The weird thing is, the New York Times, Fox News, CNN, or the BBC didn't break this earth-shattering news — or even the president. Pro wrestler-turned-movie star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson scooped ‘em all:
Just got word that will shock the world - Land of the free...home of the brave DAMN PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!
— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) May 2, 2011
So how did The Rock out-scoop international news organizations that spend millions annually on investigative journalism and foreign bureaus?
“If I tell you that, I won’t have to ‘kill’ you, but I’ll have to behead you — no, I got my sources,” he told Moviefone. “I got friends in high places and low places. It was a very interesting day.… The individuals who were there were proud to let me know.”
Which means, we (probably) know how The Rock got his scoop about the death of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden — without the risk of being killed or(?) beheaded: A member of Seal Team 6 or someone directly involved in the operation wanted to impress his/her celebrity friend and shared the news.
Osama bin Laden’s second-to-last day on earth was the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Obama aids Jon Favreau and Jon Lovett — who now host the Pod Save America podcast — were tasked with writing the president’s speech. In a Washington Insider interview, they recalled a very strange comedy request from the president.
Here’s how U.S. News and World Report described it:
“[President Obama is] like, ‘I love all these jokes, I think everything is great, I’m ready to go tonight — I have one edit,’” Favreau recalled. Riffing off the president’s full name, Barack Hussein Obama, the speechwriters had written a bit about how there were a lot of Republicans eyeing the White House who also had problematic middle names: “Did you know that his real name is Gov. Tim bin Laden Pawlenty?”
“’Here’s the thing,’” Favreau remembered Obama saying, “'I would just get rid of bin Laden and go with another bad guy.’” Favreau wondered why they would do that.
“He’s like, ‘I think bin Laden’s been done, it’s old, let’s go with Tim Hosni Pawlenty — that’s going to be much funnier,’” Favreau recounted Obama suggesting.
The writing duo didn’t think so, but bowed to the president’s request.
And that’s not all:
“One other thing that happened, he called me right before the dinner and he was like, ‘Oh, could you also make sure — I’m probably going to remember this on my own, but just in case – at the very end of the speech I want to say, God bless America and may God bless our troops and keep them safe,’” Favreau recalled.
“I thought that was sort of an odd ending to add at a Correspondents’ Dinner," Favreau said.
[…]
The following night the news broke: Osama bin Laden was dead.
“And that’s why he wanted to change the joke,” Lovett said. “I think it was me, you and [David] Axelrod in that meeting,” he said to Favreau. “And we realized after that we were these three idiot comedy writers in the middle of the most serious, serious thing.”
All over the world, media outlets scrambled to cover the fast-breaking news. It led to some… awkward headline and picture placements:
15 years since I was asked by @Telegraph to write a photo caption for a royal kiss and decided to go with something completely different that happened that day pic.twitter.com/RZMcmyBZtm
— Toby Harnden (@tobyharnden) May 1, 2026
Still, the global reaction to bin Laden’s skull exploding was universally positive. (At least in the sane parts of the world: Hamas and the Palestinians, quite naturally, praised bin Laden as a “holy warrior” and condemned his killing. But hey, Hamas is gonna Hamas.) Here in America, all of us — black or white, conservative or liberal, Republican or Democratic — applauded the bravery of our troops and the ingenuity of U.S. intelligence. We stood together, one nation under God.
In hindsight, it was probably the last time America was united.
Despite all the evil, death, and destruction that Iran has directed at the West over the last 47 years, 9/11’s emotional impact superseded it. (Especially here in America.) So it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, but it does reveal a fundamental change to our psyche: When a U.S. airstrike transformed Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei into human confetti, our national response was quite different.
Nearly nine out of ten Democrats (89%) opposed it.
Very different, isn’t it? And that’s not just because of the deep emotional scars of 9/11. It also mattered who was president when each event happened.
More particularly, which party was in power.
Donald Trump — a Republican — was president when Ali Khamenei went kaboom. Barack Obama — a Democrat — was president when Osama bin Laden’s skull exploded.
In 2011, Democrats were able to claim credit for Osama’s death. The al Qaeda mastermind had outfoxed and outlasted the Republican president, George W. Bush — but not the brave and daring Barack Obama! For a party that’s acutely aware (and hair-trigger sensitive) of its reputation for weakness and timidity, the bragging rights for bagging bin Laden were enormous.
Obama claimed credit for himself Sunday night, emphasizing the decision to make the bin Laden manhunt a key objective was his, shortly after he took office more than two years ago. He didn’t mention Bush, who wanted bin Laden “dead or alive,” or Clinton, who declared him “public enemy number one.”
“I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda,” Obama said early in his speech, “even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network.”
Moreover, White House aides said, Obama’s decision to go forward with the dangerous secret operation, based on circumstantial evidence alone, was gutsy and bold. The odds bin Laden would actually be there were only 60 to 80 percent, Panetta told Time magazine after the fact.
In Democratic minds, President Obama succeeded where President Bush had failed. It was Democratic cunning and moxie that felled the terrorist leader! (Sans that one idiot in Obama’s cabinet who actually advised AGAINST killing bin Laden.)
Therefore, this was a Democratic victory!
Which, ABC News explained, was reflected in opinion polls:
Leading Republicans have publicly praised Obama for his leadership in the moment, and strong majorities of Republican voters in recent polls say they believe the president deserves credit for the mission's success.
But there's a remarkable divide between parties over just how much credit President Bush deserves. Eighty-one percent of Republicans say Bush deserves some recognition for the successful operation, according to a new Washington Post/Pew Research Center poll. Only 35 percent of Democrats said they agree.
In hindsight, that last paragraph was a harbinger of today’s hyper-politicized age. Yes, Americans were unified in celebrating bin Laden’s death, but beneath the surface, a partisan division was rumbling.
Instead of viewing apolitical government operations — including intelligence gathering, national security, and preventing terrorism — as part of a bipartisan continuum, nearly two out of three Democrats claimed all the credit for themselves.
And without question, President Obama does deserve credit: It happened on his watch; he made the final call. That’s how the game is played.
But on the other hand, this was far more than just a Democratic victory — and claiming otherwise is foolish. On the day bin Laden died, Obama had been president for two years and three months. Clearly, the investigative apparatus that led to bin Laden’s death was put in place many, many years earlier. And some of the tactics that cracked the case open, including “enhanced interrogations,” were Republican policies.
Americans were unified in celebrating bin Laden’s death, but hopelessly divided along partisan lines over who deserved credit.
That hyper-partisan lens is dangerous, because it also suggests the inverse: If the Democrats deserve credit because they’re in power, then they can (and should) be denied credit when they’re in the minority. This disincentivizes them to celebrate “Republican” successes, because it’ll hurt them politically. It’s turned American victories into partisan affairs.
And when that happens, national unity is impossible.
Perhaps not so coincidentally, it directly led to an age of outrageous CIA and FBI abuses, with “lawfare” waged against Republicans for Russiagate and more.
The death of Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011 at 1:00 a.m. PKT was a great day for America and the free world. May that dirtbag burn in hell for all eternity. But it was also a tipping point.
And nothing’s been the same ever since.
One Last Thing: 2026 is a critical year for America First. It began with Mayor Mamdani declaring war on “rugged individualism” and will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the fate of the America First movement teeters in the balance.
Never before have the political battle lines been so clearly defined. Win or lose, 2026 will transform our country.
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