No, its not an apples to fruit basket comparison. When people talk about React they're not talking about only React, but more likely a front end app that implements React.

No one is saying "oh I love writing view layers. It's way better than actually building things".

I disagree. The distinction is worth pointing out, and he's right. Angular is more than just the view layer (directives). It provides the structure for the rest of your app. Other tech like Knockout.js is more comparable to React, as it's only solving the view layer problem.

If you're in New York, and you want to travel to London, you can either fly on a plane, or take a boat ride.

If I am trying to compare the pros and cons of flying vs sea travel, a distinction between the fact that a ship is not an airplane isn't really important.

Two vastly different approaches can attempt to solve the same problem, and they're worth considering on equal ground.

On a side note, when people mention working with React, it's safe to assume (if they're building real software) that they are using React with a framework, whether that be some implementation of Flux or Relay or something else entirely. When comparing Angular to React / Flux you've got yourself an apples to apples comparison.

Not really; a better analogy is if I'm in Kansas and I want to get to Beijing. I can fly all the way there, or I can take a car/plane/train to a boat to a car/plane/train.

Angular is the airline flight(s), React is the boat. It won't get you all the way there on its own.