Maggie Haberman Predicts How Trump Will Use New Orleans Attack For ‘Day 1’ Pledge | EUROtoday

Maggie Haberman on Thursday predicted Donald Trump will proceed to govern the New Orleans truck assault right into a narrative that helps his anti-immigration agenda within the coming weeks as he takes workplace.

“What’s behind it, Pam, is that Trump has a pretty firm anti-immigrant box in which he fits most things, and this is no exception,” the outstanding New York Times reporter advised CNN’s Pamela Brown on “The Source.”

“They’re tripling down. His communications director, Steven Cheung, sent me a statement … loosely tying this incident to examples where immigrants have crossed the border who had ISIS ties.”

“They were relatively small in number compared to the number of border crossings there are daily,” she added.

“But you are going to, I suspect, see President-elect Trump continue to push this, because he has said … that on day one, he is going to seal the border, and I think you are going to see him use this as a reason why.”

The journalist mentioned she was “not surprised” with the path Trump took, regardless of there nonetheless being “so much we don’t know” concerning the attacker who killed at the least 14 individuals by plowing by way of Bourbon Street in a truck on New Year’s Day.

The FBI is investigating the incident as an act of terrorism.

On Wednesday, earlier than the FBI had recognized its suspect publicly, Trump linked the assault to immigration failures.

But when the suspect was recognized as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S. citizen from Texas, Trump didn’t again down, persevering with his tirade towards “OPEN BORDERS.”

Cheung, Trump’s spokesperson, offered a press release to HuffPost on Thursday akin to the one Haberman described when requested if the president-elect supposed to amend his deceptive feedback following the identification of the suspect.

“President Trump rightfully highlighted that criminals crossing the border have committed some of the most heinous crimes this country has witnessed in its history. That is a factual statement,” he mentioned partly, including, “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.”

Elected Republicans have additionally seized on the violence as a chance to criticize the Biden administration’s border insurance policies and tout the incoming administration’s immigration plans.

Trump, who made undocumented immigration a core situation of his election marketing campaign, has vowed a sweeping mass deportation effort and immigration crackdown when he takes workplace.