YOU GOING TO FIRE HIM FOR DOING WHAT HE WAS HIRED FOR?:

Mr. Flynn, a lifelong Democrat sacked as head of the Pentagon's intelligence arm after clashing with Obama administration officials in 2014, has gotten on the nerves of Mr. Trump and other administration officials because of his sometimes overbearing demeanor, and has further diminished his internal standing by presiding over a chaotic and opaque N.S.C. transition process that prioritized the hiring of military officials over civilian experts recommended to him by his own team.

Mr. Flynn's penchant for talking too much was on display on Friday in a meeting with Theresa May, the British prime minister, according to two people with direct knowledge of the events.

When Mrs. May said that she understood wanting a dialogue with Mr. Putin but stressed the need to be careful, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Flynn when the two were scheduled to speak.

Mr. Flynn replied it was Saturday -- he had delayed it to fit in Mrs. May's meeting for "protocol" as a United States ally, adding at length that Mr. Putin was impatient to chat.

Mr. Trump, the person said, appeared irritated by the response.

Still, the episode that did the most damage to the Trump-Flynn relationship occurred in early December when Mr. Flynn's son, also named Michael, unleashed a series of tweets pushing a discredited conspiracy theory that Clinton associates had run a [***]slave ring out of a Washington pizza restaurant.

Mr. Trump told his staff to get rid of the younger Mr. Flynn, who had been hired by his father to help during the transition. But Mr. Trump did so reluctantly because of his loyalty during the campaign, when dozens of former military officials were dismissing Mr. Trump as too unstable to command.

"I want him fired immediately," Mr. Trump said in a muted rendition of his "You're fired!" line in "The Apprentice," according to two people with knowledge of the interaction.

That has not stopped the general's son from spouting off: On Saturday, at a time when Trump surrogates were pushing back on the idea that the executive order did not discriminate against any religion, the younger Mr. Flynn tweeted his approval of the policy, adding "#MuslimBan." The tweet was subsequently deleted; his entire account disappeared later in the day.

Still, the national security adviser has also continued to dabble in the kind of bomb-throwing behavior that concerns Mr. Trump's allies, such as planning to attend an anti-Clinton "Deploraball" event at the time of the inauguration. He was urged to skip it by Trump allies, and ultimately agreed.

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