GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson argued Thursday that ISIS "absolutely" poses more of a threat to the United States than al Qaeda did in both 2001 and 2003.
In the process, Carson, who made the comments during a press availability in Mobile, Ala., doubled down on his Sunday claim that al Qaeda was not an "existential threat" in 2003, adding that the 9/11 attacks did not "require a great deal of sophistication."
"[Al Qaeda] weren't nearly as developed as [the Islamic State is] now, at that point. That was my point," Carson told reporters. "This is so much greater a threat to us than that was.
"Being responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, what happened right there really didn't require a great deal of sophistication because we were not paying attention," Carson argued. "We were not coordinating our efforts. So you didn't have to be all that great. You had to be able to fly some planes. That's going to be much more difficult to do now. You're going to have to be much more sophisticated than that now."
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