Anti-terrorism czar Sebastian Gorka is one of the Trump administration’s most controversial figures and a gatecrasher in the strict world of national security.
In a field that prizes quiet professionalism, Gorka is a loud and volatile figure. In a booming British accent, he describes the US operation turning suspected terrorists into a “red mist” and piling up corpses “like cordwood.” He wears a lanyard inscribed with “WWFY & WWKY,” a reference to President Donald Trump’s line, “We’ll find you, and we’ll kill you.”
It’s a testament to the frenzy of Trump’s first year in office that even the colorful Gorkhas have faded into the background as the country reels from a massive deportation campaign and drastic cuts to federal agencies. The situation changed in February when the United States and Israel began a war against Iran, raising the risk of retaliatory attacks against American citizens and interests around the world. Overnight, there was renewed interest in who would lead the White House’s counterterrorism efforts.
My editor and I decided it was time to analyze the Gorka files. For six months, I monitored Mr. Gorka’s public statements for clues about the status of his long-promised national counterterrorism strategy and updates on deadly U.S. attacks in Africa and the Middle East. It started as an old-fashioned beat report. I’m in charge of counterterrorism, and he’s the senior director of counterterrorism at the National Security Council.
The trove of details I gleaned from Gorka’s months of public statements and interviews with more than 20 current and former security officials were woven into a ProPublica investigation published in April. It’s an in-depth look at Gorka and his role in a hollowed-out national security apparatus after a year of leadership turmoil and talent loss as President Trump shifted resources to immigration.
ProPublica reached out to Gorka for comment in various ways. He never responded and instead lashed out at me through a post on X before the article was published. He told his 1.8 million followers that I was anti-American and accused him of writing “corrupt hackery articles.”
My hopes for a good faith exchange are gone. After discussions with editors, ProPublica decided to address the insults in the article. This was another layer of light on the combustible leader President Trump has installed in a key national security role. A former senior official pointed out that this eruption meant that “Gorkha was Gorkha.”
Increasingly, journalists are pushing back against attacks on our credibility by “showing the work,” guiding readers through the reporting process to dispel misconceptions and promote transparency. In that spirit, I wanted to take this opportunity to show how basic beat reporting, the fact-checking of powerful claims, led to a broader narrative about the state of the U.S. counterterrorism mission at a critical moment.
Mr. Gorka was a familiar figure as I spent more than two decades covering the post-9/11 counterterrorism apparatus, an academic primarily known for his clear hostility to Islam, which he portrayed as inherently violent. Gorka dismissed criticism of the depiction as “ridiculous” and said his focus was on the “intra-Islamic war” between radicals and Western-allied Islamic leaders. He also served as an advisor in the first Trump administration, but was fired after just seven months amid internal White House conflict.
At the time, dozens of parliamentarians called for his resignation, and investigators detailed links to the Hungarian far-right, which Gorka denies. After his painful exit, Gorka waited patiently until the Biden era saw more Republican activity and, ultimately, Trump’s return to office.
In a new era without “adults in the room,” as some officials referred to more moderate advisers around President Trump during his first term, Mr. Gorka was appointed White House counterterrorism czar — a dream job, he called it. Privately, national security officials have expressed alarm that information about the threat is now in the hands of officials who reportedly had trouble obtaining security clearance during the first Trump administration.
To me, Mr. Gorka was a weather vane for the administration’s national security thinking. Will his “war on terror” ideas clash with the isolationist “America First” camp, which doesn’t want forever wars? How will the vast security apparatus built around the threat of Islamic extremism be redirected to a new focus on far-left “Antifa” extremists and Latin American drug cartels newly designated as terrorist organizations?
I was particularly interested in the status of the national counterterrorism strategy that Mr. Gorka has promised since taking office. Such documents typically outline the government’s approach to combating the most pressing threats. Gorka had said his plans were “imminent” and “on the verge” of his release, but months have passed with no sign of that happening.
To glean clues about the strategy, I made it my mission to appear in every news, read every interview, and listen to every podcast featuring Mr. Gorka since December 2024, the month before he entered the White House. It took a little digging. He criticizes the mainstream news media, preferring to appear (with little rebuttal) in niche pro-Trump news outlets and conservative think tanks.
I developed a nightly ritual. After dinner with my family, I would hole up at home to listen to Mr. Gorka, searching for snippets of news buried in his hyperactive vocabulary and graphic storytelling. Alongside my notes categories of “Trump Anecdotes” and “Extremist Death Toll,” there was also a “Big Words” category. For example, the president called Joe Biden “sleepy.” Gorka prefers to “sleepwalk”.
In February 2026, a few weeks after the report, I realized that Gorka’s speech had been burned into my mind when I watched the ridiculous video and heard Gorka’s voice saying, “This is insane!” It’s time for a break.
I reread the notes I had taken from hours of listening sessions. I interviewed counterterrorism analysts and national security watchdogs about Mr. Gorka and his mission. A veteran national security official added background and analysis. Just as my editor and I were discussing how to turn our discoveries into a story, the Iran war began and the spotlight on Gorkha became even brighter.
Much of the material about the airstrikes and the dismantling of guardrails was first incorporated into my reporting on the Pentagon’s move away from stronger protections for civilians, a reversal highlighted by the deadly U.S. attack on a girls’ school in Iran. Other coverage ended up being about Gorka’s phoenix-like return to the White House and President Trump’s anti-terrorism policies.
Gorka did not respond to requests for comment beyond his hostile posts about X. When I reached out to the White House for comment, press secretary Anna Kelly praised Gorka’s “excellent job” but avoided questions about his approach. “Those seeking to smear him and the President’s national security team are only exposing what they have not been paying attention to over the past year,” Kelly wrote. “Anyone with eyesight can see that our homeland is safer than ever.”
As of this writing, just two months into the Iran war, Gorkha’s counterterrorism strategy has yet to emerge.
