“Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade on Thursday argued that it’s “just inaccurate” for President Trump “to declare victory” over the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Kilmeade’s comments during the popular Fox News morning show come one day after the president’s announcement that he had decided to pull troops out of Syria, citing a campaign promise to do so and a need to focus on priorities at home.

{mosads}”Getting out of Syria was no surprise. I’ve been campaigning on it for years, and six months ago, when I very publicly wanted to do it, I agreed to stay longer,” Trump said in a tweet to his 56.4 million followers. “Russia, Iran, Syria & others are the local enemy of ISIS. We were doing there [sic] work. Time to come home & rebuild.”  
 
Kilmeade pushed back on Thursday, saying, “Nobody thinks ISIS is defeated. Nobody who understands, who was born after 2000, who sees what’s happened since 9/11.”

 

“By the way, Brett McGurk, his personal envoy, just gave a speech last week saying ISIS is there, they’re still a factor, they’re far from defeated. There’s 30,000 there,” Kilmeade added, referring to the special envoy to the coalition fighting ISIS.

“Here is Masrour Barzani, the chancellor and top security official in the Kurdish region, there as you know, they are doing almost all the fighting,” Kilmeade also noted. “He says they are reorganizing and they are reactivating. They have killed 37 tribal leaders in the last 10 months.” 

 

“For the president to declare victory just is inaccurate,” he concluded. 

 

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough cited Kilmeade’s comments on Thursday morning on “Morning Joe.”

 

“Even Donald Trump’s own administration is saying today they are concerned by his decision, saying eight days ago — what Kilmeade is saying there — the job’s not over, we’re cutting and running,” the former GOP congressman said.

 

Trump has praised “Fox & Friends” on numerous occasions since taking office and has granted the program multiple interviews, with the most recent one conducted in October.