Trump expounded on his opinion of the Kurds while defending his decision to withdraw American troops, arguing that the U.S.'s commitment to them is overblown and stating that they "didn't help us in the Second World War, they didn't help us with Normandy as an example". Trump continued that "Alliances are very easy. But our alliances have taken advantage of us" and decried the Kurds as "no angels". According to media fact checking, Trump made false or misleading statements while defending his decision-making, such as suggesting that the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)—which Turkey, the EU, the UK, Canada and other nations designate as a terrorist group—"is probably worse at terror and more of a terrorist threat in many ways than ISIS"; according to "The New York Times", in 2018, ISIL conducted more than six times more attacks and more than 15 times more killings than the PKK, while the PKK's recorded attacks throughout its history are less than half of ISIL's, despite the PKK having existed for six times longer. Amidst the U.S. withdrawal, he observed that the Kurds "are much safer right now", although Turkey had stated it had killed 150 Kurdish fighters by October 16, while the Kurds stated that almost 200,000 of their people had been displaced by the offensive at that point. Trump also falsely accused the Kurds of having deliberately released ISIL militants from prisons.