President Donald Trump raised eyebrows this week when he claimed his uncle, John Trump, taught the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski.
However, there is no evidence that Kaczynski, one of the most infamous domestic terrorists in American history, had ever been in a classroom with the president’s uncle despite his boasting.
Trump made the claim during one of many off-the-cuff moments Tuesday afternoon at a roundtable with business leaders in Pittsburgh, where he touted tech and brought up his uncle, who taught electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for 37 years.
“Kaczynski was one of his students,” Trump claimed. “Do you know who Kaczynski was?”
MORE: How the Unabomber evaded capture for nearly 20 years, and became America’s ‘most prolific bomber’
Kaczynski was once one of the most wanted domestic terrorists for his letter bombing campaigns between 1978 and 1995, where he killed three people and wounded 23 others. Kaczynski was a math prodigy and earned degrees at Harvard and the University of Michigan before he became a recluse and went uncaptured for 17 years.
He was arrested in 1996 after his brother deduced he was the anonymous Unabomber and contacted the FBI. Kaczynski, who had sent writings expressing anti-technology beliefs before his arrest, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison. He took his own life in prison in 2023.
A spokesperson for MIT told ABC News in a statement Thursday that the school has “no enrollment record or information that Ted Kaczynski ever attended MIT.” The spokesperson added that the school creates enrollment records for students who cross enrolled from another school for a MIT program or class.
The school said in the past that Kaczynski was accepted to the school in 1958, but he rejected their offer.
MORE: Unabomber Ted Kaczynski dies by possible suicide in prison: Source
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about Trump’s claims during a news briefing Thursday, but she did not answer. Instead, she touted John Trump’s tenure at MIT and took another question.
Trump, however, claimed during the roundtable that his uncle noticed the Unabomber’s strange characteristics while at MIT.
“There is very little difference between a madman and a genius. But Kaczynski … I said, ‘What kind of a student was he, Uncle John? Dr. John Trump, what kind of student?’….He said, ‘Seriously? Good.’ He would go around correcting everybody.’ But it didn’t work out too well,” Trump claimed.
John Trump died in 1985, long before Kaczynski was identified as the Unabomber or in the public discourse.
