National Security Council Coordinator John Kirby schooled Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy on Tuesday about whether the United States "owned Afghanistan."

During a White House briefing on the killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Doocy said President Joe Biden's administration "gave a country" to terrorists.

"What did you think was going to happen?" Doocy asked.

"I would take issue with the premise that we gave a whole country to terrorist groups," Kirby replied.

"It's harboring the world's number one terrorist, how is that not giving a country to a terrorist-sympathizing group?" Doocy pressed.

Kirby objected to Doocy's assumptions.

"I mean, Peter, the way you ask that, it makes it sound like we owned Afghanistan a year ago," the White House official remarked. "It wasn't our country. It was an independent sovereign state and the president made a bold decision to end a war that had been going on for 20 years."