Trump has claimed his administration has defeated ISIS and beaten back the caliphate. But those aren’t the same. The caliphate may be gone but ISIS remains. (Video: Meg Kelly, Joy Yi, Atthar Mirza/Photo: Atthar Mirza and Andrew Quilty/The Washington Post)
Over the past several months, President Trump has made a variety of claims about the Islamic State. He has said “we have won,” that ISIS has been “beaten,” “defeated” and that there is “very little ISIS” left. He’s also said “the caliphate [is] almost knocked out” and the United States has “liberated virtually 100 percent of ISIS in Iraq and Syria.”
Army Gen. Joseph Votel, the head of U.S. Central Command, CIA Director Gina Haspel and Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats have all used more-measured language to describe the situation.
We asked the White House and the National Security Council for comment on the discrepancies in language between the president and his intelligence chiefs. An NSC spokesman pointed us to national security adviser John Bolton’s remarks on ABC News’ “This Week” on March 10.
View the complete March 13 article by Meg Kelly on The Washington Post website here.