BREITBART -- During MSNBC’s coverage of the terrorist attack in New Orleans on Wednesday, Senior Vice President for Global Operations at The Soufan Group Christopher O’Leary, who was Director of Hostage Rescue and Recovery during the Biden administration and worked in counterterror positions across multiple administrations stated that “al-Qaeda and ISIS are stronger now than they’ve ever been.” 

He added that the U.S. government “has pivoted a lot of its attention and resources and authorities away from it. If we continue to try to just bury our heads in the sand and hope the bogeyman’s going to go away, these are the things that will start happening again.”

Host Christina Ruffini asked, “[W]e were talking earlier about the state of ISIS, al-Qaeda as a global jihadist movement, and when we talk about associates, whether or not that’s someone these individuals are speaking to directly or whether they’re just taking inspiration.