Trump Is Right About the 9-11 Attacks

An interesting exchange took place during a Donald Trump interview on Bloomberg News last week.  Trump said that "[w]hen you talk about George Bush, I mean, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time."  What I found most interesting about Trump's remark was the way the interviewer responded to it. Stephanie Ruhle, the Bloomberg anchor who asked the question, interrupted Trump and exclaimed, “Hold on, you can’t blame George Bush for that!”

Are you kidding me? We can't accuse George Bush of incompetency during the run-up to the 9-11 Attacks?  Why the fuck not?  Christ, if Obama had been in office during 9-11, does anyone out there think that the GOP wouldn't be blaming him for it?

I have no doubt that Republicans would have been falling over each other blaming Obama for the attacks even if they had occurred a mere few minutes into his presidency.  George Bush had been in office eight months when the attacks occurred, and as this recent Atlantic article demonstrates, the Bush Administration ignored repeated warnings that Al Qaeda was determined to strike the United States.

There has been a Herculean Effort on the part of the GOP to re-write the history of 9-11.  As I noted here, there was even an attempt a few years back to fool the American people into thinking that Bush wasn't even in office on September 11, 2001.  Unfortunately, if the Bloomberg anchor's "you can't blame George Bush for that" response is any indication, this attempt at a history re-write appears to have worked.

So I am happy that Donald Trump is raising the issue of Bush's 9-11 culpability now, and I am particularly pleased that Jeb! decided to come to his brother's defense on this matter. Had Jeb not pushed back on this, then Trump might have simply decided to move on to something else. But I have no doubt that Trump will focus a lot of his attention on this issue now that Jeb! and other Republicans have criticized him for bringing it up. Trump doesn't take criticism lightly.

I hope this issue comes up at the next GOP debate.  If Trump is asked why he feels that George W. Bush and his administration have culpability for the 9-11 Attacks, Trump should answer with something like this:

"Had I been president a month before 9-11 and the CIA informed me of patterns of suspicious activity in the U.S. consistent with preparations for hijackings -- and also made reference to surveillances of federal buildings in New York -- I certainly would have acted.  Bush received such a briefing over a month prior to the Attack and did nothing. In fact, the Bush Administration received other briefings over the summer of 2001 concerning an imminent terror attack on American soil, and all of them fell on deaf ears.

"But that isn't all:  During the transition from Clinton to Bush, outgoing Clinton officials informed Bush's people that dealing with bin Laden and Al Qaeda would be the new administration's top priority, and the bipartisan Hart-Rudman Report -- released just after Bush's inauguration -- predicted a 9-11-type attack where Americans would die on American soil, "possibly in large numbers." But Bush basically scrapped the Hart-Rudman recommendations and turned the domestic terrorism thing over to Cheney and his people, who proceeded to do nothing because they wrongfully thought that Saddam was a bigger threat.

"So yeah, I think Jeb's brother could have done a lot more to respond to that known threat.  I know I would have done a lot more, and I am confident the attacks would not have happened had I been president then."

Trump has demonstrated that he can give these types of answers if he puts his mind to it. At the last debate, he had clearly done his homework on Carly Fiorina and her failed tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard. Let's hope he does his homework for the next debate as well.

UPDATE:  Trump tweeted a link today to this New York Times article detailing the Bush Administration's pre-9-11 incompetence.  Looks like The Donald is now fully engaged on this issue.  And if any of you out there think this is "ancient history" and therefore has no current relevance, think again.  After all, Jeb! has decided to surround himself with some of the same folks who worked for his brother.