Trump’s Lies About New Orleans Attack Will Soon Become Painful Policy Truths
The new year does not begin well.
My wife and I celebrated the first New Year’s after our wedding at the Palm Court Jazz Cafe in New Orleans. The band looked old enough to have played with Louis Armstrong, but they could still swing. The delightfully English owner Nina Buck, wearing a feather boa, treated everyone like favored guests at a dinner party. After a fabulous meal and too much champagne, we wandered back to our hotel among friendly revelers, many of whom raised their glasses and wished us a happy new year. You can drink on the streets of the French Quarter, because as our favorite local tour guide Jonathan Weiss put it, “We’re civilized here.”
Fifteen years later, I was fondly recalling that past New Year’s when a disturbed man attacked the city. In a rented pickup, he bypassed a police barricade and barreled down Bourbon Street, killing 14 people and injuring dozens more before crashing the truck. He was killed at the scene after exchanging gunfire with the police.
According to the FBI, the killer had posted pro-ISIS videos on social media before the attack. This led many quick-draw Columbos to conclude that he was a terrorist, acting as part of a coordinated attack against a beloved American city that most right-wingers would’ve condemned just a couple days ago. This includes Donald Trump, whose upcoming presidency feels like its own terrorist attack.
Trump posted on his low-rent social media site, “When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true.”
Of course, it wasn’t true, but that didn’t stop Trump and his GOP stooges from spreading the lie. They have learned through success that they can any life seem true with enough repetition.
‘Nothing changes on New Year’s Day.’
The New Orleans killer was a U.S. Army veteran who’d served in Afghanistan. I only mention his name, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, because that’s why bigots like the president-elect immediately assumed he’s an immigrant. He’s actually from Houston, which is in the Texas portion of America.
According to FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia, the killer stated in a video posted online that he had joined the Islamic State terrorist group and originally want to inflict harm solely on his unfortunate friends and family, but he didn’t care for how the media might interpret his actions. It seems like he was a small man who thought killing lots of innocent people would make his life bigger somehow. That’s a distinctly American sickness. It’s why we should focus on his victims and not on him.
Of course, the New York Post’s Jennie Taer went on a tour of the killer’s house where she pointed at a Quran as if the book itself were a weapon of mass destruction. (Watch below.)
Taer apparently specializes in scaremongering about the U.S./Mexico border, but that has nothing to do with the New Orleans killer. He’s an American, just like the apparent Trump-supporting soldier who shot himself in the head before his Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas.
Nevertheless, Trump persisted yesterday with more of his patriotic demagoguery.
Our Country is a disaster, a laughing stock all over the World! This is what happens when you have OPEN BORDERS, with weak, ineffective, and virtually nonexistent leadership. The DOJ, FBI, and Democrat state and local prosecutors have not done their job. They are incompetent and corrupt, having spent all of their waking hours unlawfully attacking their political opponent, ME, rather than protecting Americans from the outside and inside violent SCUM that has infiltrated all aspects of our government, and our Nation itself. Democrats should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this to happen to our Country.
This is pretty much Trump’s entire domestic agenda, which the media helpfully sanewashes. Politico stated, “Trump says New Orleans attack confirms his rhetoric on crime.” (Yes, that’s what he said. The fact that it’s a big lie seems slightly more relevant.) The Washington Post: “Trump appears to blame Biden border policy for New Orleans attack by U.S. citizen.” USA Today minimizes the larger point: “Without evidence, Trump blames Biden 'open borders' for 'radical Islamic terrorism.’” This might suggest that Trump simply jumped the gun and more evidence is forthcoming. It’s not. He’s deliberately lying. The New York Times came very close to using that liberal propaganda word “lie”: “Trump Falsely Suggested New Orleans Suspect Was an Immigrant.” We’re set for another four years of the mainstream media giving Trump a wholly undeserved benefit of the doubt.
Trump’s eldest and dumbest son, Donald Trump Jr., smeared President Joe Biden, who’s about to become MAGA’s perpetual scapegoat — the Snowball of Trump’s Animal Farm. He posted on social media while the victims’ families grieved, “Biden’s parting gift to America — migrant terrorists.”
At least 2.5 million people read Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s early morning New Year’s lie:
New Orleans terrorist attacker is said to have come across the border in Eagle Pass TWO DAYS AGO!!!
Shut the border down!!!
Who did our government bomb lately that is taking it out on innocent Americans?
Rep. Eli Crane wrote, “Our open border, our America-Last legal immigration system, and Congress’s inaction have created the perfect storm to endanger Americans in a multitude of ways. With weak policies that put the safety of Americans last, it’s not a question of if, but when.”
Once, it would’ve been question of “when” he would retract this statement and apologize, not “if.” Now, the original post remains up on Elon Musk’s Disinformation Message Board.
Rep. Carlos Gimenez declared, “We must secure the border & guarantee our local enforcement is empowered to enforce the law and protect the American people from these cowards!”
Imagine if Democrats had responded to the New Orleans massacre with passionate appeals for new gun control legislation, even though the mass murderer’s weapon this time was a car. Republicans, however, can fabricate the political reality that best suits them.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, desperate to hold onto his gavel, suggested on Fox News that Biden’s “wide open border” was partly to blame for the attack. He said that Republicans had sounded the alarms “that dangerous people were coming here in droves and setting up potentially terrorist cells around the country.”
It’s clear that MAGA is treating this horrific act of violence as a belated Christmas present. Sen. John Barrasso quickly moved to exploit the situation. He posted Wednesday morning, “The U.S. Senate must confirm President Trump’s national security team as soon as possible. Lives depend on it.”
Unless Barrasso’s New Year’s resolution was to tell more jokes, it’s absurd to argue that “lives depend on” the Senate rubber-stamping Trump’s clown car Cabinet, particular Kash Patel as FBI director and Tulsi Gabbard as national intelligence director. Normally, an actual terrorist attack would serve as the hangover cure for these nominations.
Thursday, Steven Cheung, Trump’s communications director, released a statement defending Trump’s lies while stoking the fires of fear.
“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. “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.”
This is the story the mainstream media chooses to ignore. Trump has seized on the first opportunity to advance the authoritarian agenda he never tried to hide during the election.
When my wife and I welcomed 2010 at the Palm Court Jazz Cafe, Barack Obama was president and Trump was the host of a reality TV show. This year, the Palm Court closed, and Trump was re-elected. Unfortunately, 2025 isn’t off to a better start.
Are we ever going to become a country where telling lies to the public works to the detriment of a political party, rather than to their benefit?
At this point, the answer I see is no.
It's so grim. But the bloody shirt is the nuclear bomb of political campaigning. And if you have an awful electorate, it really portends poorly for us going forward. This is only going to result in more violence as more of these stochastic terrorists lose the plot. And god help us if any of them are any sort of ethnic or racial minority.
Just the absolute worst possible incoming administration for a time like this.