Republicans try to exploit New Orleans attack to push through Trump agenda

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: The Guardian

Sun 5 Jan 2025 14.12 EST
Last modified on Sun 5 Jan 2025 16.30 EST


Republicans in the US Senate are attempting to exploit the New Year’s Day attack that killed 14 victims in New Orleans, injuring dozens more, to push through Donald Trump’s most controversial cabinet nominations and rocket-charge the incoming president’s anti-immigration agenda – despite the fact that the attacker was a US citizen born and raised in east Texas.

Several Senate Republicans appeared on Sunday’s political shows to call for an urgent approval of the most contentious of Trump’s cabinet selections, who are facing a tough confirmation process. They include Kash Patel, chosen by Trump for FBI director; Pete Hegseth for defense secretary; and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence.

The senators seized on Wednesday’s devastating attack in New Orleans, in which a pickup truck bearing an Islamic State flag was driven at high speed in the city’s French Quarter, killing more than a dozen revellers before police shot the attacker dead in a gunfight. They said that any delay in confirmation of the controversial cabinet picks would damage US national security. Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina who is a leading Trump loyalist, said he would vote for all the president-elect’s nominees.

“Do them now, do them quick, get them all done,” he told Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures. “We are under attack here – we are at war.” Graham added that what he called the “broken border” was a “national security nightmare”. “Every day we don’t shut down that border is another day for terrorists to come in,” Graham said. The unfounded link between the New Orleans attack and border security was made in the immediate aftermath by Trump and top congressional Republicans.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/05/republicans-new-orleans-attack-trump

[Skittles]

1. predictably, Lindsey is such a GOOD BOI

WTF do they have on that guy, it has to be VERY BAD INDEED

[mollie8]

4. Suck Up

Lindsey is just a suck up. Will follow whomever he thinks is on top. No conscience, morals, values, empty sock. I wish he'd retire. Can't stand him.

[Walleye]

2. The purpose of terrorism is to scare people. Lindsey is helping the terrorists

[Vinca]

3. Does that mean they plan to deport Texans?????

[DSandra]

5. Too bad MAGA can't realize just how much of a sucker Republicans think they are

I mean, it’s damn obvious to people on the outside how blatant an attempt it is.