‘Our Country is a disaster’: Trump claims he was ‘right about everything’ in latest attack on the United States
In the early hours of New Year’s Day, an armed gunman drove a rented pickup truck into a crowded section of Bourbon Street, New Orleans, killing 15 people and wounding dozens more. The attack prompted an outpouring of grief across the globe, with world leaders extending their deepest sympathies to the victims and their families.
Donald Trump had a different response entirely.
“Our country is a disaster” the President-elect wrote on Truth Social, claiming that this attack made America the “laughing stock of the world.” Trump then launched into an “I told you so” rant against the federal government, saying that agencies such as the DOJ and FBI “have not done their job,” and were so focused on “unlawfully attacking” the president-elect himself that they were unprepared to defend American citizens from harm.
Trump followed up his tweet with a third person announcement: “TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING.”
Trump wasn’t right about anything at all. Not long after the attack, the president-elect claimed that it had been carried out by an undocumented immigrant. It wasn’t, as the alleged gunman was Shamsud-Din Jabbar, an Army veteran born in Texas. Jabbar recorded a series of videos of himself before the attack, where he spoke of his dreams to join ISIS and his intent to kill his family. Jabbar was killed at the scene of the attack during a shootout with police.
Despite Jabbar being an American citizen, Trump spread lies about the attack in order to stoke up anti-immigrant sentiment in his base – a tactic that he relied on heavily during his 2024 campaign for president. While on the campaign trail, Trump escalated his anti-migrant rhetoric with increasingly violent and dehumanizing language. He referred to immigrants as “animals” and that were “poisoning the blood” of the country, echoing white supremacist beliefs surrounding blood purity. Trump extended his hateful rhetoric towards American citizens as well, calling his political enemies “vermin.”
Trump’s recent Truth Social posting about the New Orleans attack features much of the same authoritarian, fear-mongering language. He claimed that the federal government failed to protect Americans from “SCUM that has infiltrated all aspects of our government, and our nation itself,” framing the attack of evidence of greater corruption in American society and government. According to Trump, only “strength and powerful leadership” will turn the tide, tacitly painting himself as the strongman that America needs.
In a follow-up post, Trump attempted to lay blame upon the Biden Administration, saying that Biden’s “Open Border Policy” is causing a rise in “‘Radical Islamic Terrorism.” Trump then called Biden the “WORST PRESIDENT IN THE HISTORY OF AMERICA.” Trump’s attempt to use the attack to manufacture fear towards Muslims is all par for his political course, as the president-elect recently announced his intent to reinstate his “famous travel ban” which barred citizens from six major Muslim countries from entering U.S. borders. While the FBI has said that an ISIS flag was found in Jabbar’s car, the agency is has not yet announced if the Islamic State itself was involved.
Rather than extend his sympathies to the victims of the attack and call for unity, Donald Trump is using the tragedy in New Orleans to score political points against his enemies and further his agenda – once again proving that there’s only one person in the world that the president-elect appears to care for: himself.
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