Flanagan: NSC 'Out of Control,' Needs to Be 'Streamlined'

The National Security Council (NSC) is a bloated agency that should be "streamlined" into a "smarter, faster, better" intelligence machine, former congressman and U.S. Army captain Michael Patrick Flanagan told Newsmax TV.

Flanagan's suggestion came as he praised Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, President Donald Trump's new national security adviser, for this week eliminating two positions on the council created by his predecessor Gen. Michael Flynn.

"The NSC has grown into almost a government by itself," Flanagan, R-Ill., told host Miranda Khan on Thursday's "America Talks Live." "If I'm not mistaken, during the Reagan administration, the NSC, the National Security Council, was 25 people. Now it's over 400 and staff and an assortment of others.

"It's out of control and anything that can be done to rein that in, bring it down to make it work – more streamlined, smarter, better, faster, and of course with a more uniformity of thought by only the smartest of the smart – is a good move."

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While praising McMaster's move, Flanagan, president of the Washington, D.C., lobbying and consulting firm Flanagan Consulting, said it was just "a pinprick against what needs to happen at the NSC."

"Hopefully [there's] more to come," he told Khan.

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