Newsmax buried the appointment of Sebastian Gorka as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism in a Nov. 22 article that listed several other nominations and appointments. Despite that low-key promotion, Gorka has long been a friend to Newsmax — which helped him overcompensate by giving him the “Dr.” honorific despite the fact that the academic credentials of the Hungarian school that gave him the degree have been questioned — and he has hosted a weekly show on Newsmax TV since 2021. Unsurprisingly, Gorka has been granted numerous talking-head hits on Newsmax TV as well, both before and after the election (asterisks denote the appearances in which he is identified as “Dr.”):
- Gorka to Newsmax: Biden Put ‘Bull’s-eye’ on Trump *
- Sebastian Gorka to Newsmax: Trump Won’t Be Stopped on Deportation
- Gorka to Newsmax: Trump Tariffs Are ‘Promises Made, Promises Kept’ *
- Trump Security Maven Gorka: ‘No Such Thing as Palestine’
- Sebastian Gorka to Newsmax: Hunter Biden Was the Bagman for His Father
- Gorka to Newsmax: Trump Treated Like President Before Inauguration
- Gorka to Newsmax: Question Reveals Fake News ‘Dumber’ Than Thought
- Gorka to Newsmax: American People Demanded Disruption With Trump Vote
- Sebastian Gorka to Newsmax: Trump’s Mandate to Keep Americans Safe
But Newsmax censored criticism of Gorka’s appointment. As the Guardian reported:
Trump said Gorka was a “legal immigrant” with “more than 30 years of national security experience”, including chairs and fellowships at major institutions.
But John Bolton, the former UN ambassador who was Trump’s third national security adviser in his first term, told CNN that Gorka was “a conman” who should not be “in any US government” and whose selection does not “bode well for counter-terrorism efforts”.
Bolton’s predecessor as national security adviser, former army general HR McMaster, told CBS Gorka was not a good pick and added: “I think that the president, others who are working with him, will probably determine that pretty quickly, soon after he gets into that job.”
Current Trump advisers were reportedly horrified. An unnamed “person close to [Trump’s] national security team” told the Washington Post: “Almost universally, the entire team considers Gorka a clown. They are dreading working with him.”
Michael Anton, a conservative writer who served in the first Trump administration, reportedly removed himself from consideration for deputy national security adviser, in protest at Gorka’s selection.
The Guardian also noted that “Gorka lasted seven months as a national security strategist before being shown the door by then chief of staff John Kelly, amid reports that Gorka failed to gain security clearance,” adding that his new White House stint would “as brief as his stay in the first.”