House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) blamed both the Biden administration and Senate Democrats for failing to secure the nation’s southern border, which he argued has “real consequences,” following a terrorist attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day.
President-elect Donald Trump issued a statement early Thursday morning, saying the nation’s “OPEN BORDERS” and “nonexistent leadership” are responsible for the New Orleans terrorist attack, which killed at least 15 people and injured at least another 30 during a New Year’s Eve celebration. The House speaker issued a similar comment, saying House Republicans have been “ringing the alarms” for years over concerns regarding a possible terrorist attack due to the nation’s insecure border, but the Biden administration has been “completely derelict” in its duties.
“They told us, Lawrence, for four years that the No. 1 threat was so-called ‘racially motivated extremism,’ it was nonsense,” Johnson said on Fox News’s Fox & Friends. “This is the thing that we were all concerned about. This is why we raised the alarms. This is why we passed H.R. 2, the strongest border security act ever passed by Congress, and Chuck Schumer and the Democrats in the Senate would not put that through and make it into law. The Biden administration has a lot to account for here, and we see now in glaring view of everybody that this dereliction of duty has real consequences. It’s a concern, and it will be an ongoing concern for some time.”
Johnson also said there is currently no identified correlation between a threat to the 2025 Sugar Bowl and the New Orleans terrorist attack but added that he would defer to investigators for the latest updates. The annual college football game was delayed from Wednesday to Thursday afternoon following the attack.
Ahead of the game’s kickoff, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill expressed hesitancy about hosting the game so soon after the attack and said she would have delayed the game to no earlier than Friday if the decision was up to her. She also contended that “a certain degree of respect” is owed to the victims of the attack and their families.
When asked about Murrill’s concerns, as well as her frustrations over the lack of communication between her and the attack’s investigators, Johnson assured that Murrill would “get the answers” to bring “swift justice.” He added that the FBI needs to coordinate with state officials, and he and other D.C. lawmakers would be “exerting every pressure” to ensure this coordination happens.
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President Joe Biden revealed Wednesday that the FBI reported to him “mere hours before the attack” that the suspect posted videos on social media indicating that he was inspired by ISIS and was “expressing a desire to kill.” The suspect is a 42-year-old Army veteran from Texas who served on active duty and in the Army Reserve for many years.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) demanded that law enforcement release the suspect’s name, stressing that “the truth needs to come out asap.”