Gorka: ‘Fake News’ Pushing ‘Literal Propaganda’ on Trump Trip

Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to President Donald Trump, said the president is providing the “moral clarity” and “moral leadership” needed so badly in the Middle East and Europe, during an interview Wednesday on “The Laura Ingraham Show.”

Gorka praised the president for using his first official foreign trip to journey “into the heart of the Arab Muslim world” and engage with leaders from over 50 Muslim-majority nations. Trump urged the Muslim world to join the United States in the fight against violent extremism.

“He didn’t talk about economic deprivation or political disenfranchisement. He said we are in a war between good and evil.”

On Monday, a jihadi suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, which claimed 22 lives and injured 59 others, brought new urgency to Trump’s message, Gorka said.

“Moral relativism is what enables or assists those who have evil intents to perpetrate their crimes,” Gorka said. “So I think it’s a message that everyone of faith truly understands, that evil exists. It walks the earth. And we, with our friends, must obliterate it.”

Gorka added a key objective of Trump’s trip was to “emphasize the natural-law component of the current threat we face, that moral relativism will not keep Americans safe or Italians or Belgiums [sic] or anybody else.”

The president’s deputy assistant said Trump’s well-received speech at the Arab Islamic American Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Sunday echoed the strategy that former President Ronald Reagan used “to end the Cold War.”

“Look at the language that was used in Riyadh. [Trump] went into the heart of the Arab Muslim world to the nation [that] is home to Mecca and Medina, the birthplace of Islam,” Gorka said. “And he called the threat out for what it is.”

“He didn’t talk about economic deprivation or political disenfranchisement. He said we are in a war between good and evil,” Gorka continued. “He talked about the objective truths, just as President Reagan called the Soviet Union an ‘evil empire.’ He said to the Muslims … ‘look, you must rid your places of worship of the terrorists. You must rid your communities of the extremists.'”

That kind of talk, Gorka said, represented the “kind of moral clarity that is indispensable when you are up against people who are prepared to kill eight-year-old girls in the name of fair ideology,” like what occurred in Manchester on Monday.

“So, just as with the Nazis, just as with the Communists, we need moral clarity. And President Donald Trump is providing it,” Gorka said.

Although Trump was well-received in the Middle East, U.S. media and some foreign political analysts portrayed the historic visit in a negative light. When asked about Palestinian pollster and analyst Khalil Shikaki’s comments to The New York Times — in which he complained that Trump’s trip “has no substance” — Gorka dismissed it.

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“I would say to that man that he has no idea what he’s talking about, and clearly he hasn’t spoken to the Egyptians, to the Saudis, the Emirates, to the Jordanians that I have spoken to,” Gorka said. “I’d ask him to do one thing: look at the video footage of the president in the Middle East and just describe to me the body language of his hosts, of the people he’s meeting. It radiates smiles, warmth, the reception of long-lost friends.”

“[Shikaki] is politically motivated, clearly, and wishes to create discord where there is none,” Gorka added. “The region has been waiting for moral clarity, has been waiting for moral leadership. And we are providing it.”

Gorka blasted what he characterized as “fake news” outlets pushing “literal propaganda” to dim the optimism and significance of Trump’s trip. He said much of the coverage in the media is built on “so many misconceptions about who the president is and what this administration represents there.” In particular, Gorka noted that the media were quick to jump on Pope Francis’ apparently less-than-enthusiastic reception of Trump, whom he had criticized during Trump’s presidential bid.

“We are doing a true reset of America’s relationship with our allies. I think the pope is part of that reset,” Gorka said, adding that when European and regions officials meet Trump, “they realize the truth of this administration, what they wish to achieve.”