Tom Ridge: ‘We Need Leadership’; Obama Has Spending His Time Attacking GOP, Not ISIS

‘He ought to be providing the leadership that historically the rest of the world looks to’

GUTHRIE: “That’s a good segue to former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. Secretary Ridge, good morning, good to have you here, sir.”

RIDGE: “Good morning, good morning.”

GUTHRIE: “Good to have you here, sir. We don’t want to alarm people because perhaps Europe’s situation is a great deal worse than ours is. However, do you see things in Paris that could be replicated here? What is waking you up in the middle of the night these days?”

RIDGE: “Well, I think your — the tone of your question is precisely the right one. We’re allowed to be anxious because Americans responded to those attacks just like we responded to 9/11. There was horror, there was sorrow. And I think our anger went to rage and we want to hold folks accountable. So I think, as some advice that Shawn said, that we’ve got eyes and ears in the neighborhoods, let’s just simply be aware. But, let’s also understand we’ve got a great intelligence capability, we’ve got enormous law enforcement capability. I think one of the challenges we have here is for the FBI to work more closely and collaboratively with the hundreds of thousands of men and women, police forces in the state and local level. They don’t have the manpower in Washington, D.C. to do this, so let’s empower them with information.”

LAUER: “We never want terrorists to be successful in carrying out an attack, but when they do carry something out, it opens a window for us. We learn things about their tactics and their structure and their organization. From where you’re sitting, what are we learning about ISIS based on what we’re seeing in Paris?”

RIDGE: “Well, we know they’re not a JV team, we know they’re not contained. We know they’re amoeba-like, we know they’ve got are a rather significant reach. That’s one of the reasons that I would call for — the use of the force multiplier with the state and locals, arm them with information. I wonder what would have happened had Ed Davis in Boston been aware of the Tsarnaev brothers in his presence. He found out about it after the bombs went off.  So, I think there are a lot of learnings, but I think one of the things we need to learn and really learn to appreciate is the hundreds of thousands of men and women back home. You also have to start playing offense, Matt. I mean, we got to start dealing with – there’s a lot of discussion about refugees these days. There’s a real serious problem over there. But if we’ve got to play defense at home, but the President can’t let the clock run out. I know he loves basketball, but it’s not like running out the clock. You run out the clock when you’re winning. We need to build a coalition to deal with this — deal with this in Syria, as well.”

LAUER: “You mentioned here at home, there are some stories relating to this taking place her at home, so stick around for a second. I want to ask you about those in a second.”

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