Donald Trump has once again asserted that he predicted 9/11 and could have thwarted the terrorist attack if authorities had heeded his warnings.
“Please remember I wrote about Osama bin Laden exactly one year ago, one year before he blew up the World Trade Center,” Trump declared during a speech to hundreds of Navy personnel who gathered at Naval Station Norfolk for the Navy 250 Celebration on Sunday.
“I said, ‘You’ve gotta watch Osama bin Laden.’ And the fake news would never let me get away with that statement unless it was true. But, I said one year before to Pete Hegseth, I said one year before, in the book, I wrote – whatever the hell the title, I can’t tell you, but 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,'” Trump maintained.
“They didn’t do it,” he continued. “A year later, he blew up the World Trade Center… So, I gotta take a little credit because nobody else is gonna give it to me. You know the old story – they don’t give you credit, just take it yourself.”
Trump didn’t actually predict the era-defining terrorist atrocity, contrary to his assertions.
In early 2000, over a year and a half before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he authored a book entitled, “The America We Deserve” that referenced bin Laden only briefly.
The publication also emerged considerably earlier than he has suggested – it wasn’t released just before the atrocity. It did, however, list bin Laden as a threat to US national security.
While this might appear prescient, the Saudi-born terror mastermind had been on the world’s radar for many years, being added to the FBI’s 10 most wanted fugitives list in 1999 after his Al Qaeda bombed a US embassy.
Trump arrived nearly an hour behind schedule for his address at the Navy 250 Celebration at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia on Sunday, leaving sailors standing about awkwardly in silence whilst they awaited his arrival.
A substantial crowd gathered on a pier to hear Trump’s remarks, comprising mainly sailors in their dress white uniforms alongside some family members.
They whispered uncomfortably amongst themselves but remained largely quiet as they waited nearly an hour for the president, who was scheduled to begin speaking at 3.30pm but didn’t turn up until approximately 4.30pm
Accompanying the president to the Navy base were First Lady Melania Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Navy Secretary John Phelan, Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins and U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), a former Navy rear admiral who served as a White House doctor during Trump’s first term.
Upon his arrival, he immediately went to the USS George HW Bush and spoke with sailors, handing many of them challenge coins. The Trumps then watched a military demonstration while standing on the deck of the aircraft carrier.
Navy destroyers launched missiles and fired shells into the Atlantic Ocean as Navy SEALs descended from helicopters and fighter jets catapulted off.
The government shutdown began on Wednesday and has sparked a series of partisan blame games as military personnel work without pay, several thousand federal employees are furloughed and key infrastructure and energy projects in Democratic-run areas, including New York and Chicago, have been put on hold.
Trump accused the Democrats of enabling the shutdown in another post, claiming they were attempting “to destroy this wonderful celebration of the US Navy’s Birthday.”