--- title: Donald Trump Says He Could Have Prevented 9/11 description: Billionaire presidential candidate Donald Trump said Sunday that his immigration policy could have prevented the 9/11 terrorist attacks canonical: https://time.com/4077615/donald-trump-bush-september-11/ author: Justin Worland article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-18T20:46:27.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:41:50.626Z article:section: Politics og:title: Donald Trump Says He Could Have Prevented 9/11 og:description: He says his immigration policy would have stopped the attackers og:url: https://time.com/4077615/donald-trump-bush-september-11/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3c3d041b2e3671a4/698868cb0b72e3c6b56e662d/donald-trump6.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Donald Trump, president and chief executive of Trump Organization Inc. and 2016 Republican presidential candidate, stands for a photograph after a Bloomberg Television interview at his campaign headquarters in Trump Tower in New York, U.S., on Thursday, og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Donald Trump Says He Could Have Prevented 9/11 twitter:description: He says his immigration policy would have stopped the attackers twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3c3d041b2e3671a4/698868cb0b72e3c6b56e662d/donald-trump6.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Donald Trump Says He Could Have Prevented 9/11 > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: Watch The Best Quotes By Donald Trump [Watch (HLS stream): Watch The Best Quotes By Donald Trump](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/7MzTpVq2.m3u8) (1:21)  _Published 2015-07-23. Donald Trump's Most Ridiculous Quotes_  by [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/)  ## Justin Worland Senior Correspondent Oct 18, 2015 8:46 PM UTC  Donald Trump at his campaign headquarters in Trump Tower in New York City on Oct. 15, 2015. Donald Trump at his campaign headquarters in Trump Tower in New York City on Oct. 15, 2015. John Taggart—Bloomberg/Getty Images  by [Justin Worland](https://time.com/author/justin-worland/)  ## Justin Worland Senior Correspondent Oct 18, 2015 8:46 PM UTC Billionaire presidential candidate Donald Trump said Sunday that his immigration policy could have prevented the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The comment is the latest in an [ongoing spat](http://time.com/4077521/jeb-bush-donald-trump-foreign-policy/) between Trump and his GOP rival Jeb Bush over whether President George W. Bush kept the country safe. “I’m extremely tough on people coming into this country,” Trump told Chris Wallace on [Fox News Sunday](http://www.foxnews.com/transcript/2015/10/18/donald-trump-talks-taxes-trade-11-and-why-takes-personal-shots-at-political/). “I believe that If I were running things, I doubt that those people would have been in the country,” he added, referring to those who carried out the attacks. The conflict between the two candidates on this issue has been ongoing since the second GOP presidential debate when Jeb Bush praised his brother for his leadership following the 2001 terrorist attacks. Trump has since responded by denigrating that leadership, saying George W. Bush didn’t keep America safe. “I’m not blaming anyone,” Trump told Wallace. “But the World Trade Center came down. So, when he said, ‘We were safe’—that’s not safe. We lost 3,000 people.” Also on Sunday, Bush [took aim](http://time.com/4077521/jeb-bush-donald-trump-foreign-policy/) at Trump’s approach to foreign policy, saying the real estate developer talks about policy as if he’s on a reality show. “Across the spectrum of foreign policy, Mr. Trump talks about things as though he’s still on ‘The Apprentice,” he said. ## Transcript Rosie O'Donnell's disgusting, I mean both inside and out. You take a look at her, she's a slob. She talks like a truck driver. So he could have been born in Kenya and gone over to the United States. And everybody wants to be a US citizen. And his grandparents put an ad in saying he was born in the United States. He didn't kill Bin Laden. He gets so much credit for that. Ok excuse me. He had the guts to make that decision. And the genius. Excuse me. Guts. First of all Vince, your grapefruits are no match for my Trump Towers. They're bringing drugs They're bringing crime, they're rapist, and some I assume are good people, and I love the Mexican people. I've had thousands of Mexicans working for me. I sell apartments for millions of dollars to people from Mexico. They love me, they love me. [ CROSSTALK ]. He's a war hero cuz he was captured. I like people that weren't captured, okay? I hate to tell you this. And I see your Senator. What a stiff? What a Stiff? Lindsay Graham. I'm not using the lobbyists, I'm not using donors. I don't care. I'm really rich. 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