Sebastian Gorka Sebastian Lukacs GorkaSunday shows preview: Trump, lawmakers weigh in on COVID-19, masks and school reopenings amid virus surge Trump taps Gorka for national security advisory board Sunday shows preview: Coronavirus poses questions about school safety; Trump commutes Roger Stone sentence MORE, a deputy assistant to President Trump, was a frequent critic of Trump on foreign policy issues during the 2016 presidential campaign, CNN reported Friday.

While the former Breitbart national security editor advised the Trump campaign in 2015, he later criticized Trump on several foreign policy issues.

"On the right, the Republican side, we have the New York real estate mogul who's very full of bluster, full of sturm und drang, makes lots of statements about how we're going to win and how the U.S. Army is going to be undefeatable, but there's no depth," Gorka said during an appearance on "The Georgene Rice Show" in April 2016, CNN reported.

"There's no plan. There's no strategy. So I can't judge him because he's really a black hole, so the last one that's really serious is Sen. [Ted] Cruz [R-Texas]," he added at the time.

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Gorka also maintained that he didn't see "a mature plan" in Trump's foreign policy.

"The real estate mogul from New York is a lot of bluster, a lot of loud things to do with waterboarding, etc.," Gorka said days earlier on another radio program, according to CNN. "But I just don't see the detail; I don't see the mature plan."

Alongside the criticism of Trump's vision for the country, Gorka also took issue with specific policy positions.

"When he talked about the attitude to our allies, to whether they should freeload or not, also when he talked about Russia and China, I was really disturbed," he said in June on "The Don Smith Show" as reported by the network.

"The things he said about how we can work with Russia and China, Russia is not on our side. The head of Russia is a former KGB colonel who wanted to destroy America. China is the world's most powerful communist nation so the idea, if you think we can work with these guys in meaningful fashion, I think history would prove you wrong," he said, adding he thought Trump's views had improved but remained "problematic."

Gorka declined to comment to CNN about his past criticisms of Trump.

He has since become a regular defender of Trump's foreign policy views and frequently appears on television and radio programs lauding the president's statements and positions.

Past criticism of the president has previously stirred scrutiny.

In February, Trump reportedly rejected Elliott Abrams, a top candidate for deputy secretary of State, after learning that he had criticized him during the campaign.

Abrams, who had experience serving under former Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, wrote an op-ed for the conservative magazine the Weekly Standard in May 2016 titled "When you can't stand your candidate." At the time, he argued that the GOP had "nominated someone who cannot win and should not be president of the United States."