Story highlights "He's definitely, he's one of the most different, one of the most brave people that I've ever met," Flynn said of Yiannopoulos.

When reached for comment on his praise of Yiannopoulos, Flynn responded to CNN's KFile with "good quote."

(CNN) Michael Flynn, Donald Trump's pick to be national security adviser, praised controversial online provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos one week after the election as "phenomenal" and one of the bravest people he's met.

Yiannopoulos, Breitbart's tech editor, has developed a following from the so-called alt-right, a movement associated with anti-Semitism and racism, by antagonizing progressives through his controversial statements and stunts. He set up a scholarship fund solely for white men, compared the Black Lives Matter movement to the Ku Klux Klan, and said that the United States has "a Muslim problem." He was permanently banned from Twitter earlier this year for inciting racist and sexist attacks on "Ghostbusters" actor Leslie Jones.

Speaking to a gathering of young conservatives at Trump's Washington hotel, Flynn said, "I was with Dinesh D'Souza last night, and the other, for the young audience here, for the young ones here, I mentioned it to a couple of you, I was also with Milo Yiannopoulos," Flynn said at the Young America's Foundation conference. "See, a lot of people in here won't know who he is. I tag him on Twitter, you know, because he's phenomenal individual, and I'm mentioning him tonight because he spoke alongside of me last night to another group of folks."

"He's definitely, he's one of the most different, one of the most brave people that I've ever met. We have different views on different things, but he is deeply, deeply conservative in his views about this country," the retired Army lieutenant general added. "So he is going around this country at the undergraduates, at our colleges and our universities and he fighting for you, for all of the people in here."