[More in the cross-post on the MRC's NewsBusters blog.]
On the 18 November 2015 edition of New Day, CNN kept up their skepticism of the Obama administration's talking points on ISIS. Chris Cuomo noted that "the word from the White House is...that we are having success....How does that make sense, given...[what] we just saw what happened in Paris?" Christiane Amanpour threw cold water on John Earnest's claim that there wasn't a military solution for the terrorist group: "Most military analysts who I speak to...say right now, there needs to be a military solution. You have to eradicate ISIS, and that's not going to happen with some nice de-radicalization programs."
Jim Sciutto later made the most blunt assessment of the Obama White House's spin on the issue:
JIM SCIUTTO: ...The argument — the statistic that Josh Earnest used is — one, it's weeks old. I've heard it from the administration, going back months, that they've denied them 25 percent of the territory and populated areas in Iraq. And see, I've looked at the map. It's hard to figure out, to me, what they're talking about there....
The far more difficult argument to make — which he made — is that they're denying them a safe haven there. But listen — I mean, if you've plotted an attack on the streets of Paris; and, in the span of a week, brought down a Russian plane and killed 60 some odd people on the streets of Beirut with suicide bombers; you have enough of a safe haven to project terror power beyond those borders — meanwhile, greater territory being gained in the Sinai, in Libya, and elsewhere. It's just a very difficult argument to make that you have made military progress against this group.