Fact Check: Trump Repeats False Claim About Pre-9/11 Warning on Bin Laden in Book

Former President Trump’s False Claim about Bin Laden Warning Resurfaces

Former President Donald Trump has once again repeated a debunked claim that he warned authorities about Osama bin Laden before the September 11 terrorist attacks, this time during a ceremony marking the U.S. Navy’s 250th birthday.

Speaking before a crowd of sailors, Trump asserted that in his 2000 book, “The America We Deserve,” he had specifically cautioned about bin Laden approximately one year before the 9/11 attacks. “And please remember, I wrote about Osama bin Laden exactly one year ago,” Trump initially stated before correcting himself to say, “One year before he blew up the World Trade Center. And I said, ‘You’ve got to watch Osama bin Laden.'”

The former president went further, suggesting media accountability validated his claim: “And the fake news would never let me get away with that statement unless it was true.”

Fact-checkers and media organizations have repeatedly debunked this narrative since Trump first began promoting it nearly a decade ago. A thorough examination of “The America We Deserve,” published in January 2000, reveals that the book contains only a single mention of bin Laden, and it does not include any warning or call to action regarding the terrorist leader.

The actual reference appears in a section discussing U.S. foreign policy challenges, where Trump wrote: “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.”

This passage actually acknowledges that bin Laden was already a well-known threat at the time, having been targeted by the Clinton administration following the 1998 terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.

During Sunday’s Navy celebration, Trump elaborated on his claim: “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 gotta take care of him.’ They didn’t do it; a year later he blew up the World Trade Center.”

The book does contain a broader prediction about potential terrorist threats, with Trump writing that he was “convinced we’re in danger of the sort of terrorist attacks that will make the (1993) bombing of the Trade Center look like kids playing with firecrackers.” However, this general warning makes no specific mention of bin Laden as the potential perpetrator, and Trump himself acknowledged in the book that such concerns were common among analysts at the time, writing: “No sensible analyst rejects this possibility.”

CNN previously published fact-checks on this claim in both 2015 and 2019 when Trump made similar statements. Despite these corrections, the former president has continued to present this narrative as fact in various public appearances.

The book was ghostwritten by Dave Shiflett, which may explain some discrepancy in Trump’s recollection of its contents after 25 years. However, critics note that this doesn’t account for the decade-long pattern of misrepresenting what the book actually contains.

Trump’s comments came as part of a broader discussion about the Navy SEALs’ role in killing bin Laden during a 2011 operation authorized by then-President Barack Obama, whom Trump has frequently criticized throughout his political career.

The persistence of this claim despite clear evidence to the contrary adds to ongoing concerns about factual accuracy in political discourse as the country approaches another presidential election cycle.