Trump 2024 campaign official Corey Lewandowski defended President-elect Donald Trump for falsely suggesting a man killed over a dozen people in New Orleans after crossing an open border into the United States.
During a Sunday interview on Fox News, host Howard Kurtz pressed Lewandowski on Trump's false claim.
"Why, the day after we all learned that the New Orleans mass murderer was an American citizen and had served in the Army, did Donald Trump put this up on Truth Social? 'This is what happens when you have open borders with weak, ineffective, and virtually non-existent leadership,'" Kurtz Wondered. "What has that got to do with the Bourbon Street killer?"
"Well, Howie, what we know or what we seem to have known about this individual was, yes, he served in the U.S. military, but he also went overseas, I think, to the Middle East, where many think he was radicalized over there and then came through Canada before he came back into the United States," Lewandowski replied deceptively.
"So, you know, we have to make sure that we are vigilant of checking everybody coming to this country and making sure we know where they're coming in from," he added. "Even American citizens, look, they have a right to travel. Of course, they do. But making sure that we understand that we're dealing with the mental health crisis that this person clearly had."
While being deployed with the U.S. Army, Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar returned from Afghanistan in 2010 with an apparent layover in Canada.
Canada does not appear in the FBI's timeline of the New Orleans attack.
Kurtz did not challenge the Trump official on the suggestion that the killer had been radicalized while out of the country.
