In an interview with Stephanie Ruhle of Bloomberg News, Donald Trump blamed former President George W. Bush for the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Ruhle asked Trump how he would reassure the nation in the event of a crisis like 9/11. Trump responded,  “I think I have a bigger heart than all of them,” Trump responded. “I think I’m much more competent then all of them. I mean, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time.”

Ruhle interjected, “Hold on, you can’t blame George Bush for that.”

To which Trump replied, “He was president, OK? Don’t blame him or don’t blame him, but he was president. The World Trade Center came down during his reign.”

Like him or not, George W. Bush is not responsible for 9/11. It is al Qaeda and only al Qaeda that is responsible for the events of September 11, 2001. 

Donald Trump should watch what he says. Should he be elected President and, heaven forbid, an event on the scale of 9/11 or greater occurs on American soil his words will come back to haunt him. Somehow I don’t think Trump would be so eager to accept responsibility for such a catastrophe and nor should he.

With this in mind, Trump should think before he speaks. Then again, if he did think before he spoke he wouldn’t be Trump.

UPDATE: And Trump proves my point with his claim that he would have prevented 9/11. Trump bragged to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday:

I would have been much different. I am extremely, extremely tough on illegal immigration. I’m entirely tough on people coming into this country. I believe that if I were running things, I doubt these families would – I doubt that those people would have been in this country.

It’s all well and good for Trump to say that he is double extremely tough on illegal immigration. The problem is that Mohamed Atta wasn’t in this country illegally. Atta was here on a five-year tourist/business visa issued by the U.S. Embassy in Berlin in May 2000. 

Let’s say Trump builds a wall along the Mexican border and freezes all tourist/business visa applications. None of that would prevent someone either born and raised in the United States (i.e. Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan)or a naturalized U.S. citizen (i.e. Boston Marathon Bomber Dzokhar Tsarnaev) from carrying out a terrorist attack in this country. 

As Abraham Lincoln put it, “It is better to be silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.” In Trump’s case, this doubt was removed long, long ago.