Is national security policy now firmly in the hands of General McMaster and others who de-emphasize Jihad as an existential threat? When Dr. Sebastian Gorka left his position as deputy assistant to President Trump, many of us who fear a loss of focus on violent jihad were disconcerted, to say the least.

But, like Steve Bannon, Gorka seems to be occupying the role of loyal outside kibitzer, a kind of shadow-cabinet positon that frees him to speak more frankly than he could as a federal official, but equally committed to supporting the president and his policies (those with which he agrees, anyway). It is almost as if the POTUS has two different squads of players on national security, with the McMaster team currently on the field, and the Bannon/Gorka/Flynn(?) team of counter-jihadists on the bench.

Yesterday, Dr. Gorka appeared on Breitbart Radio on Sirius AM with Matt Boyle (full interview embedded below), and seemed to suggest that Coach Trump may be switching squads on the field, particularly in response to the recent escalation of US ground force in Afghanistan. His most dramatic prediction:

…changes will be made at the highest level soon, probably before Christmas –  because the president will realize, sooner or later, that he is not being well-served by the people that are left inside the building,” he said. (snip)

…right now we have numerous members at the highest levels of the new administration who not only would have been at home in a Clinton White House, but would have been Cabinet members in a Clinton White House.”

“That is wrong. That’s not MAGA, and that’s going to change. That’s my prediction, Matt,” Gorka firmly declared.

Gorka defended the president against criicisms that he is backtracking on his promises to build a border wall:

“If you look at the geography of the United States, we will not be building a wall across the whole southern expanse because in some places, you physically can’t build a wall,” he noted. “However, the government is already prototyping the designs of walls that will be used where a wall is relevant. Sometimes, it’s going to be a fence. Sometimes, it’s going to be another kind of barrier,” he said.

“ Look, you can take this to the bank: the president will be building an impenetrable barrier across the southern border because he built his presidential campaign on that,” Gorka promised. “How it’s going to look, what color it’s going to be, how tall it’s going to be – that is a matter for the professionals to decide, but we have to seal the southern border, and the president knows it.”

You can listen to the whole thing below: