Robert Reich: A Few Hundred People Joining ISIS Not Really a ‘Big Deal’

In the grand scheme of things, a few hundred people joining up with Islamic State forces is “not a big deal,” economist Robert Reich said Friday evening on Comedy Central’s The Nightly Show.

“We’ve covered it during the headline of all these westerners joining ISIS. I don’t understand that,” host Larry Wilmore said to his panel. “You know, we have the teen girls and all this. Why are people trying to join ISIS? What’s going on?”

And Reich’s explanation:

I think that there are not that many trying to join ISIS and you say all these European, all these Americans. Out of 600 million Europeans and Americans you’ve got, what, 400, 800 trying to join ISIS? This is not a big deal. The press is making it a big deal and the more we talk about it, the more people are gonna go.

That prompted Wilmore to ask the former Clinton advisor: “Well, you don’t think ISIS is a big deal?”

Reich clarified that the Islamic State itself is a “big deal” but that the actual number of recruits from the West — especially American ex-military recruits — is overblown by media outlets.

“But what about servicemen? What about people in the military?” Wilmore asked in response, regardless of how few actual cases there are. “If you’re in the military, what’s making you join ISIS? I don’t understand what that is.”

Watch below, via Comedy Central:

[h/t Newsbusters]
[Image via Comedy Central/screengrab]

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