Trump Floats Another 9/11 Conspiracy Theory That Is Immediately Debunked By Fact Checkers

Another day, another opportunity for Donald Trump to say another completely untrue thing that will inevitably help him retain his position on top of the GOP polls. Continuing his insistence to go full Alex Jones when it comes to the 9/11 terror attacks, the Republican Presidential frontrunner claimed that the hijackers flew their families and wives out of the United States days before the World Trade Center came down. Since Trump’s lips were moving, we know that he was spewing bullshit, and the Washington Post’s resident fact checker immediately debunked his claim.

Appearing on CBS’s Face the Nation, Trump was discussing his anti-terrorism ‘strategy’ with host John Dickerson. After Dickerson asked him about his previous comments regarding the need to go after family members and spouses of suspected terrorists, The Donald brought up his belief that the 9/11 perpetrators had hustled their loved ones and spouses out of the country so as to not testify against them.

From the show’s transcript (emphasis added):

DICKERSON: You mentioned political correctness about Muslims. What the criticism of you is, that you are playing on fears that people have and that you’re stoking…

TRUMP: No, I’m playing on common sense.

No, no, I’m not playing on fears. I don’t want to play on fears. I understand the whole world. And I — I understand. And I have Muslim friends who are great people. And, by the way, they tell me there’s a big problem.

I’m not playing on fears. I’m playing on common sense. We have a problem. The World Trade Center came down. And, by the way, speaking of coming down, they put their families on airplanes a couple of days before, sent them back to Saudi Arabia, for the most part.

Those wives knew exactly what was going to happen. And those wives went home to watch their husbands knock down the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and wherever the third plane was going, except we had some very, very brave passengers, wherever that third plane was going.

Those wives knew exactly what was happening.

Trump would use this as the basis for his proposals to detain and possibly hurt or even kill the families of terrorists. He told Dickerson that he doesn’t believe San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook’s sister when she says that she was unaware of his radicalization and ideological beliefs regarding terrorism. If it were up to him, he’d “go after” the sister and he’d be able “to find out” what she knows. Yes, it is as fascistic as it sounds.

Shortly after the interview ran, the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler published an article detailing just how wrong Trump was regarding his statements on 9/11. (This is on the heels of Kessler and other fact checkers hammering Trump over his “thousands and thousands” of New Jersey Muslims lie.) The Post writer pointed out that almost all of the 9/11 hijackers were unmarried and none of them had spouses or partners in the United States while they were preparing for the attacks. He wrote that Trump likely conflated reports of Saudi nationals being flown out of the country days AFTER the attacks.

Appearing on CNN’s Reliable Sources on Sunday, Kessler stated how easy it is to fact check the reality TV star turned likely GOP nominee because Trump is always saying things that are so absurd. He also bemoaned how boring it is to debunk Trump compared to other politicians, telling host Brian Stelter the following:

“You know, a good fact check is like a mystery story where you spend a lot of time to try to unravel how the politician had, you know, concocted this particular statistic in a way that was misleading. With Trump, the statements he makes are often so absurd that you can instantly find out why it’s wrong and how it’s wrong. And, you know, it’s not that interesting, frankly.”

There it is. Trump is so wildly wrong so often that he is boring the shit out of fact checkers.