Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has been an informal foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump for months, but says the presumptive Republican presidential nominee has yet to heed one major piece of advice.
“There must be more precision in the use of the language that he uses as the potential leader of the free world,” Flynn, who previously served as director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, told Al Jazeera’s “UpFront” in an interview released Thursday.
“Those are the … pieces of advice that I’m trying to get into him,” he said.
Trump has long been criticized for his muddled rhetoric on foreign affairs. Last month, he sought to assuage such concerns by delivering a major foreign policy speech in Washington and more recently, he’s held private discussions with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham about national security and America’s role on the world stage.
“I know Mr. Trump is reaching out to many people, throughout the party and the country, to solicit their advice and opinions. I believe this is a wise move on his part,” Graham said in a statement last week.
Despite criticizing his oratory, Flynn seemed to agree with most of Trump’s policy proposals on terrorism and national security.
“What I support … is that we must understand where these individuals are coming from,” the former intelligence official responded when asked about Trump’s proposal to bar non-American Muslims from entering the U.S.
Flynn said he supports “the vetting of individuals and the proper screening of individuals who are coming from certain parts of the world like Syria.”
Flynn has reportedly been advising Trump informally since February, though he was not included on a list of foreign policy advisers released by the Trump campaign in late March.
