ICYMI: McCaul Discusses New Orleans Terror Attack and Foreign Policy on ABC's "This Week"
WASHINGTON – U.S. Congressman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) — chairman emeritus of the House Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs Committees — joined ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos to discuss the New Orleans terror attack and Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine.
Excerpts from the interview:
On the current threat environment:
"I think it's a rising threat. When I chaired the Homeland Security Committee, we had a lot of external operations like, you know, explosives on airplanes. Then it morphed into radicalization on the internet. ... I would say the New Orleans case was radicalization online, but what we're worried about, in that case, is his travels to Egypt and what was going on there. He was involved with a rare bombmaking material that was not available in the United States. ... It reminds me so much, George, of the Boston bomber who traveled to Dagestan, came back, and then built this pressure cooker bomb that led to the deaths of so many people in that marathon."
On the rise in terror threats after the failed Afghanistan withdrawal:
"The other thing, George, I'm very worried about, is with the fall of Afghanistan and the debacle, ... we are seeing a resurgence of ISIS and ISIS-K in the Khorasan region between Afghanistan and Pakistan that concerns me greatly. We know that eight ISIS individuals have entered the United States. ... So you really have two type of threats. One is operational; the other one is inspired attacks, radicalized over the internet. They're both equally lethal, and they need to be focused on to stop it."
On the unholy alliance between Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea:
"The fact is, George, I can't overemphasize ... it's not just Putin. Putin is aligned with Chairman Xi in China, who threatens the Indo-Pacific. He's also aligned with the Ayatollah in the Middle East who we've seen threaten Israel. ... Kim Jong-Un has sent 10,000 troops of his own to fight Ukrainians. They're all in this together."
On the need for enforcement mechanisms in any negotiated end to the war in Ukraine:
"I don't think the Biden administration has given [Ukraine] leverage. I think President Trump does want to end the war and have a peaceful negotiation. We're all for that, but it's got to be on terms that do not throw Ukraine under the bus. They were thrown under the bus in the Budapest Agreements, where they gave up all their nuclear weapons in assurance for security, and guess what happened? There was none. If there is a deal cut, we have to have teeth in that enforcement agreement such that if Russia ever invades again, there will be consequences. ... [NATO is] an important ally, and just as I went to the Battle of the Bulge and honored those [World War II] troops, history does repeat itself, and we're seeing a threat in the Indo-Pacific and in Europe [that is] very similar to what we saw in 1939."
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