U.K. Prime Minister Warns of ‘Greatest Terrorist Threat’ in History. Hours Later, Obama Made This Comment at Fundraiser.

President Barack Obama said at a Democratic National Committee event Friday night that things are safer today than they were in the previous three decades.

"[I] promise you things are much less dangerous now than they were 20 years ago, 25 years ago or 30 years ago," Obama said after referencing challenges posed by the Islamic State terror group, the Ukrainian crisis and China's advancing economy.

President Barack Obama walks on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, Aug. 29, 2014, as he travels to Westchester County, N.Y., and Newport, R.I. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

The president's remarks came just hours after U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron warned that his county is facing the "greatest terrorist threat" in history and as U.S. officials say there has been a "significant increase" in jihadi chatter leading up to the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Obama, however, said that the "truth of the matter" is that the "world has always been messy."[sharequote align="right"]"[W]e’re just noticing now because of social media ... intimate detail the hardships that people are going through."[/sharequote]

"In part, we’re just noticing now because of social media and our capacity to see in intimate detail the hardships that people are going through," he said. "The good news is that American leadership has never been more necessary and there’s really no competition out there for the ideas and the values that can create the sort of order that we need in this world."

The president added that the threats posed by the Islamic State terror group in the Middle East are "not something that is comparable to the challenges faced during the Cold War."

"This is not comparable to the challenges that we faced when we had an entire block of Communist countries that were trying to do us in," Obama said. "This is something we can handle, because we are Americans and that’s what we do."

The president recently came under fire after he said at a Thursday press conference that the U.S. does not "have a strategy yet" to combat the Islamic State.

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