Washington According to President-elect Donald Trump, the terrorist attack that killed 14 people in New Orleans is intolerable, unjustifiable, and representative of a failing country with the worst president in history.
Trump is now in danger of having his withering verdict thrown back at him if a similar incident occurs during his administration, which begins in just 17 days when he takes the oath of office, after holding President Joe Biden to that standard.
Trump implied on social media that the Bourbon Street massacre was caused by a porous border that let criminals freely enter the nation and cause harm. The incident aligns with his long-held belief that undefended borders encourage violent crime, as he explained.
On New Year’s Day, hours after the man crashed into a crowd of revelers, he said, “It turned out to be true that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country.” Democrats and the Fake News Media were always disputing that remark.
However, officials have presented case facts that contradict Trump’s story.
The suspect, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, has been identified as a Texas-based American citizen and Army veteran.
The FBI’s counterterrorism chief told Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, in an interview Thursday that there was no foreign connection at all to the attack.
Sadly, mass murders have become more frequent in the US under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Because of the diverse motivations of the offenders, elected authorities are frequently left searching for answers without success. If there are similar catastrophes or copycat crimes when Trump returns to the White House and Biden is no longer present to bear responsibility, his criticism of Biden could backfire.
According to Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official, “we have a very polarized society, and there are extremists who are prepared to use violence, and it’s easy to do in America.” You can simply purchase a firearm.
The sad truth about America is that this kind of violence is really commonplace. He went on to say that it would be remarkable to have a holiday without some terrible mass fatality incident.
Another question is whether Trump ought to have intervened when tensions were high in New Orleans and investigators were still trying to determine what had transpired and why. Trump’s willingness to defy convention and just say what he believes is part of what makes him appealing to Americans. But Trump opponents argued it would have been wise for someone with such a wide megaphone to keep back in a situation where a criminal probe is ongoing.
“I get the sense that in some ways he is still in the campaign and still trying to stress the themes that he stressed during the campaign, whether the facts support those comments or not,” said Leon Panetta, a former White House chief of staff, CIA director, and defense secretary in previous Democratic administrations, in an interview.
The issue is that he has been elected president of the United States. Furthermore, it is absolutely impossible to employ those identical strategies without first confirming the facts. It is actually the president’s duty to ensure that the facts support his statements to the American people.
Trump s initial post came at 10:48 a.m. ET Wednesday, shortly after Fox News reported that the suspect s truck had crossed the border into the United States two days earlier in Eagle Pass, Texas a town known for its large number of border crossings during the Biden administration.
The truck had actually crossed the border in November, according to Fox’s later-corrected report, with a driver who “did not appear to be” the suspect in the attack in New Orleans.
After noticing the original report, conservatives on social media came to the conclusion that the culprit was a migrant and that the incident may have been caused by inadequate border security.
Trump spent the remainder of the day at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, and made no posts on the attack.
Trump made another post on Truth Social just after midnight, but this time he was more broad in his criticism: Our nation is a complete mess and a global laughing stock! When you have OPEN BORDERS and poor, incompetent, and essentially nonexistent leadership, this is what occurs. Democratic state and local prosecutors, the FBI, and the DOJ have failed to fulfill their duties.
At 9:08 a.m. Thursday, Trump followed up withanother message, broadening his criticism of the Biden administration.
With the Biden Open Border s Policy I said, many times during our Rallies, and elsewhere, that Radical Islamic Terrorism, and other forms of violent crime will become so bad in America that it will become hard to even imagine or believe, he wrote. That time has come, only worse than ever imagined.
In a statement Thursday, incoming White House communications director Steven Cheung defended Trump’s message on immigration.
President Trump rightfully highlighted that criminals crossing the border have committed some of the most heinous crimes this country has witnessed in its history,” he said. “That is a factual statement, and it is a big reason why Americans overwhelmingly voted for him and gave him a massive mandate. It is also true that radical Islamic terrorism and its warped ideology have crossed into our country and infected those looking to spread hate and violence.
An ally defended Trump s statements and said of the suspects in the New Orleans attack and an explosion in a Tesla Cybertruck outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas: These folks while Americans, and especially regarding New Orleans were certainly radicalized somewhere. So whether it s the northern or southern border, I think this certainly bolsters his argument to put a stop to illegal crossings and go after those who may be in the country.
The attack in New Orleans and the incident at the Las Vegas hotel have also intensified the debate surrounding Trump s choices for key national security positions.
Trump s pick for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and his selection for director of national intelligence,Tulsi Gabbard, among others, have faced scrutiny over their qualifications.
The images of a pickup truck racing along a crowded Bourbon Street with a black Islamic State flag attached to the hitch were stark reminders of the importance of those jobs. A Trump transition official predicted that the attacks would help ensure those national security selections are ultimately confirmed.
Not sure it happens on January 20, but the idea that folks important to our national security that President Trump nominated should be confirmed quickly was always the case, but that urgency has been increased 1000x after the terrorist attacks over the past few days,” the official wrote to NBC News. “If there are remaining Republican senators who still are on the fence, it s time for them to get off, or hear from the American people.
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