On the same morning that at least 12 U.S. service members were killed in a bloody terror attack in Kabul, former President Donald Trump suggested Osama bin Laden wasn’t a big deal and only “had one hit.”
Calling into conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt’s show on Thursday morning, Trump doubled down on his recent claims that the Taliban wouldn’t have quickly taken over Afghanistan following American troop withdrawal if he were still in charge. (Trump negotiated the original peace deal with the Taliban in February 2020, which included a May 1 withdrawal date and the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners.)
At the same time, the ex-president also took the opportunity to boast about the terror leaders that had been killed during his term, notably ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Iranian military chief Qasem Soleimani. And he claimed that both of them were far worse than bin Laden, the former al Qaeda leader who killed thousands of Americans in the 9/11 attacks and prompted the War in Afghanistan.
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“And we took out the founder of ISIS, al-Baghdadi, and then of course Soleimani,” Trump blared. “Now just so you understand, Soleimani is bigger by many, many times than Osama bin Laden. The founder of ISIS is bigger by many, many times, al-Baghdadi, than Osama bin Laden.”
Trump added: “Osama bin Laden had one hit, and it was a bad one, in New York City, the World Trade Center. But these other two guys were monsters. They were monsters.”
His comments come just two weeks before the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Bin Laden was hunted down and killed by the Obama administration in 2011, nearly a decade into the ongoing War on Terror. And despite Trump essentially calling bin Laden a one-hit wonder, the terror mastermind also carried out the U.S. Embassy bombings in 1998 and the deadly USS Cole attack in 2000 which resulted in hundreds of casualties.
The former president, on the same day that ISIS took credit for the Kabul attack that killed dozens of Afghans and Americans, also patted himself on the back for supposedly eradicating the terror organization.
“And when I took it over, ISIS was all over the place,” Trump exclaimed. “At 99 percent, I wanted to get the hell out, and the media said well, you didn’t get 100 percent. I said you know what? We’re taking another two weeks. We’re going to get 100 percent. We got 100 percent, and they were gone.”
