Did Trump defeat ISIS?

Back in 2020, in the middle of his re-election campaign, Donald Trump and the vice president, Mike Pence, made the claim more than once that they had defeated ISIS. To be fair, we haven’t heard from the group for a long time now, so could Trump be telling the truth?

Donald Trump’s claims

Over the course of his four years as president, Trump took credit for a lot of the campaign against ISIS, for example, taking out the leader of ISIS back in 2019. CBS reported on Trump’s claim at the time; he stated that Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was killed in a raid that lasted more than two hours. Trump watched the whole thing happen in real time from the White House situation room, but yes it did happen whilst he was president, so technically I suppose you can give him credit for that. 

The ex-president also claimed that the U.S. had done more against ISIS than the previous administration, pointing the finger at the supposed failures of the Obama presidency, something which he still loves to do. At the National Congressional Republican Committee, Trump made the claim that, “we’ve taken back almost 100 percent, in a very short period of time, of the land that they took. And it all took place since our election.” That’s a pretty bold statement but is he right?

Are Donald Trump’s claims true?

As previously mentioned, the leader of ISIS was killed during Trump’s time in office, and that seems to have been one of the final nails in the coffin for the group. Whilst he may have seen an end to the war against the group, many of the claims made by Trump and his office are not entirely correct and taking all the credit for the downfall of ISIS is just plain misinformation.

The claim that the U.S. forces had taken back more than the previous administration is also incorrect. In fact, it was Barack Obama who had initially launched the campaign known as Operation Inherent Resolve. This was a joint task force of U.S. troops, allied troops and other groups to fight against ISIS and it began in 2014. According to CBS News, IS had lost more than 40% of its territory by the time Trump came into office. It’s pretty clear that Obama’s administration laid the groundwork for the successful war effort before 2017 and whilst Trump carried on with that war effort, it’s no surprise that he would try and claim all the glory for himself.

So did Donald Trump defeat ISIS?

Yes and no; he played a part in the end of IS by carrying on the campaign started by Obama. But one man can’t take all the credit for something that took many people to organize and mobilize. Multiple countries and groups took part in the operation and a great deal of the battle was already won before Trump even set foot in the Oval Office.