Speaking at the State Department on Wednesday morning, Vice President Mike Pence reportedly told assembled diplomats that the “caliphate has crumbled and ISIS has been defeated.”

Those remarks ran headlong into reality as reports simultaneously poured out of Syria, including from official mouthpieces of Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS, that U.S. troops had been killed in an attack in the city of Manbij. The attack has since been claimed by the Islamic State.

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