Trump says Osama bin Laden 'had one hit,' boasts that he took out 'bigger' names

Donald Trump.
(Image credit: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

With the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks just weeks away, former President Donald Trump went on conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt's show on Thursday and said that while Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden "had one hit, and it was a bad one," two people killed during his time in office — Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Iranian military chief Qasem Soleimani — were "bigger by many, many times than Osama bin Laden."

Trump called into Hewitt's program after at least 13 U.S. troops and dozens of Afghan civilians were killed in an attack outside the Kabul airport; the Islamic State's affiliate in Afghanistan, ISIS-K, later claimed responsibility. Trump, however, told Hewitt that he eradicated the terrorist group, saying when he became president, "we took out ISIS in a very short period of time, wiped them out. And they were gone 100 percent."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.