CNN's Jake Tapper yet again distinguished himself as one of the few in mainstream media willing to challenge the administration's lies. 

During the network's State of the Union on Sunday morning Tapper assailed Secretary of State John Kerry on his claim that ISIS is "shrinking" and is "on the run."

"Well, with all due respect, sir," began Tapper in response. "I'm not sure that it looks that way to the public, that ISIS is on the run."

Tapper didn't stop there, and the video clip and transcript, provided by Newsbusters, is worth reviewing. Kerry opens his remarks with the assertion that the recent terrorists, like those in Nice, France and in Orlando, Florida just had "mental problems." 

KERRY: So, we are working with the French to try to put the pieces together, but, you know, this is one of those things, Jake, it's worse than the needle in a haystack. If you have no indications of somebody, and you don't have any track record of radicalization, and, all of a sudden, over a week or in some period, somebody with apparent mental problems anyway decides to go do great harm to people, it is not hard to do that.

Kerry then said the increase in terrorist attacks in the West "indicates" that ISIS is "under great, great pressure: 

What we believe this indicates, however, is that Da'esh, ISIL, in Syria and Iraq is under great, great pressure. And people are acting out in various places. But they are not growing in their ability to do things. They are shrinking. 

We have taken back 40 percent, 45 percent of the territory they held in Iraq. We're squeezing town after town. We have liberated communities. We're making progress now advancing on Mosul. In Syria, likewise, they're not able to attack and hold towns. They are on the run.

And I believe what we're seeing are the desperate actions of an entity that sees the noose closing around it. 

This is when Tapper challenged him:

TAPPER: Well, with all due respect, sir, I'm not sure that it looks that way to the public, that ISIS is on the run. In just the last few weeks, we have seen... 

KERRY: Well, obviously.

TAPPER: ... a series of ISIS-inspired attacks, 49 killed in Orlando, 45 killed in Istanbul at the airport, more than 200 killed in Baghdad, 84 in Nice. 

This is just the last five weeks. I don't think ISIS is on the run. They might be expanding. (CROSSTALK)

KERRY: Well, Jake, it depends on where you mean ISIS.

Kerry brushed off Tapper's astute observations to deflect focus only on ISIS operatives within the Levant, rather than on the terrorists in Nice, Paris, Brussels, and Orlando who claimed allegiance to the Islamic group.

"I don't know if this guy [in Nice, France] was actually ISIS, and nor do you," added Kerry. "And we don't know that the guy in Orlando was fundamentally ISIS, nor even told what to do by ISIS. If people are inspired, they're inspired. But ISIL, which is based in Iraq and Syria, is under huge pressure."

And that is just a fact. Now, there are thousands of fighters, some of whom left the area of the fighting years ago. And they are sitting in some community somewhere in the world.

And if you're saying that one person standing up one day and killing people is a reflection of ISIS moving in Iraq and Syria, I think you're dead wrong. 

Now, are -- is it capable for people to be inspired by them and go out and do great harm to people? I said that. I acknowledge that. Yes, there is that danger. But the core of ISIS is in Al-Raqqa, and it's in Manbij. It's in Syria. It's in Iraq. And we are doing everything in our power to put additional pressure them. And I believe their days are numbered. 

To which Tapper rhetorically asked, "You are doing everything you can do?" 

TAPPER: I mean, I think there are a lot of people in the United States, in the Pentagon, in the national security apparatus who have a number of suggestions as to what more could be done to put pressure and to eliminate the threat of ISIS.

Indeed.