White House press secretary: We're in a 'narrative fight' with ISIS

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told CNN Monday morning that the US is in a "narrative fight" with the terrorist group ISIS.

Earnest appeared on the show as authorities in New York and New Jersey investigate bombs found throughout the area over the weekend.

"What I can tell you is that we are, when it comes to ISIL, we are in a fight, a narrative fight with them, a narrative battle," Earnest said, using an alternate name for the terror group. "And what ISIL wants to do is they want to project that they are an organization that is representing Islam in a fight, in a war against the West and a war against the United States."

Earnest continued: "That is a bankrupt, false narrative. It is a mythology. And we have made progress in debunking that mythology."

The Donald Trump campaign immediately seized on the White House press secretary's comments to criticize the Obama administration.

"When the White House says we are in a 'narrative fight' against ISIS just days after a series of apparent terror attacks on U.S. soil we should all be very concerned," Jason Miller, communications director for Trump, said in a statement. "For the U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria who are on the front lines against ISIS, it's a real fight where we've lost real lives."

Miller added: "Diminishing the threat the Obama Administration has allowed to materialize on its watch puts us all at risk and is another reminder that we need new leadership in the fight against radical Islamic terrorism. Hillary Clinton has backed President Obama's failed ISIS strategy to the hilt, and voters should know whether she too shares the White House's troubling assessment of the situation."

ISIS propaganda often pushes the idea of a final battle between the West and soldiers of Islam, and experts say that ISIS seeks to provoke the West into a great war with them.