Donald Trump Claims He Predicted 9/11 During Iran War Briefing, Warns Allies to Protect 'Their Own Territory'

Donald Trump used opening remarks at a Kennedy Center board meeting in Washington on Monday, March 16, to claim he had predicted the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and to warn allied countries they would need to protect 'their own territory' amid the conflict with Iran described in OK!.

For context, the latest remarks came as Trump faced resistance from some partners over his call for foreign naval support in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping route that the source article says has been rendered unsafe by counterstrikes. Nothing in the material provided independently verifies Trump's claim that he foresaw 9/11, so that assertion should be treated with caution and understood as his account of events rather than an established fact.

Donald Trump Revives a Familiar Boast

Speaking at the meeting, Trump said he had seen the danger posed by Osama bin Laden before the attacks happened. 'I predicted Osama bin Laden would knock out the World Trade Center. I said it the year before he did it... I said, "You better get him, he's a bad guy,"' he told the room, according to OK!.

He pressed the point again, saying he had watched bin Laden in an interview and come away convinced he posed a threat. Trump added, 'One year before exactly, I wrote it in a book, you can even check, about a year before the World Trade Center came down.'

That sort of retrospective certainty is one of Trump's enduring political habits. He tends to revisit old crises not simply to describe them, but to present himself as the man who saw the danger first while others hesitated.

In this case, he also reached back to Bill Clinton, saying the former president 'actually had a shot at him and he didn't take it, unfortunately,' before adding, 'I'm not blaming him for that, but he didn't take it. And he ended up knocking down the World Trade Center.'

Even by Trumpian standards, it was a striking detour. The immediate backdrop was not historical reflection but a live foreign policy row that has already unsettled parts of his own political coalition.

The source article describes a 'MAGA civil war' over Iran, with some former allies speaking out against the conflict, which gives the Kennedy Center remarks a distinctly current purpose. Trump was not just talking about the past. He was making the case that he has been right before and should be trusted now.

Trump Presses Allies Over Hormuz

Before returning to 9/11, Trump said he had long believed some US allies would not 'be there for us.' He also claimed he had predicted that Iran would weaponise the Strait of Hormuz, folding another alleged warning into the same broader argument that others are slow to grasp the scale of a threat until it becomes impossible to ignore.

According to OK!, Trump appealed on Saturday, March 13, to China, France, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom and others to send warships to the strait. In an interview with the Financial Times published on Sunday, he warned it would 'be very bad for the future of NATO' if countries failed to protect the passage.

By the time he was speaking aboard Air Force One on Sunday, the language had hardened. 'I'm demanding that these countries come in and protect their own territory, because it is their own territory,' Trump said.

He then added a sharper line still. 'Whether we get support or not, I can say this, and I said it to them. We will remember.'

That message has not landed well everywhere. Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, told reporters on Monday, 'While taking the necessary action to defend ourselves and our allies, we will not be drawn into the wider war.' It was a carefully chosen answer, not openly confrontational but not exactly compliant either.

Germany was blunter. A spokesperson for Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Monday, 'As long as this war continues, there will be no involvement, not even in an option to keep the Strait of Hormuz open by military means.'

The same spokesperson, as quoted in the source article via Politico, added, 'I would also like to remind you that the US and Israel did not consult us before the war, and that Washington explicitly stated at the start of the war that European assistance was neither necessary nor desired.'