I’ve been alive since the Kennedy administration, and I’ve never been inside the White House. Dr. Sebastian Gorka had been on American soil for a mere five years before he felt the plush blue carpet of the Oval Office under his feet.
The British-born Hungarian-American media personality, military and intelligence analyst, and former government official, served under President Donald Trump as a deputy assistant for strategy from January 2017 until August 25, 2017. It’s not how long you do something. It’s about being asked to do it in the first place.
Despite serving in a presidential administration, Gorka puts his pants on one leg at a time.
“I walk my dogs, shoot my guns, and read books,” Gorka said. He loves to read but doesn’t have time for fiction. “I read stuff that’s in my former wheelhouse–national security, strategy.”
By his bedside is a recent book by Victor Davis Hanson, The Dying Citizen. I have no time for turgid autobiographies, or the like”
Gorka has two children. His son recently earned a classics degree. My son is versed in ancient Greek, Roman scholars. Anything that applies to Western civilization. My daughter is studying to be a therapist.”
Gorka said when he’s asked by a younger demographic how to be successful, he always says the same thing.
“Switch off your stinking phone. Read a book for an hour a day. Preferably anything that was written 400 years ago or more. You will start to become an educated person.”
Gorka said social media is designed to limit us to the attention of a gnat. Make sure we don’t do anything substantive.
“When you understand Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates banning their children from devices like iPads, you start to understand the picture. TikTok is specifically designed to cause your attention span to flick every sixty seconds. It’s not a world conspiracy, just a money maker. They have to get that revenue.”
Does he admire people like Henry Kissinger?
“I think he’s one of the most destructive people in modern American history,” Gorka explained. “He’s not as smart as he likes to think he is. With Nixon, they opened up the channels to China and now we’re paying the price. Back then it looked seductive in the middle of a bi-polar conflict. To weaken our enemies. Drive a wedge between Moscow and Beijing.”
Gorka said Kissinger looked smart 50 years ago. In hindsight, Gorka said he doesn’t look so good.
“Now China has a GDP larger than ours. They have hegemony over many countries. The American elite like Kisinger thought if we opened up economically to Communist China, we’d open them up politically. They created an economic giant with labor camps. Nike is using those to make their trainers. We created that. Or rather, people like Kissinger did.”
Gorka said he grew up under real leaders like Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II.
“They made decisions that weren’t driven by the transitory proclivities of the people. They made hard decisions but ones that paid long-term dividends. Together, Clinton and Tony Blair sabotaged the whole concept of true leadership. Clinton would talk about the current polls. He’d determine one day they cared about the environment, the next day it was taxes. Their decisions were predicated on popular polls. They’d tell the country they had a policy to fix that, whatever it was.”
Gorka said strategy is long-term thinking. Presidents like Nixon, Eisenhower and Truman possessed the gift of foresight.
“History is written in centuries, not months or years,” Gorka said.
He said in America, once the election is won, the party starts to think about reelection the following day. That’s all that matters. The days of the statesman have disappeared.”
What do you know about Trump?
“He’s a voracious reader,” Gorka said. “People called Ronald Reagan a ‘amiable dunce,’ yet he wrote hundreds of speeches for General Electric on the strength of free markets and economy.”
Gorka said these speeches were reportedly written by Reagan himself.
Gorka said Trump sleeps about three hours a night, constantly consuming information.
As we’ve heard from other sources, Trump doesn’t use a computer or a cell phone.
“He loves to print stuff out and read it. I’m the same way. Give me a hard copy of an article rather than have me read it on a screen. Sometimes there’d be so much stuff on the resolute desk when a visitor was coming, we had to clear it off quickly to be presentable for the obligatory photograph he gave as a memento.”
Gorka said everybody wants to know what Trump’s really like.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but the man you see at a rally or walking toward Marine One is the same guy you talk to in the White House, behind closed doors. In a city like D.C. where everybody has perfect hair and perfect teeth but is two -faced behind closed doors, he’s actually the real deal. The man you saw on The Apprentice or a cameo in Home Alone 2, or speaking in front of 60,000 people. He’s the same thoughtful guy.”
As an example, Gorka pointed out an experience with his wife, Katie.
“She was a political appointee with the DHS,” Gorka explained. “She didn’t work in the White House but was over at Homeland Security. President Trump met her twice for about three minutes each time. Once I asked the President to help her with a problem and he brought in Sarah Huckabee to resolve the issue. Then, a year and a half later, I was back in the Oval and he asked, “How’s Katie?’”
In another instance of what Gorka refers to as kindness, he was at a Christmas party at the White House. He explained hundreds of people were there and those with the right colored ticket were to be taken in to meet President Trump for a Christmas photograph.
“It was a VIP thing,” Gorka explained. “The military aide finds you at the party and whisks you away to the China Room. That’s where you meet with the first lady and the president. We walked into the room and the president nodded at an aide as we’re taking the photos. He hands the president a manilla envelope.
Inside was an article I’d just written on Trump’s forgetting policy. He told me, ‘Nice job, Sebastian.’ This is a man running America, and he takes the time to do this for me with his distinctive signature and personal message on the printed article. That’s a special kind of man.”
Gorka said Trump obviously liked the article, and held on to it for two weeks before bringing it out at Christmas as a gift.
“The people that hate him and are threatened by him,” Gorka said. “I like to remind my fellow Americans, every single president before Mr. Trump is connected. Every previous president was a member of the political or military elite. Until President Trump arrived on the scene. Every single one from Washington to Obama. All were Senators, or retired Generals. Not President Trump. He’s not one of them.”
Gorka explained 64 million Americans said they’d tried that. They no longer wanted that.
“He won the first time he ran and that is a massive threat to the establishment, both Left and Right. He’s not owned by Big oil, or the unions, or Big Pharma. He hasn’t had to kiss the ring. He owes them nothing. And no one owns him. So, they have to discredit and destroy him since they can’t control him.”
Gorka maintains there is no such thing as real journalism any longer. He said when the Internet came into being, the newspapers panicked. “They made their money from classified ads. The Internet took that away. A website costs nothing. Now the papers had no revenue streams. Reporters used to travel the world, hunt down Al-Qaedi, interview Bin laden and turn in a 15,000 word series on the situation. That doesn’t exist anymore.”
He said nowadays they hire a 22 year-old recent graduate, give them a Gmail account, a laptop, and they’re good to go.
“The idea always was accuracy came first. We know that’s no longer true. Now it’s publish first, damn the accuracy.”
“Just five years after becoming a U.S. citizen, here I was walking around the West Wing. In France, if you don’t speak high French, you’re not going to be allowed into the inner circle to work in the Elysse. It’s a cliche, but I lived the American Dream. I came here with my wife and kids with nothing. I’m the son of a man who escaped from prison in communist Hungary.”
The day after President Trump’s inauguration, Gorka said he went to work at 8:00 the next morning.
“It still gives me goosebumps. It was unbelievable. An Army staff sergeant guided me through the barricades into the Eisenhower building where I filled out my details with HR, and received my badge.”
The world can be perceived to be in turmoil on many fronts. Gorka said there is no time for Americans to despair.
“From the Founding Fathers we’ve taken on the greatest powers in the world. From King George, to Hitler, to Stalin and the Jihadists. To give in to desperation is un-American.”
Gorka said he lives in the swamp. He lives, breathes and eats politics. He’s convinced most Americans don’t adhere as closely to the political landscape as he does.
“Most don’t follow the news,” Gorka said. “They don’t rumiante on a brain-fart from a hackneyed politician. They just want to make a car payment, get new shoes for the children for the new school year. I’ve been called a Nazi by mainstream media. That word has weight. Six million people were lost to genocide. Sixty million people died in WWII. Extreme radical verbiage is not on our side”.
He said conservatives look at the other side as good people with bad ideas.
The Left looks at conservatives as bad people.
What about guns?
“I really believe without a shadow of a doubt they want to take guns away,” Gorka explained. “I hope there is never a compromise. On the campaign trail you hear people wanting to ban the AR-15. I say if they ban one they’re going to ban them all. Guns are part of the unique birth of our nation. It’s the right of people who live here to combat a tyrannical head of state. The Second Amendment is the ultimate guarantor of our liberty and has been since we became a free Republic.”
What about presidents and age?
“I love the line Reagan gave in response to a question of his age in his race against Mondale– ‘Iwill not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.’ Gorka said when you consider President Biden, you have a man who has had two brain aneurysms. “You don’t have to be a medical professional to see he’s battling dementia.”
He related how President Biden screamed at an employee at a Ford plant.
“If an individual loses a filter, they say things they shouldn’t. A reporter asked Biden if he planned to run again, and he turned around and snapped, ‘What do you mean?’ Trump never did that on camera. Biden will do it at the drop of a hat. Because that loss of filter is a symptom of dementia.”
Can Ron DeSantis beat Trump if they go head-to-head?
“The way Trump can fill a stadium is astounding. Nobody since FDR could do that. Ron DeSantis can’t do what Trump does and could never beat him. Nobody can mobilize people like Trump. Whatever you believe about the 2020 election, he received more votes than any incumbent in history.”
Gorka said DeSantis is successful because like in the Austin Powers movies, DeSantis is the Mini-Me to Trump.
“He is replicating Trump politics at a local level. He’s the junior version. If he’s sane he won’t run against Trump. One of them would have to move their domicile address as the president and vice president can’t be from the same state. If Ron is smart, he’s on the veep ticket in 2024, then slides into the top slot in ‘28.”
Then DeSantis’ little feet can stand proudly on that resplendent blue carpet.
Jim Cryns writes features for Barrett News Media. He has spent time in radio as a reporter for WTMJ, and has served as an author and former writer for the Milwaukee Brewers. To touch base or pick up a copy of his new book: Talk To Me – Profiles on News Talkers and Media Leaders From Top 50 Markets, log on to Amazon or shoot Jim an email at jimcryns3_zhd@indeedemail.com.
