Trump’s Brit

Sebastian Gorka is a big man. He has a powerful handshake, a deep voice, and a serious goatee. He’s also deputy assistant to President Donald Trump, and known as the most influential Brit in the White House. He was born in London, the son of Hungarian immigrants, and grew up in Ealing. Yet he seems to identify more with America and Hungary than with Britain. When I ask him if he feels British, he says, ‘As a good friend said to me, and I think this is a quote from someone else, possibly Hayek, “You were always American, you were just born in the wrong country.”’

Nevertheless, the British government, desperate to form bonds with a Brexit–friendly Trump administration, has been eager to claim him as one of us. ‘They almost instantly glommed on to me,’ he says, ‘I’m seen by 10 Downing Street and the FCO as somebody to talk to about things.’

He has been ‘pleasantly surprised’ by the warmth of the British embassy in Washington. ‘I expected there to be a little bit of chip on the shoulder — “you’re not who we thought was going to win” — but that was not the case, it was literally long-lost cousins — “how can we help you?” — so hats off to the British team.’

Gorka has not enjoyed such convivial acceptance elsewhere. The foreign policy grandees of America dismiss him as a professional anti-Muslim and Fox News blowhard who, thanks to the craziness that is Trumpworld, has become a player in the most powerful government in the world. One snob at the Foreign Policy Research Institute called him ‘the Simon Cowell of counter-terrorism’. Gorka puts such attitudes down to ‘professional jealousy’.