The election of President-elect Donald Trump as national security adviser prompts calls for the US to close the border following the deadly terror attack in New Orleans early New Year’s Day.
In an interview Thursday morning, Mike Waltz, who has been identified as a key figure in the new administration, said Trump has been kept informed.
‘We have to look carefully at our defense. First and foremost, close our border, where over 300 people on the terrorist watch list have crossed our border in recent years,” Waltz said.
His comments come after Trump also targeted the border following the horrific attack that left 15 people dead.
The FBI identified the driver of the attack as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old U.S. citizen and U.S. Army veteran from Texas. Investigators do not believe he acted alone.
A night of celebration in New Orleans quickly turned into chaos and terror when Jabbar drove a pickup truck into the crowds welcoming the New Year on busy Bourbon Street before being killed in a shootout with police.
The rented truck was loaded with weapons and a ‘potential’ improvised explosive device. An Islamic State flag was found in the trailer.
On Thursday, Waltz said terrorists around the world “haven’t gotten the memo that the war on terror is over.”
‘They still hate us. They are plotting and planning to attack us. And we have to be on our guard,” he said.
Incoming National Security Advisor Mike Waltz called on the US to close the border after the terror attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day
Waltz said that while the U.S. needs a defensive aspect, he also called for an “offensive aspect, taking a hard look at our strategy abroad.”
The Florida congressman said the U.S. needs to look at its attitude toward intelligence agents to “keep an eye on ISIS, al-Qaeda and others.”
Waltz praised law enforcement for their response to the attack, but said it was a failure because it could not have been prevented.
‘We need to see if we had information indicators. We need to look at how he became radicalized online,” he said.
The incoming national security adviser noted that it is not yet clear who Jabbar may have been in contact with from abroad, or whether the attack was entirely homegrown.
‘I cannot emphasize enough: close the border. Secure our sovereignty,” Waltz reiterated.
‘The whole world knows we have an open border. They intend to hit us, and they are pushing people into our interior to do just that,” he said.
He claimed that if the US “looks inward,” it “cannot defend ourselves abroad.”
Police have identified the killer as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a U.S. Army veteran who was born in Texas and was inspired by ISIS to carry out the vehicle attack on people celebrating on Bourbon Street.
The rented white truck used in the attack that killed 15 people in New Orleans on New Year’s Day
His comments come as Trump has also occupied the US border, despite the investigation being ongoing and the attacker identified as a US-born citizen.
‘This is what happens when you have OPEN BORDERS, with weak, ineffective and virtually non-existent leadership. The DOJ, FBI and Democratic state and local prosecutors failed to do their jobs,” the 78-year-old wrote in a social media post just after midnight on Tuesday.
The president-elect claimed the US is “collapsed” as he prepares to return to power later this month.
“With the Biden ‘Open Border’s Policy,’ I have often said at rallies and elsewhere that radical Islamic terrorism and other forms of violent crime in America will become so bad that it will be difficult to even imagine or believe,” he added in another Truth Social post Tuesday morning.
FBI agents at the scene of the early morning New Year’s attack on revelers and workers late in Bourbon Street, New Orleans’ famous party district
A White House spokesperson said President Biden would convene members of his homeland security team in the White House Situation Room on Tuesday afternoon to get an update on the investigation into the New Orleans attack.
He addressed the terror attack from Camp David on Wednesday evening, where he reiterated that the attacker was a Texas-born American inspired by ISIS and urged him ‘No one should jump to conclusions.’
Biden also said investigators are looking into possible links between the New Orleans attack and a Tesla Cybertruck explosion outside Trump’s Las Vegas hotel.