Counterterrorism czar Sebastian Gorka is among the most controversial figures within the Trump administration, a gate crasher within the buttoned-up world of nationwide safety.
In a subject the place quiet professionalism is revered, Gorka is loud and mercurial. With a booming, British-accented voice, he describes U.S. operations turning suspected terrorists into “crimson mist” and stacking our bodies “like cordwood.” He wears a lanyard inscribed with “WWFY & WWKY,” referencing a line from President Donald Trump: “We’ll discover you and we are going to kill you.”
It’s a testomony to the frenzy of Trump’s first yr again in workplace that even the colourful Gorka had pale into the background because the nation reeled from a mass deportation marketing campaign and sweeping cuts to federal businesses. That modified this February with the launch of the U.S.-Israeli conflict on Iran, which heightened the danger of retaliatory assaults on Americans and pursuits all over the world. In a single day, there was renewed curiosity in who leads White Home counterterrorism efforts.
My editors and I made a decision it was time to interrupt out the Gorka information. For six months, I had monitored Gorka’s public remarks for clues concerning the standing of his long-promised nationwide counterterrorism technique and updates on lethal U.S. strikes in Africa and the Center East. It had began as old style beat reporting; I cowl counterterrorism, and he’s the senior director for counterterrorism on the Nationwide Safety Council.
The trove of particulars I collected from months of Gorka’s public statements, together with interviews with greater than two dozen present and former safety officers, had been woven right into a ProPublica investigation printed in April. It’s an in-depth take a look at Gorka and his function within the hollowed-out nationwide safety equipment after a yr of management turmoil and personnel loss as Trump shifted sources towards his immigration agenda.
ProPublica reached out to Gorka for remark in a number of methods. He by no means responded, as an alternative lashing out at me by way of posts on X earlier than the story printed. He advised his 1.8 million followers that I used to be anti-American and accused me of writing a “putrid piece of hackery.”
There went my hopes for a good-faith alternate. After dialogue with my editors, ProPublica determined to notice the insults within the story. It was one other revealing layer to the flamable chief Trump had put in in a delicate nationwide safety function. A former senior official famous the eruption was “Gorka being Gorka.”
More and more, journalists are pushing again in opposition to assaults on our credibility by “exhibiting the work,” guiding readers by way of the reporting course of to dispel myths and foster transparency. In that spirit, I needed to take this chance to point out how fundamental beat reporting — fact-checking the assertions of a robust determine — led to a broader story concerning the state of the U.S. counterterrorism mission at a essential second.
I’ve coated the post-9/11 counterterrorism equipment for greater than 20 years, so Gorka was a well-recognized presence, a tutorial recognized primarily for a well-documented hostility towards Islam, which he has portrayed as inherently violent. Gorka has dismissed criticism of this portrayal as “absurd,” saying his focus is “the conflict inside Islam” between radicals and Western-aligned Muslim leaders. He additionally served as an adviser beneath the primary Trump administration however was ousted after simply seven months amid White Home infighting.
On the time, dozens of lawmakers had demanded his resignation, and investigative shops detailed hyperlinks — which Gorka denies — to the Hungarian far proper. After the bruising exit, Gorka waited patiently because the Republican Get together swung tougher proper within the Biden period and finally returned Trump to workplace.
Gorka was appointed White Home counterterrorism czar — he known as it his dream job — in a brand new period with out the “adults within the room,” as some officers referred to the extra average advisers round Trump within the first time period. Privately, nationwide safety personnel expressed alarm that intelligence about threats was within the arms of an official who reportedly struggled to get safety clearance within the first Trump administration.
To me, Gorka was a climate vane for the administration’s nationwide safety considering: Would his “conflict on terror” mindset conflict with the extra isolationist “America First” camp that needed no extra perpetually wars? How would an enormous safety equipment constructed for the Islamist militant risk reorient towards a brand new give attention to far-left “antifa” militants and Latin American drug cartels newly designated as terrorist organizations?
I used to be particularly within the standing of a nationwide counterterrorism technique Gorka had been promising since taking workplace; such paperwork sometimes lay out an administration’s method to combating essentially the most pressing threats. Although Gorka had described his plan as “imminent” and “on the cusp” of launch, months ticked by with none signal of it.
To glean clues concerning the technique, I made it my mission to look at each information look, learn each interview and pay attention to each podcast that includes Gorka since December 2024, the month earlier than he entered the White Home. It took some digging — he rails in opposition to the mainstream information media and prefers to look (largely unchallenged) on area of interest pro-Trump information shops and at conservative assume tanks.
I developed a nightly ritual. After dinner with my household, I’d gap as much as hearken to Gorka, attempting to find the scraps of reports buried in his over-the-top vocabulary and graphic storytelling. Alongside my notice classes for “Trump Anecdotes” and “Militant Dying Tolls” was one for “Large Phrases.” For instance, the president calls Joe Biden “sleepy”; Gorka prefers “somnambulant.”
Weeks into the reporting, in February 2026, I spotted Gorka’s speech had burrowed into my mind once I watched a foolish video and thought, in his voice, “Preposterous!” It was time for a break.
I reread my notes from hours of listening classes. I interviewed counterterrorism analysts and nationwide safety watchdog teams about Gorka and his remit. Veteran nationwide safety personnel added context and evaluation. Simply as my editors and I had been discussing the best way to flip the findings right into a story, the Iran conflict started and the highlight on Gorka grew brighter.
A lot of the fabric on air strikes and the dismantling of guardrails was first integrated right into a story I reported concerning the Pentagon shifting away from extra strong civilian protections, a reversal highlighted by a lethal U.S. assault on a ladies’ college in Iran. Different reporting ended up within the story about Gorka’s phoenixlike return to the White Home and what it says concerning the Trump counterterrorism doctrine.
Gorka didn’t reply to requests for remark past the hostile posts on X. After I requested the White Home for remark, spokesperson Anna Kelly praised Gorka’s “unimaginable job” however sidestepped questions on his method. “Anybody trying to smear him and the President’s nationwide safety workforce is just revealing that they haven’t been paying consideration for the previous yr,” Kelly wrote, “as anybody with eyes can see that our homeland is safer than ever.”
As of writing, precisely two months into the Iran conflict, Gorka’s counterterrorism technique has but to look.
