'Russia greater threat than ISIS' US host blasts ex-Obama aide for Manchester bombing snub
A US host demolished a former Barack Obama adviser for saying Russia posted a greater threat as Islamic State after the terrorist group claimed responsibility for the Manchester terror attack.
US host demolishes commentator over Russia snub
Tucker Carlson rounded on David Tafuri, a former state department official, as he insisted Vladimir Putin’s Russia posed a larger overall threat to the west, compared to the imminent threat of ISIS terrorists.
The Fox News host asked: “Which is the bigger threat to the US, ISIS or Russia?”
Mr Tafuri said: “I think ISIS is a more immediate threat absolutely, but Russia has a much stronger military.
“Russia can hurt us and hurt US interests all over the world, so we have to worry about both.”
Tucker pointed out Russia had not taken a single American life, while terror organisations in the Middle East had claimed the lives of thousands.
He said: “We have on the one side ISIS, Islamic terror, al-qaeda over the past 15 years, thousands of Americans have lost their lives, many thousands to those forces.
“Russia has killed - let me just see - zero Americans. So it is not even in the same universe actually, the threat we face from Islamic terror and the threat we face from Russia.
“One is theoretical, the other is real and present, so why are we not seeing that?”
Mr Tafuri however insisted the number of lives lost was not the best way of assessing which posed the greater threat.
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Russia has killed - let me just see - zero Americans
He said: “First of all Tucker, you can’t evaluate the threat just based on how many Americans lives have been lost.
“Russia is a threat to democracy, a threat to our way of life. Look at what Russia has done in Ukraine. It annexed Crimea, it is in eastern Ukraine, it's killed a lot of people in Ukraine.
“Ukraine wanted to be a part of the west, it wanted to be a democracy, it wanted to join Europe, it wanted to be our ally. Russia has been threatening democracy for a long time.”
The fiery exchange came after Tucker criticised American networks for spending more times reporting on the alleged collusion between Donald Trump and Russia, rather than covering the Manchester bombing as it happened.
He said: “If you were watching other news networks last night, you may have noticed it took them a while to start covering the terror attack in the UK once it happened.
“Instead they spent almost an hour continuing to chase after claims of collusion between Russia and President Trump.
“Now what do these two topics have in common? They appear wholly unrelated, Manchester attack last night and Russia but they are actually connected.
“If you thought about it… you’d realise the US may have something to gain by cooperating with Russia in checking radical Islam.”
Following the attack at Manchester Arena during an Ariana Grande concert on Monday evening, officials named Salman Abedi as the bomber who claimed the lives of 22 people, including several children.