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BLITZER: Let's dig a little bit deeper right now. We're joined by the chairman of the house board affairs committee. Republican Congressman Ed Royce is joining us from his home state of California.
Mr. Chairman, thanks very much for coming in.
What do you think of this relationship between Presidents Obama and Putin?
REP. ED ROYCE (R), CALIFORNIA: Well, I think it's unfortunate, clearly, that Putin's a very different leader.
I think there was an opportunity with the past leadership in Russia. But right now, clearly, Putin intends to stick his eye in the United States -- stick his thumb in the eye of the United States every time he can. And so it's a difficult situation. He's trying to undermine us in Syria. He's not helpful in Iran. And, as a consequence, I think we're in a tough position right now.
BLITZER: So you don't have any criticism of President Obama for allowing this relationship to deteriorate clearly, as it has?
ROYCE: Well, I think my critique would be that if the United States was taken maybe a little more seriously on the world stage, the likelihood then would be that we'd have a little bit more respect out of the Russians.
But right now, I think that President Putin believes that -- the head of state in Russia today believes that he can dis the U.S. without any negative consequences. And that probably comes from the fact that we don't carry the same perception of strength that we did and the gravitas of the president of the United States is not that of former presidents. And I do think that's a problem for President Obama.
BLITZER: What do you think of his new proposals to make the NSA surveillance programs more transparent to the American public?
ROYCE: Well, I think we should do that, but I am concerned that the president took so long.
Over the last two months, if he would have come out forcefully and explained the program and what was behind the program and explained to the American public some of the information -- on the Senate side, I know our colleagues did a pretty exhaustive audit and found that over the last four years, they could not find any examples. I think we had 300 queries last year, for example, looking into this.
And what they were specifically monitoring were phone calls from al Qaeda to al Qaeda agents in the Western Hemisphere and in the United States. And so I think that a better explanation of the president two months ago would have helped the situation. I think he's waited too long to address it, and at this point I think it's wise for us to reassure the American public.
Certainly, Congress should be involved in this. We should set up additional protections. But most of this work is done overseas anyway. And most of it is done to protect our assets overseas, certainly our troops in Afghanistan, to protect our embassies, to protect our allies in Europe and in Central Asia and the Middle East.
And I think all of that should be explained more forcefully by the president. By waiting so long, I think he allowed a lot of conjecture, a lot of questions to develop out there. So now's the time for us to cooperate and get this information out.
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BLITZER: One final question. Al Qaeda, does it still have the capability of launching another 9/11-type strike against the United States?
ROYCE: Wolf, that's a very good question, because, as you know, the key bomb maker for al Qaeda has developed a strategy and a new weaponization program.
You saw a little bit of it in the attempt with the underwear bomber, undetected capability to bring in weapons and carry out attacks in the United States. Now, that's what al Qaeda's working on. And on top of that, they're expanding that capability to teach other bomb makers. And they're putting it on the Internet. And you saw the consequences of that in terms of Boston.
That was an al Qaeda web page, how to make a bomb in your mother's kitchen. So they're working on this right now. That's why these intelligence programs are so important. We're trying to intercept that. We're trying to find the location of that particular bomb maker. We're trying to track the network that al Qaeda is setting up of other bomb makers.
And this is a new development. And, yes, there are more al Qaeda cells today than there were a few years ago. It's a big challenge.
BLITZER: Ed Royce is the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Congressman, thanks very much for coming in.
ROYCE: Thank you, Wolf.
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