If Congress fails to renew a controversial provision of the Patriot Act by June, the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, says opponents of the bill on Capitol Hill should bear the blame if an otherwise preventable terrorist attack happens afterwards.

In a question-and answer-session at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Clapper reiterated his support for renewing Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows the FBI and NSA to collect domestic phone records in bulk, is set to expire on 1 June. He expressed this support strongly and pointed a finger at opponents of the legislation on Capitol Hill. Clapper, America’s top-ranking intelligence official, said if Congress decides not to renew the legislation and an “untoward incident” occurs as a result, he hopes “everyone involved in that decision assumes responsibility” and doesn’t just blame the intelligence community.

However, Clapper did indicate his support for the reforms proposed to Section 215 by Senator Patrick Leahy last year, which shift responsibility for retaining phone records to individual phone companies from the FBI. This proposal failed to receive the needed supermajority in the Senate for a final vote in 2014 on a near party-line vote where 41 Republicans and one Democrat opposed it.

Clapper, though, did not get into the fine details of the reform, which would include regulating how long phone companies have to retain these records. He simply noted his preference that the longer the phone companies retain the information, the better. In making the argument for the virtues of the statute, he compared it to buying homeowner’s insurance, saying “my house has never burned down but I buy fire insurance just in case”.

The director of national intelligence also talked about the ongoing threat of the Islamic State (Isis) and the conflict in Syria. He tackled the criticism of President Obama for refusing to use the phrase “Islamic terrorism” by noting that Obama has to speak to “a larger audience of 1.6 billion Muslims”. In contrast, he noted that the intelligence community focuses on “way less than 1%” of that number and said they simply “call them what they call themselves”. Clapper noted that one of the important priorities in the conflict with Isis is to mount “a very robust effort at a counter narrative” against the slick, manipulative propaganda of the terrorist group.

He did note that at this point, Americans returning from Syria do not present a threat to United States. He said that “on order of 40” Americans have returned from fighting in Syria and none of them have “nefarious purposes”.

Clapper also shared his analysis of Vladimir Putin who he viewed as a “throwback to the halcyon days of the great Russian empire” and whose main foreign policy goal is “control of former Soviet space”. While he was reluctant to blame the recent assassination of the dissident Boris Nemtsov on Putin or elements in the Russian government, Clapper did joke that he was “sure Putin himself will personally investigate” Nemtsov’s murder.

In the course of the question and answer, Clapper reaffirmed that he was “very confident” that North Korea was responsible for the 2014 hack of Sony and that the regime had probably undertaken the effort alone, without help from other countries. He also expressed his scepticism about the management of the Venezuelan economy by President Nicolás Maduro in the wake of falling oil revenue, calling Maduro “maybe not the most astute head of state”.

The Korean food aficionado also shared that the best kimchi that he ever ate was on a mission to retrieve hostages from Pyongyang.

Yet, throughout the back and forth, Clapper made clear that he cannot remember a time “when we have been beset by more crises and challenges around the world”. And while he seemed relatively zen about congressional action on the Patriot Act, saying “Congress giveth and Congress taketh away,” it was clear who Clapper will blame if things go wrong in the future.