‘I Predicted Bin Laden’: Trump Claims 9/11 Could Have Been Prevented If US Had Listened to Him
Newsbreak - January 5, 2026 - CSPAN
By Willa Pope Robbins
President Donald Trump said that he predicted the threat of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden, claiming on Sunday that the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center could have been prevented if U.S. officials had listened to him.
Trump spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One, alongside Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
During the gaggle, Graham encouraged Democrats to celebrate the military action that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, telling press that “when Bin Laden went down, I was the first to applaud President [Barack] Obama.”
Trump seized on the comment, mentioning his own alleged prediction of the 9/11 attacks.
“By the way, you know, you mentioned something that’s interesting. Lindsay mentioned bin Laden. Do you know I wrote about bin Laden one year before the attack in the World Trade Center and I said you got to go after bin Laden,” said Trump. “It was in my book, and very few people want to say that, but it was in my book.
The president then claimed that the horrors of September 11 could have been prevented if his warning was taken seriously.
“You know that I think you’ve actually talked about it,” he said to a reporter. “But if they would have listened to me, they would have taken out Bin Laden and you wouldn’t have had the World Trade Center tragedy.”
Trump has made this claim repeatedly in the past, including as recently as October. Repeated fact checks consistently report that his 2000 book contained no warning whatsoever about bin Laden.
The book’s single mention of bin Laden appears in a section criticizing US foreign policy:
"Instead of one looming crisis hanging over us, we face a bewildering series of smaller crises, flash points, standoffs, and hot spots. We’re not playing the chess game to end all chess games anymore. We’re playing tournament chess – one master against many rivals. 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 U.S. jetfighters 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."
According to CNN, “In a separate section, the book said the US was in danger of a major terrorist attack that would make the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center look minor in comparison – but it did not predict that bin Laden or al Qaeda would be the perpetrator of this attack.”
