Overview

• Speaking in Norfolk, Virginia, the president said he wrote about Osama bin Laden "exactly one year" before 9/11 and said he had to "take a little credit."
• CNN and other outlets report that The America We Deserve mentions bin Laden once without urging action or predicting the 9/11 perpetrators.
• In the same remarks, he praised Navy SEALs for the 2011 Abbottabad raid and described bin Laden’s body being cast from the USS Carl Vinson.
• Reporters and commentators highlighted prior debunks from 2015 and 2019 and noted that no new documentation supports his account.
• The comments drew criticism online, with skeptics also questioning his reference to Pete Hegseth given that Hegseth was a college student when the book was published.