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Last week, before the president wrote on Twitter “We have defeated ISIS in Syria,” McGurk said at a State Department briefing that \"Even as the end of the physical caliphate is clearly now coming into sight, the end of ISIS will be a much more long-term initiative...Nobody is declaring a mission accomplished.”

“Very clearly, the military objective is the enduring defeat of ISIS. And if we’ve learned one thing over the years, enduring defeat of a group like this means you can’t just defeat their physical space and then leave,” McGurk added.

In the letter to his staff announcing his resignation, McGurk said that Trump’s sudden decision to pull troops out of Syria “was a complete reversal of policy that was articulated to us.”Referencing the president’s tweet about McGurk, Karl said, “McGurk’s title is the special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS. How is it that the president doesn’t know his point person in the battle against ISIS?\"

\"PHOTO:
Jacquelyn Martin/AP, FILE
PHOTO: Mick Mulvaney, acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and Director of the Office of Management, listens during a news conference at the Department of Justice in Washington, July 11, 2018.
>

“You know the answer to that,\" Mulvaney said. \"The administration is thousands of -- the executive branch of government is millions of -- I have no idea who that person is. Never heard of him...until yesterday.”

Mulvaney said McGurk was appointed by former President Obama, which is true, but he also served as a senior official in the George W. Bush White House, serving on his national security staff.

“This is not a Democrat,” Karl said.

“I’m certain he’s well-known within the folks who follow this topic,” Mulvaney said. “But the fact… that the president of the United States doesn’t know him, I just don’t think should cause anybody any concern.”

Mulvaney said that \"from the beginning,\" Trump has been telling people that he was going to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria. If he has to fight against the Defense Department to do that, he’s going to do that. That’s what the president does,” Mulvaney said.“This is a promise kept by the president of the United States. It may upset a lot of people but the folks that voted for the president like it,” he concluded.

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