Donald Trump 2024 campaign senior adviser Corey Lewandowski went to extreme lengths to defend the president-elect’s lie linking the New Orleans terror attack on New Years Day to illegal immigration.
After the attack Trump took to his social media platform to issue a statement slamming the “open borders” and claim “criminals are coming in” from other countries.
However the suspect in the attack has been identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old US -born citizen from Texas and an Army veteran.
Lewandowski was pressed on Trump’s lie during an interview on Sunday with Fox host Howard Kurtz.
“Why, the day after we all learned that the New Orleans mass murderer was an American citizen and had served in the Army, did Donald Trump put this up on Truth social: ‘This is what happens when you have open borders with weak, ineffective, and virtually non-existent leadership,’” Kurtz asked in a clip highlighted by The Daily Beast. “What has that got to do with the Bourbon Street killer?”
“Well, Howie, what we know or what we seem to have known about this individual was yes, he served in the U.S. military, but he also went overseas, I think, to the Middle East, where many think he was radicalized over there and then came through Canada before he came back into the United States,” Lewandowski responded.
“So we have to make sure that we are vigilant of checking everybody coming to this country and making sure we know where they’re coming in from,” he added. “Even American citizens..they have a right to travel. Of course, they do. But making sure that we understand that we’re dealing with the mental health crisis that this person clearly had.”
Lyonel Myrthil, the FBI special agent in charge of the New Orleans field office said Jabbar travelled to Egypt and Ontario, Canada in 2023 though it is unclear if the visits are linked to the terror plot.
