the president-elect today announced that retired general michael flynn would be his new security adviser. and that is not a position that requires any other form of announcement. that is it. no senate confirmation for national security adviser. for general flynn, that might be a blessing. last year, he attended the anniversary party for russian state-sponsored television. there he is there. and just to the right of him. see that handsome guy? that is russian president vladimir putin sitting with general flynn, who explained his actions, saying he was paid for that appearance. that is his defense, going to the dinner with vladimir putin and honoring state russian tv. his defense was i was paid to be there.
now he will be national security adviser to the president of the united states. general flynn was fired from the defense intelligence agency from 2014 as what was described from one side as leadership clashes. he explained it as, the military fired me for calling our enemies radical jihadists. i think it is fair to say, i think his supporters would concede that he is a fringe enough choice that you would probably hear, probably impotent opposition, for somebody like him having a big important role in the white house. a former colleague said his thinking process is not sufficiently analytical to test streams. if you listen to him, in ten minutes you will hear him contradict himself two or three times. flynn is known for putting stuff like this on twitter. fear of muslims is rational.
at this point in the show, i had something else we were going to cover, but i scrapped it. the thing i need to say about the michael flynn national security adviser announcement. it s an announcement, it s done. all a president-elect or president ultimately has to do to get a national security adviser is ask somebody and have them say yes. this is done. that means it will not be discussed all that much compared to the other people who have to go through the senate confirmation process. the choice of michael flynn really is a different kettle of fish than anything that i think even we might have expected from the trump campaign. michael flynn calls islam a political ideology hiding behind a religion. michael flynn calls islam a malignant cancer. michael flynn did sit next to vladimir putin and take moonor to go to a gala honoring russian state television and has been a frequent guest on russian state television and says he sees no
security adviser. general flynn has accepted the job offer, and as far as we understand it that is the end of that process. he s in, he is done. joining us is adam schiff, congressman, thank you for joining us. nice to see you. good to see you, too. broadly, what is your reaction to mike flynn being named national security adviser? well you know, shocked and gravely concerned about it. both for the reasons of his policies, they re well out of the mainstream when it comes to russia. his comments about turkey show a complete lack of appreciation on who is happening there. and more broadly, his views on islam, his failure to distinguish the perversion of that state by groups like isis. and his ideas, that there is a clash of civilizations between the west and islam, that they re incompatible with a relationship with the west. these are deeply disturbing ideas that the president-elect