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Al Qaeda has come back. Al Qaeda is a resilient organization. But they're not here in large numbers. But al Qaeda doesn't have to be anywhere in large numbers.

The Muslim Brotherhood has decades of violent history covertly operating in the United States and is recognized by experts as having 100 times more active members than Al-Qaeda.

In terms of the breadth of the threat of Al Qaeda itself - it's not the only terrorist organization, and it works with others as cells around the world in at least 60 countries. You potentially are talking about tens of thousands of followers who can be conscripted into service to carry out a terrorist plot.

I think these al Qaeda franchise groups have clearly evolved into a much more dangerous strain.

Al Qaeda is not the organization now that it was before. It is under stress organizationally. Its leadership spends more time trying to figure out how to keep from getting caught than they do trying to launch operations.

Public discussion of how we determine al Qaeda intentions, I just - I can't see how that can do anything but harm the security of the nation.

Al Qaeda has significance beyond its numbers, frankly. And so for us, our 24-hour-a-day objective is to seek out those al Qaeda cells. And, as we seek them out, to target them and eliminate them. And we're doing that 24 hours a day.

There are many causes of violent deaths in America - murders and traffic accidents - that we do not approach with the same 'no price too steep, no task too difficult' approach that we take toward al Qaeda.

Staying in a very public fight with the U.S. is exactly what Al Qaeda wants.

Some might say that that while al Qaeda the organization may be basically dead, its ideology continues to thrive and to inspire 'lone wolves' to attack the United States.