U.S. Senate Republicans are using the New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans, which killed 14 people and injured dozens more, to push through one of Donald Trump’s most controversial Cabinet nominations and become president-elect. is about to attack the country’s anti-immigration policies. The attacker was an American born and raised in East Texas.
Several Senate Republicans appeared on Sunday political shows to call for emergency confirmation of Trump’s most controversial cabinet picks, which face a grueling confirmation process. Among them is Kash Patel, who was chosen by President Trump to head the FBI. Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence.
Senators on Wednesday cracked down on a devastating attack in New Orleans. In the attack, a pickup truck displaying an Islamic State flag sped through the city’s French Quarter, killing more than a dozen drunk people, before police shot and killed the gunman in a gunfight. They said delays in approving controversial cabinet picks would harm U.S. national security.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a prominent Trump supporter, said he would vote for all of the president-elect’s nominees. “Do it now, do it fast, get it all done,” he said on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures. “We’re under attack here. We’re at war.”
Mr. Graham added that what he called a “broken border” was a “national security nightmare.”
“Every day we don’t close our borders is another day terrorists come in,” Graham said.
An unsubstantiated connection between the New Orleans attack and border security was asserted shortly thereafter by President Trump and top Republican leaders in Congress. The day after the attack, Louisiana Congressman Mike Johnson, who was just re-elected as speaker of the House, said he was “sounding the alarm” about “obvious concerns about terrorism and wide open borders.” The idea is that dangerous people are coming here in droves and potentially setting up terrorist organizations. ”
The sole perpetrator of the New Orleans murders, Shamsuddin Jabbar, 42, was born in Beaumont, Texas, and was living in Houston at the time of the murders. He served in the US Army for 13 years.
He only had to drive about six hours east, crossing only the Texas-Louisiana border, to position himself for the attack.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told ABC News this week that the United States faces a “very difficult threat landscape.” But he said, “The perpetrators of the terrorist attack in New Orleans were born in the United States, raised in the United States, and served in our military.”
“It’s not a border issue,” he said.
Much of the new Republican effort to overcome opposition to Mr. Trump’s picks focuses on Mr. Patel, his choice to head the FBI. Mr. Patel, who has never worked for the bureau, has come under fire for threatening to shut down FBI headquarters in the Hooverville building and turn it into a “deep state” museum — in effect, if confirmed, he would It would dismantle the very organization he was meant to lead, and for days has been at the center of efforts to thwart another New Orleans-style attack.
Jim Banks, in his first week on the job as a senator from Indiana, told CNN’s State of the Union that in his view, “Mr. Kash is right.”
“Over the past four years, FBI leadership has focused on left-wing political causes, going after parents at school board meetings instead of going after (Islamic State) members,” he said. said.
One of the first Republican leaders to push for quick confirmation was the new Senate majority leader, John Thune. Within hours of the New Orleans attack, he called it “a clear example of why the Senate must install President Trump’s national security team as soon as possible.”
On Sunday, he took a more measured stance, refusing to tell NBC News’ Meet the Press whether he would vote for Patel. “My job is to make sure (the candidates) get a fair process, and that’s what I intend to do,” he said.
Mr. Thune was asked what he thought about Mr. Patel’s target list of 60 political opponents (what he called “government gangsters”) that he had promised to pursue if he was confirmed as FBI director. “Are you sure that Kash Patel’s priority is to fight crime and protect national security, not to resolve political consequences?” Thun was asked.
Thune said the FBI needs “reform” and “good change” to restore public trust in the agency. “I think (Patel) understands that that’s the mission,” Thune said.
Other key members of Trump’s desired national security team also face hurdles in their quest for Senate confirmation. Hegseth was accused of sexual misconduct in 2017, which he denies. Gabbard has come under a barrage of criticism for her alleged sympathies with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Matt Gaetz, who was already one of President Trump’s nominees for attorney general, was forced to withdraw from the nomination after coming under intense scrutiny for allegedly having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl who was a high school senior at the time. has been done.
President Trump has made it clear that he considers it a top priority for the new president to quickly form a Cabinet of individuals to whom he owes unquestionable loyalty.
