Trump blamed foreigners for terror attack. The truth may not matter

It may seem crass for Donald Trump to be using the New Orleans terrorist attack to score political points – but he knows, like every successful politician, that you should never let a good crisis go to waste.

No sooner had Fox News claimed that Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, the suspect, had entered the country through the Texas border two days ago, Donald Trump Jr tweeted: “Biden’s parting gift to America – migrant terrorists.”

Over on Truth Social, the platform favoured by the president-elect, Mr Trump repeated his previous claim that “the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country”, which he said had been denied by “the fake news media” but had “turned out to be true”.