ABC "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" - Transcript: Radical Foreign Fighters

Interview

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More on this now from the chair of the House Committee on homeland security, Congressman Michael McCaul. And Matthew Olsen, who was the director of the National Counterterrorism Center until just last month.

I would like to start with you, Congressman McCaul. Do you consider the attack in the New York City subway a terror attack?

REP. MICHAEL MCCAUL, (R) TEXAS: I do. I think all of the markings are there of radical Islamist ties.

This is the profile of the enemy within: self-radicalization within the United States. We worry a lot about ISIS traveling overseas from Syria to the United States, but I think one of the greatest fears are those already within the United States who are being radicalized and inspired by the ISIS propaganda that's out there on the internet. They are waging a campaign of war against the west and the United States and these are three examples just last week of where they're winning.

RADDATZ: One of the things that struck me, and particularly this week with the school shooting, is worried about copy cats and that people are inspired not just by ISIS, but by seeing these other attacks. Congressman, quickly on that and then I want to go to Matt Olsen on that as well.

MCCAUL: Well, I -- I think, you know, getting attention, in a lot of cases, these are people in a basement radicalizing over the Internet. They're not mentally all that sound, in a lot of the cases. And they're very hard to stop. That's the main point I want to make is to detect and deter and destruct these cases, as FBI Comey, the director, said before my committee, are really one of the most difficult to stop. And it's like finding a needle in a haystack and then getting them out of that radicalization toward a deradicalization path.

RADDATZ: And -- and Matt Olsen, again, on the fears of this copycat, but is -- is there a strategy to stop this?

OLSEN: You know, I agree with Chairman McCaul. These are very difficult to stop. I mean this is the kind of violence that we've been concerned about, this spate of violence over the last week.

We need to learn more about the motivation for each of these. Obviously, each one is under investigation.

But, again, this is the kind of violence from these homegrown extremists that we've been concerned about over several years. This is not -- you know, this is not a new phenomenon.

The propaganda we see from ISIS does give us additional concern because they're very good at putting out their message online and seeking to, you know, have their supporters carry out attacks wherever they are.

And as Chairman McCaul said, it's very hard for local law enforcement or the intelligence community to stop these single individuals who are seeking to carry out these small scale attacks like we've seen over the past week.

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