Gorka Calls Trump the Only President to Pray at the Western Wall in Office, JFeed Reports
Trump's counterterrorism adviser was reported to have praised the president's 2017 prayer at the Western Wall and warned of an Islamist and Marxist alliance, as NatCon met in Jerusalem around the October 7 anniversary.
Trump adviser Sebastian Gorka described Donald Trump as the only US president to have prayed at the Western Wall while in office, JFeed reported on Thursday, October 8. In the same interview, according to the report, Gorka discussed what he presented as an alliance between Islamists and Marxists.
The report appeared as National Conservatism, the conference series known as NatCon, held its gathering in Jerusalem around the third anniversary of the October 7 attack. JFeed describes the remarks as made in an interview. The full recording has not been published, and when and where the interview took place has not been made public.
A scheduled NatCon appearance
NatCon's official programme places the Jerusalem conference at the International Convention Center, 1 Shazar Boulevard, over three days, from Tuesday, October 6, to Thursday, October 8. It listed Gorka in the plenary session on Wednesday, October 7, at 14:30, under the title “Counterterrorism Post GWOT and October 7th”, GWOT being the common abbreviation for the Global War on Terror.
The organiser's biography identifies him as Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council.
A place on the programme does not show that he appeared. The Guardian reported on October 6 that the White House had confirmed Gorka withdrew from the conference over scheduling. NatCon's media page separately links to an i24NEWS interview with him dated October 1, before the conference opened.
The Western Wall record
Gorka's point about the Western Wall rests on a documented moment. On May 22, 2017, during his first visit to Israel as president, Trump prayed at the Wall, becoming the first sitting US president to visit it, according to the White House record from that day.
Gorka's reported line goes further than that record. The White House documents Trump as the first sitting president to visit the Wall; describing him as the only one to pray there in office also makes a claim about every presidential trip to Israel in the years since, which the 2017 record does not address.
“Islamists and Marxists”
The second theme in the reported interview was ideological. Gorka discussed what he described as an alliance between Islamist and Marxist movements. That characterisation is his political analysis: the report does not name specific organisations or attribute coordinated activity to any of them.
The theme echoed the subject of the session he had been scheduled to address, counterterrorism after October 7. On that day in 2023, Hamas terrorists murdered about 1,200 people in Israel and abducted 251 into Gaza, according to Israeli official figures.
The open questions
NatCon's Jerusalem programme continued through October 8, including the “Lawfare Everywhere” panel covered by Israel News Pulse. For Gorka's reported remarks, the question that remains is their setting: whether the full interview will be released, and when and where it was recorded.
