Sebastian Gorka, former deputy
assistant to President Donald Trump and counterterrorism adviser, is delivering
a series of lectures for The Heritage Foundation about national security
issues. His next speech will take
place at Heritage on Dec. 15. Gorka spoke to Daily Signal
editor-in-chief Rob Bluey about a range of topics—his time in the White House,
Trump’s accomplishments and disappointments, his biggest fears, and Trump’s
ability to outmaneuver the media. The following is an edited transcript of
their interview along the with the video.
Rob Bluey: You’ve given a
series of speeches to Heritage audiences now in three locations. What’s your
message to them? What are you talking to them about?
Gorka:
There’s one initial message I like to give everywhere, and it’s a very simple
one that I give it to all conservative audiences. And it’s, “Relax, it’s OK.”
Count to 10, take a deep breath, don’t worry.
Why do I
say that? Because of the reactions I saw when my old boss Steve Bannon
resigned. A lot of people were very worried about what happens to the so-called
Trump agenda. And then when I resigned a week later, then even more people were
worried about what’s going to happen to the platform that got this man elected
on Nov. 8.
So I try
to tell them a very simple messages: It’s not about where I sit or Steve sits
and it’s not even about President Trump. It’s about what you voted for on Nov.
8 and making sure that it’s the long game.
So be
calm, it’s OK. It’s about eight years of President Trump and then eight years
of President Pence. That’s my first message. And then, of course, we talk about
concrete national security issues.
Bluey: And why do you have that
confidence? Because there are those skeptics out there who worry that with a
departure of you and with the departure of Bannon and others that there might
be other forces at play in the White House. What makes you so confident about
President Trump?
Gorka:
Two things: No. 1, we’ve never had a politician like—well, he’s not a
politician—we’ve never had a president like this in the modern age. In fact, it
bears remembering that this is the first-ever president in U.S. history who’s
never had prior political position and/or never served as a general in our armed
forces.
The left had won the
debate, whether it was on social issues, on education, on fiscal
responsibility, and along comes this man who just ignores the original
politically correct agenda and just breaks through the ice like an ice breaker.
So this
is a very different kind of commander in chief and president. And he’s acted …
the analogy I like to give is he’s like an ice breaker. The political waters
froze over.
The left
had won the debate, whether it was on social issues, on education, on fiscal
responsibility, and along comes this man who just ignores the original
politically correct agenda and just breaks through the ice like an ice breaker.
And now
we have a very exciting moment to fill out behind him what it means to be part
of the conservative movement at the beginning of the 21st century. So No. 1, he
is a unique character in American politics. And then secondly, it is about a
movement. It really is about returning to the first principles that made
America so incredibly successful in the ’80s and that’s why I’m excited and
everybody should be excited.
Bluey: As you look back over
the past year, from the time he was elected in November 2016 to today, what is
the greatest accomplishment in your mind that he’s been able to achieve?
Gorka:
It’s a hard choice. I was on Lou Dobbs’ show and talking about all the foreign
policy accomplishments, whether it’s the revitalization of NATO, the crushing
of ISIS, the renewal of our relationships in Asia, the calling out of the
Middle East to do more about radical jihadism. It’s an amazing list just in the
first nine months. And then you look at the domestic scene, and it’s hard to
choose.
Look at
two quarters of 3 percent GDP growth, 1.5 million jobs created, the lowest
unemployment in 17 years. So it’s hard to choose.
But for
me, because I was involved in it, I was given the final draft of the travel
moratorium to give my opinion on before we went public with it. I think the
most important act of the president was the successful implementation of the
travel moratorium to keep Americans safe from the kinds of attacks we see
almost every day in Europe.
Bluey: Is there a
disappointment that comes to mind? Something that you wish had gone better?
Gorka:
Yeah, there is a disappointment, and it has to do with how unusual this victory
was. Because for me, Donald Trump was only accidentally the GOP candidate. He
really had very little to do with the GOP establishment, especially the RINO
establishment.
I think the biggest flaw to
date is lack of requisite attention to the key adage in Washington: personnel
is policy.
He was
an anti-establishment candidate, both with regard to the left and the right.
And as such, it was a very small group of people that came into the White House
who were truly part of the Trump agenda who came there because they believed in
Nov. 8 and what it stood for.
And as a
result, I call it the most leveraged hostile takeover in modern political
history. And as such, our personnel policy was a problem.
There
were very few people who were really Trumpian in mentality to fill key slots,
and that’s one of the reasons I resigned to better serve the president from the
outside. I think the biggest flaw to date is lack of requisite attention to the
key adage in Washington: personnel is policy.
Bluey: You worked on
counterterrorism issues for the president. What’s your biggest fear today?
Gorka: I
have to say, my time at the White House opened my eyes and changed my
perspective. I went in there because of my work on Sunni jihadism, specifically
Al-Qaeda and ISIS. And once I arrived and once I had the requisite clearances
to see the materials that most people don’t get to see, my viewpoint changed.
My prior
concern, groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS I now see as simply the 5-meter target,
as the military would say. It’s the approximate close target but it will be
dealt with. And with people like Secretary Mattis, we are dealing with it.
China has a plan to
displace America as the most important nation in the world. It’s not secret. … They
wish to displace us economically, militarily, politically.
More
serious than that, the 100-meter target is in fact Shia jihadism. The Iranian
regime’s capacity to create their own vision of a caliphate and, unfortunately,
the fact that they’ve had almost $200 billion released to them by the prior
White House and that they want nuclear weapons on top of it makes Shia
jihadism, in my estimation, more serious.
And then
the last thing, which may surprise you, and I have to thank Steve Bannon for
this because he made the scales fall from my eyes. My real concern today is
neither of those. We will deal with them.
My real
concern in the long-term strategic sense is China. China has a plan to displace
America as the most important nation in the world. It’s not secret. It’s called
the One Belt, One Road strategy, which is timed for the 100th anniversary of
the Chinese Revolution in 2049.
They
wish to displace us economically, militarily, politically. And if we don’t wake
up to what they’re doing in terms of the cyber domain, in terms of intellectual
property theft, the intimidation of our friends and our allies, then we may
just wake up one morning and China will be the dominant global player.
Bluey: How would you confront
that challenge?
Gorka:
Well, first things first, I’d do exactly what the president did two months ago.
I’d use all the tools at his disposal to begin countering what they’re doing
that most people don’t realize is already happening.
So the
301 trade investigation to look into what China is actually doing, not just
with the theft of U.S. intellectual property but what is called the forced
acquisition. If you want to do business as IBM or Google in China, you
basically have to hand over your intellectual property to the state of China if
you want access to that market.
Well,
that’s not fair trade. That’s a protectionist attitude that also undermines our
businesses because it’s their intellectual property that is being stolen.
No. 1 is
call them out on what they’re doing, which is wrong. And secondly, do exactly
what the president just did in Asia. Go and tell our friends, “It’s OK. America
is back and we will help you and we’ll stand by you,” and send a clear message
that the days of unfettered intimidation of its neighbors by China are over.
Bluey: How worried should we be
about North Korea?
Gorka:
North Korea is the most Stalinist regime this planet has ever seen. I mean, Joe
Stalin was an amateur by comparison to this regime, the Kim family. It’s an
evil dictatorship. It is a prison state, and it has to be understood as such.
North Korea is the most
Stalinist regime this planet has ever seen. I mean, Joe Stalin was an amateur
by comparison to this regime, the Kim family.
However,
in terms of what we used to call it during the Cold War, the correlation of
forces, it’s a flea. Yes, it may have missiles. It may have some nuclear
capacity, but compared to America, which is the most powerful nation on God’s
earth, they’re not really a strategic threat.
They
bluster, they intimidate, but as Secretary Mattis and the president have said,
if you actually take action against us, we will destroy you. And we’re not
talking about the North Korean people. We’re talking about this Stalinist
regime.
We have
to take it seriously because they continually escalate. But at the end of the
day, they will be dealt with.
Bluey: In October, the United
States experienced the 100th terrorist attack or plot on our homeland since
9/11. What’s your outlook on the homegrown terrorist threat that we face here
in the United States?
Gorka:
First things first, we have to do what the president did when he addressed
Congress in that joint session. We have to look at the world as it is and not
as we wish it to be.
We don’t
allow political censorship, political correctness to dilute our threat
assessment. For eight years under Obama, we weren’t allowed to talk about
jihad. We weren’t allowed to talk about the Islamic aspects of the ideology
used by the terrorists. That has changed the normal political filter of the threat.
For eight years under
Obama, we weren’t allowed to talk about jihad. We weren’t allowed to talk about
the Islamic aspects of the ideology used by the terrorists.
Secondly,
in addition to putting immense political pressure, immense military pressure on
groups like ISIS, we have to learn the lessons from New York. The NYPD after
9/11 became one of the most effective intelligence-gathering agencies in the
world, not just in America, in the world.
We have
to reinstate those human intelligence capabilities, those undercover
capabilities that let you find the terrorists before they build the pressure
cooker bomb, before they rent that truck to mow down people on a bicycle path,
because good counterterrorism is preventative. It’s not reactionary. There is a
plan and the president has begun to follow it.
Bluey: What about the Diversity
Visa Lottery Program? Do you think that that will come to an end?
Gorka:
Yes, absolutely. I mean, it’s insanity. The idea that some vague concept of
diversity has to be propagated in probably the world’s most diverse nation.
Really,
I mean, you live here. I mean, isn’t America diverse? We don’t need little
government programs to try and help the diversity of Americans. It’s a diverse
nation.
The idea
that we just spin a roulette wheel and if you’re from Chechnya or Kazakhstan
you can get a green card and then you can have 60 or 70 people sponsored by
that green card holder, that’s a bad “SNL” skit.
Bluey: How much of a factor is
the border and the wall that the president has talked about both in the
campaign and as president to stop terrorist threats?
Gorka:
It’s perhaps the most important pillar that got this real estate magnate from
Queens elected.
Remember,
this is where it all began, with Jeff Sessions and the commitment to the wall.
The fact is this isn’t just about stopping illegal immigrants coming here and
taking jobs from Americans or from newly arrived illegal immigrants. It’s a
symbolic message about national sovereignty.
When you go to bed at
night, do you lock your doors? Of course you do. It’s not because you hate your
neighbors, but it’s because you want to keep what you love inside safe. America
is a home and the border is our front door.
What the
left doesn’t seem to understand is that the Trump phenomenon isn’t an isolated
one. It’s linked to other phenomena, like Brexit, and it’s the reassertion—I
don’t like the word populism—it’s the reassertion of democracy, representative
government in which the government is held accountable and in which the nation
has sovereignty again.
When you
go to bed at night, do you lock your doors? Of course you do. It’s not because
you hate your neighbors, but it’s because you want to keep what you love inside
safe. America is a home and the border is our front door. So it’s just protecting
the house that is America.
Bluey: What was it like to work
for President Trump in the White House?
Gorka: I
only became an American five years ago. I mean, this is an amazing nation.
Think about it. I literally pinched myself.
I would
be in and out of the West Wing 40 times, 50 times a day, and it never gets old.
It never gets normal. So it was a dream come true. But also, it’s very
different from what you expect.
If you
watch the TV shows and the movies, you think the West Wing is this massive building
and the president is going to be walking around it for an hour talking to his
aides. You’ve seen it. You’ve seen the West Wing. The West Wing is two
corridors. I mean, it takes three minutes to walk through the West Wing.
In real
life you get a different perspective, but working for the president, being in
the Oval Office for big decisions like the decertification of the Iran deal,
it’s a dream.
Bluey: What’s the media’s
biggest misperception about you?
Gorka: I
wouldn’t know where to begin. I had one journalist—one journalist—write 45
attack pieces on me in just a matter of two months. They attacked my wife, my
dead mother, my teenage son.
I’m so
puzzled by the hatred people have for somebody they don’t know. And the way in
which people will believe absolute fake news. So the accusations made against
me of racism, proto-fascist, neo-fascist tendencies.
I’m so puzzled by the
hatred people have for somebody they don’t know. And the way in which people
will believe absolute fake news.
My
father, as a young boy at the age of 13, escorted his fellow schoolmates to
school in Budapest during the German occupation because his fellow schoolmates
were forced to wear the yellow Star of David as Jews. And my father, as a
Catholic young 14-year-old, protected them from getting beaten up or spat on by
the German forces occupying Budapest.
And for
them to then accuse me of having some kind of extreme right-wing tendency … you
don’t get to call yourself a journalist and lie that badly, but it tells you
the state of journalism in America today. But I think that’s going to change.
Bluey: As a contributor to Fox
News, you’re not going to have the opportunity to appear on MSNBC or
CNN. What are you going to miss most?
Gorka: I
have to say, this is my dirty little secret. I loved going on CNN and MSNBC
because but whether it’s Chris Cuomo, whether it’s Jake Tapper, they always
came to a gun fight with a knife, and it was just too easy.
I mean,
clearly they’ve been given talking points. And if you actually got into a
conversation and asked them hard questions, they were stymied.
If it
wasn’t in the script and if it hadn’t been written about in The New York Times
or The Washington Post, it didn’t exist. So I will miss going on those shows to
just slightly poke at their bubble. But I’m writing for The Hill. I’ll be
giving lectures here at Heritage and maybe we can shake their world a little
bit.
Bluey: It seems that no day
goes by where some of those big players in the media aren’t obsessed about what
the president is tweeting. What’s your take on his personal tweets?
Gorka: I
was asked again and again and again live on TV to comment on the president’s
tweets and shouldn’t he stop tweeting and I said to everybody who asked me to
talk about my boss’ social media habits, I said, “I am the last person who will
ever tell the president what he should or should not tweet.”
The most wonderful thing
about the president is he just doesn’t care what The New York Times thinks
about him. He doesn’t care what CNN thinks about him. And that’s how we can cut
the heart of the matter.
Why?
Because it’s thanks to his Twitter feed and the 43 million followers he has
today that he is the president.
He is a
master of social media. Whether it’s at 3 a.m. or whether it’s over
Thanksgiving holiday, he knows what buttons the press.
The
bottom line is he’s broken the false monopoly that the left-wing media thought
they had on their version of the truth. The most wonderful thing about the
president is he just doesn’t care what The New York Times thinks about him. He
doesn’t care what CNN thinks about him. And that’s how we can cut the heart of
the matter.
So God
bless him and his Twitter feed.
