It only took a few hours for Donald Trump to seize on the car-ramming attack that plunged New Orleans, Louisiana, into mourning and left at least 15 dead and dozens injured on the night of December 31, 2024, to January 1, 2025. On his social media network Truth Social, the president-elect blamed Democrats, responsible, he claimed, for an increase in foreign crime. "When I said that the criminals coming in [to the United States] 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," he wrote.

Trump was misinformed, as were many of those who, on the basis of the initial information broadcast by Fox News, claimed on social media that the driver of the pickup truck that plowed into the crowd had entered the US via Mexico and that it was time to close the border abandoned to asylum seekers due to the laxness of the Democrats. "Biden's parting gift to America – migrant terrorists," denounced Donald Trump Jr., the president-elect's son, from Mar-a-Lago, Florida.

Later in the day, when the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) identified the perpetrator, it emerged that he was in fact an American who had served eight years in the Army: 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, born and residing in Texas. A flag of the Islamic State (IS) organization flew from the back of the vehicle, white letters on a black background. On Tuesday evening, Jabbar left a video on his Facebook account in which he pledged allegiance to the IS and declared his desire to "kill," said President Joe Biden, in the evening, after being briefed by the FBI at the presidential residence Camp David, in Maryland.

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