Sebastian Gorka

Sebastian Lukács Gorka (Hungarian: Gorka Sebestyén Lukács; born October 22, 1970) is a media host and commentator, currently affiliated with Salem Radio Network and NewsMax TV, and a United States government official. He served in the first Trump administration as a deputy assistant to the president for seven months, from January until August 2017. In the second Trump administration, he has served as a deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism since January 2025.

Gorka was born in the United Kingdom to Hungarian parents, lived in Hungary from 1992 to 2008, and in 2012 became a naturalized American citizen. Gorka has written several books and for a variety of publications, is politically conservative and has ties to the alt-right, though he rejects the term and has condemned the alt-right, calling it "bogus" and "a new label for nationalists or irredentist bigots".

During his time in the first Trump administration, Gorka gave a series of combative interviews with the press in which he defended the administration's positions on national security and foreign policy. Various national security scholars in academic and policymaking circles have characterized Gorka as fringe. Some critics have challenged his academic credentials, his views on Islam and radicalization, and his motives for identifying with the Order of Vitéz and supporting Magyar Gárda, a paramilitary organization banned by the European Union.

Gorka was born in London to Zsuzsa and Pál Gorka on October 22, 1970. His parents had fled to the United Kingdom from Hungary after the failed anti-Soviet 1956 uprising and became naturalised British citizens on February 25, 1963. He attended St Benedict's School in west London, and received a lower second-class honours (2:2) B.A. degree in philosophy and theology from Heythrop College, at that time a constituent college of the University of London.

While at university, Gorka joined the British Territorial Army as a volunteer (typically committing to a weekend a month and an annual two-week camp), serving over a period of three years in the 22 Intelligence Company of the Intelligence and Security Group (Volunteers), an interrogation unit with a NATO role specializing in Russian language training and supporting 1 (BR) Corps until the latter was disbanded in 1992 at the end of the Cold War.

In 1992, Gorka moved to Hungary, where he worked for the Hungarian Ministry of Defence while studying for a master's degree in international relations and diplomacy at the Budapest University of Economic Sciences and Public Administration, now known as the Corvinus University, which he completed in 1997. In 1997, he was a Partnership for Peace International research fellow at the NATO Defense College in Rome.

In 1998, Gorka served as an adviser to Viktor Orbán. In 2002, he entered the political science doctoral program at Corvinus University where he obtained his Ph.D. degree in 2007. Gorka is a naturalized American citizen.

Gorka worked in the Hungarian Ministry of Defense during the prime ministership of József Antall.