President-elect Donald Trump and his allies in Congress have blamed the lethal New Orleans truck assault on President Joe Biden’s border insurance policies though the attacker was a U.S. citizen.
“When I stated that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we’ve in our nation, that assertion was always refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, however it turned out to be true,” Trump wrote in a submit on Truth Social as data was nonetheless trickling out concerning the ramming assault on Wednesday morning.
“The crime fee in our nation is at a stage that no person has ever seen earlier than,” he wrote. “Our hearts are with the entire harmless victims and their family members, together with the courageous officers of the New Orleans Police Department.”
Officials later recognized the attacker as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, of Texas, a U.S. citizen and an Army veteran.
Fox News had reported Wednesday morning that the motive force, who was shot and killed by police after he ran over a crowd of individuals on New Orleans’s well-known Bourbon Street, had crossed over the border from Mexico earlier this week. The community walked again its reporting later Wednesday, however not earlier than Trump and a few of his allies echoed it.
Donald Trump Jr., the president-elect’s eldest son, posted a information article concerning the misguided report, saying, “Biden’s parting present to America — migrant terrorists.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., posted shortly after the preliminary section: “New Orleans terrorist attacker is claimed to have come throughout the border in Eagle Pass TWO DAYS AGO!!! Shut the border down!!!”
Later Wednesday, Fox News quoted Trump’s Truth Social posted after which famous, “To be clear, the suspect was born within the United States.”
Despite Fox’s clarifications, Trump doubled down on his message Thursday in posts on Truth Social, saying that the Biden administration’s dealing with of the nation’s borders has led to “a violent erosion of Safety, National Security, and Democracy.”
“With the Biden ‘Open Border’s Policy’ I stated, many instances throughout Rallies, and elsewhere, that Radical Islamic Terrorism, and different types of violent crime, will grow to be so unhealthy in America that it’s going to grow to be arduous to even think about or consider,” he wrote in one other submit. “That time has come, solely worse than ever imagined.”
Other Republicans didn’t instantly seek advice from Fox’s authentic report however nonetheless appeared in charge the scenario on the border for the assault and used the chance to push the bigger GOP platform of a weak border harming nationwide safety.
In an look on Fox News, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Thursday additionally sought to painting the assault as a border safety failure, stated that congressional Republicans had been “ringing the alarms” about “the concept harmful individuals have been coming right here in droves and organising doubtlessly terrorist cells across the nation.”
Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., wrote in response to pictures of the lifeless suspect on X Wednesday that the “open border,” the nation’s immigration system and Congress’ inaction on the difficulty “have created the right storm to hazard Americans.”
Similarly, Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., shared on X a video of an interview he did Wednesday concerning the terror assault and wrote, “We should safe the border & assure our native enforcement is empowered to implement the legislation and defend the American individuals from these cowards!”
NBC News reported earlier this yr that about 0.014% of migrants who had tried to cross the border in fiscal yr 2024, or fewer than 2 out of each 10,000, have been on the terrorist watchlist. The complete quantity who’ve tried to cross through the Biden administration is simply over 1,700. During the Trump presidency, it was 1,400.
A Trump spokesperson on Thursday defended the president-elect’s remarks surrounding the New Orleans assault.
“President Trump rightfully highlighted that criminals crossing the border have dedicated among the most heinous crimes this nation has witnessed in its historical past,” Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, stated in an announcement. “It can be true that radical Islamic terrorism and its warped ideology have crossed into our nation and contaminated these trying to unfold hate and violence.”
The workplaces of Greene, Johnson, Gimenez and Crane didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark. Fox News additionally didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.