Obama will lay out ISIS strategy in prime time speech

President Obama will lay out his plan for combating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) during a prime time speech from the White House on Wednesday, the White House announced Tuesday.

The speech, set for 9 p.m. ET, will focus on his much-anticipated strategy for dealing with the militant group that has captured territory in Syria and Iraq and in recent weeks has beheaded two American journalists.

"Over the course of months, we are going to be able to not just blunt the momentum of (ISIS)," the president said Sunday on NBC. "We are going to systematically degrade their capabilities. We're going to shrink the territory that they control. And ultimately we're going to defeat them."

So far the White House has been tight-lipped about how much new information the president will give.

"I wouldn't rule out that there might be something new in the speech but the principal goal here is to make sure people understand what the clear stake is here for the American people and our nation," White House Press Secretary John Earnest told reporters Monday.

He said Tuesday that the timing of the speech -- designed to maximize viewership among the public -- "means that the president believes this is a high national security priority," Earnest said Tuesday.

The speech comes less than two weeks after the president said "we don't have a strategy yet" to deal with the militant group.

Though he would not preview what the president will say Wednesday, Earnest pointed to previous U.S. counterterrorism operations "are a relevant reference point" for how the president might approach ISIS now.

"We've worked very effectively to defeat terrorists who pose a threat to the United States," Earnest said. "In terms of evaluating what the president's chief concern is and what our solution looks like, it is similar to some of the other counterterrorism missions that the president has ordered and have been successfully executed by the United States military and with the support and in conjunction with our allies around the world."