Donald Trump Muddies the Waters in New Orleans

Donald Trump wasted little time this week trying to use the deadly New Year’s attack in New Orleans as an opportunity to push his hardline border policies—even though the suspected killer, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, was a United States-born citizen from Texas. “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,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday, when details about the truck attack that killed 15 and injured dozens of others in the French Quarter were still sparse. “But it turned out to be true.”

“The crime rate in our country is at a level that nobody has ever seen before,” Trump added.

The implication that the alleged attacker—a 42-year-old Army veteran who appears to have been inspired by ISIS but authorities say acted alone—was from outside the U.S. is false, as even Fox News pointed out. But Trump continued to push this narrative Thursday: “This is what happens when you have OPEN BORDERS, with weak, ineffective, and virtually nonexistent leadership,” Trump posted. “With the Biden ‘Open Border’s Policy’ I said, many times during 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.”

His MAGA allies followed suit, blaming Democratic immigration policy for the homegrown attack: “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,” Arizona Congressman Eli Crane wrote. “With weak policies that put the safety of Americans last, it’s not a question of if, but when.”

Trump, of course, has always been a firehose of lies, distortions, and other bullshit—spouting falsehoods that serve his political agenda. But in just over two weeks, he’ll once again be spouting them from the most powerful office in the country, where his words will have a far broader reach and carry greater significance. His disinformation has been bad enough on its own—corrosive to our civic life, and a danger to our democracy. But Trump’s indifference to reality and susceptibility to bunk are particularly dangerous in moments of crisis, as we saw at the onset of the COVID pandemic during the final year of his first term.

Trump’s opportunism following the New Orleans terror attack is a reminder of that chaos and confusion—and a preview of what’s in store when he takes office again later this month.