Overview
- Speaking at a Kennedy Center board session on March 16, President Trump asserted he predicted Osama bin Laden would “knock out” the World Trade Center and said he wrote it a year earlier in his book.
- CNN’s Daniel Dale and other outlets reiterated that the claim is false after reviewing The America We Deserve and prior statements.
- The 2000 book references bin Laden only once in a general foreign-policy critique and offers a broad warning about terrorism without naming bin Laden as the future attacker.
- In the same remarks, Trump pressed countries that rely on Gulf oil to contribute warships to help the U.S. secure the Strait of Hormuz, saying he had long foreseen Iranian tactics there.
- Mediaite reports the waterway has been effectively shut since Iranian counterstrikes, heightening concerns about energy flows and economic fallout.