Appearing as a guest on Wednesday's New Day to talk about his CNN special on President Barack Obama, Fareed Zakaria dismissively suggested that the number of people killed by terrorism in the U.S. in the past decade is "trivial," and recalled that President Obama has a history of pointing out that "more Americans drown in their bathtubs every year than are killed by international terrorists."
At 8:18 a.m. ET, co-host Alisyn Camerota wondered about the differences between President Obama and President-elect Donald Trump's approaches to foreign policy as she posed: "Is there a way, in your mind, to characterize the sort of doctrine — foreign policy doctrine of Obama versus Trump?"
Zakaria began his comparison between the two:
Well, what's really interesting is, at some core level, they actually agree. Obama's core strategy has been, draw down the United States from conflicts where it can't really settle the disputes between Sunnis and Shias, nation-build, and focus instead on the big picture, Asia, things like that. So I don't think Trump really, if he were to think about it, disagrees with that. He's been against getting us in wars. Both of them want this much lighter footprint.
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He then used the word "trivial" to describe the number of deaths in the U.S. from terrorism, and seemed to go along with Obama's view of the Islamic terrorism threat as he added:
The big difference is, I think, that in that speech yesterday, Obama emphasizes it's really important to put ISIS and terrorism in context: It is not an existential threat to the United States. The number of people it has been able to kill over the last decade has been trivial. He often points out more Americans drown in their bathtubs every year than are killed by, you know, international terrorists. And so don't overreact. Don't shred the Constitution. Don't sacrifice civil liberties because this is a manageable threat. That piece, I think he and Trump. you know, he's "Mr. Under-reaction," and one is "Mr. Over-reaction."
