Trump offers top security job to ex-officer: source
NEW YORK — U.S. president-elect Donald Trump began building out his national security team Thursday, offering retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn the job of national security adviser. The move came as Trump made his most direct foray into foreign policy since the election, meeting with Japan’s prime minister.
That’s according to a senior Trump official who was not authorized to discuss the offer publicly and insisted on anonymity.
Flynn, who served as the director of the Defence Intelligence Agency, has advised Trump on national security issues for months. As national security adviser, he would work in the White House and have frequent access to the president.
The official wouldn’t say whether Flynn had accepted the job.
Trump held his first face-toface meeting with a world leader since winning the presidential election on Thursday, huddling privately with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. While Trump made no comments, Abe said the president-elect was “a leader in whom I can have great confidence.”
Earlier Thursday, Trump consulted with former secretary of state Henry Kissinger and sat down with South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a potential contender to lead the State Department.
In Washington, vice-presidentelect Mike Pence huddled with Republican leaders in Congress. He then met with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer, the newly elected leader of the Senate Democrats, seeking to convey respect as Democrats prepare for Republican rule of both chambers and the White House for the first time in a decade.
“We look forward to finding ways that we can find common ground and move the country forward,” Pence said outside Schumer’s Senate office.
In a separate gesture of reconciliation with establishment Republicans, Trump planned to meet with 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who lambasted Trump as a “con man” and a “fraud” in a stinging speech last March. Trump responded by repeatedly referring to Romney as a “loser.”
The two began mending fences after Trump’s victory when Romney called with congratulations. They are to meet this weekend, a transition official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Campaign manager Kellyanne Conway said they were still “working on” the meeting.
Since his victory over Hillary Clinton last week, Trump has spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin, British Prime Minister Theresa May and nearly three dozen other world leaders by telephone. But Abe’s visit to Trump’s Manhattan highrise was his first in-person meeting with a foreign leader since the election.