The Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) and ranking member Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) appeared Sunday on Fox News, and spoke about the administration’s handling of national security matters, including last weekend’s attempted terror attack in New York’s Times Square.

Classifying the Times Square attempt as a “very serious issue,” Rep. Reyes emphasized that catching these kind of planned attacks before they happen is critical.  Reyes told Fox News, “the bottom line is that we need to work together, we need to have a strategy, we need to continue to learn.”

When asked if the administration was slow to react to the attempted Times Square attack, Reyes applauded the police work that apprehended the Times Square terror suspect, Faisal Shahzad, in 53 hours, while noting that in an election year, partisan politics play a role in a variety of issues, including homeland security.  Reyes said “its an election year…and Republicans are trying to make Democrats look weak on national security.”

Defending the GOP, Rep. Hoekstra said the country can’t afford to “have any more failures in terrorism that allow us to get so close to a successful attack against the United States on our home soil” and that a key component of U.S. counterrorism efforts needs to be communication between all sectors, including the White House.  Earlier this week, Hoekstra and Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee sent a letter to President Obama demanding increased White House cooperation regarding national security issues. The letter chastised the president for “refusing to provide requested briefings or information” and for failing to adequately communicate intelligence information to the House Intelligence Committee.