, Dan Bongino, are very, very busy with good reason.”
How goes the fight against terrorism, Stigall asks.
“Things are looking incredibly good,” Gorka responds. “I can reveal that since the president raised his right hand for a second time and took the oath of office to be the commander in chief again, we have killed more than 270 jihadis across the planet, those with American blood on their hands and those who are plotting to kill innocent Americans.
“That’s in addition to those whom we neutralized during the Houthi campaign. …
“Thanks to the incredible work of the special envoys – Adam Boehler, Steve Witkoff, Rick Grenell, our colleagues at the FBI as well – President Trump has liberated 72 Americans from being hostages or being kept in captivity by rogue nations. So, we are getting it done.”
On what Stigall notes is the “the insidious, ugly growth” of anti-Israel sentiment – even on the right, and even after the savage attack on innocent Israelis Oct. 7, 2023.
“If you don’t talk about radical Islam,” Stigall argues, “if you don’t understand what jihadis are, you’re not a serious person, in my view. I don’t understand the focus by some on Israel. Do you get it?”
“I do. I do,” Gorka responds, “because it’s just a new gussied up version of Jew hatred. It’s just antisemitism with a bow tie on. You know, this is just neo-Buchananism repackaged in a dumber fashion, because Pat Buchanan actually has a few brain cells.
“Look, there’s only one Jewish state in the world. It’s Israel. If you’re anti-Israel, you’re actually an anti-Semite and a Jew hater.
“And it’s not the tiny nation surrounded by hundreds of millions of Arabs that is the problem. … It is the global jihadi movement, whether it’s ISIS, al Qaeda, Hamas or Hezbollah, that’s the problem, not a tiny state that is simply trying to survive after the horrors of not only the Holocaust, but of course, Oct. 7th.”
