Secretary of State John Kerry defended his comments that there was “less threat” of Americans dying of terrorism on ABC’s “This Week,” while simultaneously claiming that no one in the administration was trying to “minimize” the terrorist threat.
RADDATZ: Let me read you a few comments from this week. A top FBI official testified we’re losing the battle in countering ISIS online. The director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, says this has been the most lethal year for global terrorism and the latest figures show more foreign fighters have joined ISIS in the past six months than have been killed.
You said this week to Congress that we’re living in a period of less daily threat to Americans, with fewer violent deaths than any time in the last century. Can you understand why the American people just aren’t feeling that?
KERRY: Well, I understand. Of course I understand it, Martha, because people are thinking about the day to day vision of what is happening on the ground in Syria, in Libya, where 21 Coptic Christians had their heads cut off, where a soldier is burned and a pilot in a cage, where American journalists have been beheaded publicly. We understand that.
But I still stand by what I said, which is in long terms, compared to the last century, there are, in fact, fewer people dying of the means — that you look at, by state war, violence, health, etc. But that’s not what’s important. What’s important right now is what James Clapper said. There is an uptick in the level of terrorism and specific incidents of people being killed. And that threat is very, very real. Nobody is trying to minimize it.
President Obama has put together a coalition of countries that have come together. We’re all super focused on this. And we are focused on the Internet cyberspace battle also.