Trump blasted over 9/11 claim dismissed as ‘pure fiction’
Speaking to sailors over in in Norfolk, Virginia, on Sunday, US President Donald Trump praised the Navy SEALs who killed Osama bin Laden. The POTUS then went on to say that he’d warned about the danger of the al Qaeda leader a full year before 9/11. He told the gathered crowd, ‘And please remember I wrote about Osama bin Laden exactly one year ago, one year before he blew up the World Trade center. And I said, “You got to watch Osama bin Laden.”‘ He then remarked: ‘And the fake news would never let me get away with that statement unless it was true’ Picture: AFP/Getty Images)
The remarks came during celebrations for the US Navy’s 250th birthday, causing more than a little controversy. Trump went on to say that he felt that he deserved recognition for spotting the threat. ‘I can tell you there’s a page in there devoted to the fact that I saw somebody named Osama bin Laden and I didn’t like it, and you’ve gotta take care of him. They didn’t do it. A year later, he blew up the World Trade center,’ he said, adding ‘so, I gotta take a little credit because nobody else is going to give it to me. You know the old story: If they don’t give you credit, just take it yourself’ (Picture: Getty Images)
Trump was referring to his book The America We Deserve, co-written with author Dave Shiflett and published back in January 2000. The work contains only a passing reference to bin Laden. Here’s what it says: ‘One day we’re all assured that Iraq is under control, the UN inspectors have done their work, everything’s fine, not to worry. The next day the bombing begins. One day we’re told that a shadowy figure with no fixed address named Osama bin Laden is public enemy number one, and US jet fighters lay waste to his camp in Afghanistan. He escapes back under some rock, and a few news cycles later it’s on to a new enemy and new crisis’ (Picture: AFP/Getty Images)
FactCheck and CNN have reported that any form of expressed warning does not exist in the book, with earlier pieces published in 2015 and again in 2019. CNN senior reporter Daniel Dale wrote on X on Monday: ‘Yesterday, the president claimed his 2000 book warned the authorities they needed to deal with Osama bin Laden. Pure fiction. The book has no bin Laden warning. Which people have noted since 2015. Because Trump has told the same fake story for 10 years’ (Picture: AFP/Getty Images)
At the time Trump’s book appeared, bin Laden was already well known to US officials. He had been linked to the 1998 bombings of American embassies in East Africa and had been targeted by US strikes in Afghanistan. He was on the FBI’s most wanted fugitives list before 2001. Those facts explain the book’s reference to him as ‘public enemy number one’ and the mention of jet fighters attacking his camp in Afghanistan. That context was present well before the 9/11 attacks and was reflected in reporting at the time. Federal authorities had been tracking his network through the late nineties (Picture: Getty Images)
The book does include a wider prediction that the United States would face major terrorist attacks that would dwarf the 1993 World Trade center bombing, CNN’s fact checking piece reports. That section frames the risk as widely understood among analysts at the time and it does not name bin Laden or any specific group as the likely culprit. It presents the prospect of a future attack as a question of when rather than if (Picture: Getty Images)
He told the audience on Sunday he had spoken with Pete Hegseth ‘one year before’ about bin Laden. The timeline was not specified but many have noted that Hegseth was a young college student when the book was published in 2000. Trump’s comments came as he praised the SEALs who carried out the 2011 raid that killed bin Laden in Pakistan under President Barack Obama. That sequence formed the backdrop to the ad lib about his book and the claims about prior warnings. No further detail was provided (Picture: AP)
Reaction to the Norfolk speech was rather swift online. One X user wrote, ‘What the [expletive] is this maniac talking about?! He told Pete Hegseth about Osama bin Laden a year before 9/11??? Pete Hegseth was a 20 year-old college kid a year before 9/11. Trump needs to be removed from office. He’s completely lost it’. While California Governor Gavin Newsom asked: ‘Does Trump even know what year it is?’ (Picture: Getty Images)
Trump blasted over 9/11 claim dismissed as ‘pure fiction’ 