In the wake of the devastating terrorist attack in New Orleans, President-elect Donald Trump and far too many Republicans wasted no time using the tragedy to inaccurately and outrageously connect the attack to border security and migrants. On Wednesday morning, an erroneous Fox News report stated the suspect's truck had been observed crossing the U.S.-Mexico border just days previously, implying that border security failures were to blame for the attack. From there, the floodgates opened.
According to Media Matters, within minutes of the report, Trump blamed the terrorist attack on "criminals coming in" to the United States. Predictably, others followed suit: Vice President-elect JD Vance retweeted Trump's post, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene declared "New Orleans terrorist attacker is said to have come across the border in Eagle Pass TWO DAYS AGO!!! Shut the border down!!!" House Speaker Mike Johnson joined "Fox & Friends" to blame the attack on Biden's "wide-open border," as did Trump's incoming border czar Tom Homan.
Here's the truth: The New Orleans attacker was a U.S. citizen, born in the United States, and an Army veteran. Fox News retracted its report hours later, clarifying that the truck had crossed the border months ago, driven by a totally different person. (We now know the owner of the truck rented it out online via the app Turo.) Yet Johnson and others continued to echo this claim on Fox well after the network corrected itself. And GOP Rep. Mike Waltz is still exploiting this tragedy to push for confirmations of Trump's national security picks — including himself — "on day one."
This focus on the border is a distraction from the real questions that need to be asked. What radicalized a U.S. citizen to commit such a horrific crime? Trump will be president in just 16 days, and this week highlights his dangerous habit of prioritizing political narratives over actual threats.
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