Hayes: Obama’s ISIS approach 'the wrong way to begin a concerted campaign’

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Hayes on administration's ISIS approach

Senior writer for The Weekly Standard Steve Hayes said Wednesday on “Special Report with Bret Baier” that the mixed messages the Obama administration is sending to the public about the campaign being waged against ISIS are damaging to the effort.

Steve Hayes said Wednesday on “Special Report with Bret Baier” that the mixed messages the Obama administration is sending to the public about the campaign being waged against the Islamic State militants are damaging to the administration's effort.

Hayes, a senior writer for the The Weekly Standard, said the administration's stance is sending the wrong message to the militant group, which is also known as ISIS and ISIL.

“I mean, the president gives a speech, a nationally televised, prime-time speech, in which he announces a non-war, and then we spend a week debating extensively and nationally about what we are not going to do," he said. "You have the president and his team, can’t decide whether to call it a war… They can’t agree whether there will be boots on the ground or not.”

Hayes called the messaging “exactly the wrong way to begin a concerted campaign” against a critical threat to our nation.

Moreover, he said that President Obama is sending a signal that while the Islamic State is a threat to our core interests, the U.S. is relying on other nations’ ground troops to solve the problem.

“[President Obama] is saying… ‘We’re going to get some other people to fight [ISIS],’” he said.