Fact Check: Trump's Fictional Story About His Uncle and the Unabomber

Trump's Unabomber Story

• 🤥 President Trump recently told a story at the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit claiming his uncle, Dr. John Trump, taught Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) at MIT.
• 💡 Trump described Kaczynski as a "seriously good" student who would correct others, and mused on the thin line between genius and madness.

Fact-Checking the Claims

• ❌ CNN's Daniel Dale fact-checked the story, labeling it as imaginary and false.
• ⏳ A key issue is the timeline: John Trump died in 1985, while Ted Kaczynski was only identified as the Unabomber in 1996, over a decade later.
• 🎓 Furthermore, Kaczynski did not attend MIT; he studied math at Harvard and attended the University of Michigan, while John Trump taught electrical engineering at MIT.

Inaccuracies in Trump's Account

• 📌 The claim that John Trump was the longest-serving professor at MIT is also inaccurate, though he was a renowned professor for decades.
• ⚛️ John Trump's degrees were in electrical engineering and physics, not nuclear, chemical, and math as stated by the president.
• 🗣️ Dale notes that while presidents often make false statements, this particular story appears completely made up and does not align with historical facts.