President-elect Donald Trump and his allies in Congress have blamed the deadly truck attack in New Orleans on President Joe Biden’s border policies, even though the attacker was a U.S. citizen.
“When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was continually refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth. Social information was still trickling in about Wednesday morning’s ram attack.
“The crime rate in our country is at levels no one has ever seen before,” he wrote. “Our hearts are with all the innocent victims and their loved ones, including the brave officers of the New Orleans Police Department.”
Officials later identified the attacker as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, of Texas, a U.S. citizen and an Army veteran.
Fox News had reported Wednesday morning that the driver, who was shot by police after running over a crowd of people on New Orleans’ famed Bourbon Street, had crossed the border into Mexico earlier this week. The network backtracked on its reporting later Wednesday, but not before Trump and some of his allies repeated it.
Donald Trump Jr., the president-elect’s eldest son, posted a news article about the false report, saying, “Biden’s parting gift to America – migrant terrorists.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., posted shortly after the first clip: “New Orleans terrorist attacker is said to have crossed the border in Eagle Pass TWO DAYS AGO!!! Close the border!!!”
Later Wednesday, Fox News quoted Trump’s Truth Social post and then noted: “To be clear, the suspect was born in the United States.”
Despite Fox’s clarifications, Trump doubled down on his message Thursday in posts on Truth Social, saying the Biden administration’s handling of the nation’s borders has led to “a violent erosion of security, national security and democracy.”
“With the Biden ‘Open Border’s Policy,’ I have often said at rallies and elsewhere that radical Islamic terrorism and other forms of violent crime in America will become so bad that it will be difficult to even imagine or believe, ” he wrote in another post. “That time has come, only worse than ever imagined.”
Other Republicans did not directly reference Fox’s original report but still appeared to blame the situation at the border for the attack and took the opportunity to push the larger Republican platform of a vulnerable border damaging national security .
In an appearance on Fox News on Thursday, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., also tried to portray the attack as a failure of border security. I’m coming here en masse and potentially setting up terrorist cells across the country.”
Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., in response to images of the dead suspect on to endanger. “
Similarly, Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., on and the American people of these cowards!”
NBC News reported earlier this year that about 0.014% of migrants who had attempted to cross the border in fiscal year 2024, or fewer than 2 in 10,000, were on the terrorist watch list. The total number who have attempted to cross during the Biden administration is just over 1,700. During Trump’s presidency there were 1,400.
A representative of Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. The offices of Greene, Johnson, Gimenez and Crane also did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Fox News also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
