Biden to visit New Orleans after mass killing on Bourbon Street
President Joe Biden will travel to New Orleans on Monday to meet with families of the victims who were killed or injured in the early hours of New Year’s Day by a driver who rammed a truck bearing an Islamic State flag into a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street.
The White House said Friday that the president would head to the city to grieve with family members and meet with residents affected by the attack, as well as with officials who were involved in responding to the mass murder.
Biden has taken his role as consoler in chief seriously throughout his presidency, traveling to sites as disparate as red states battered by hurricanes and Israel after a terrorist attack that killed some 1,200 people. He has repeatedly praised the courage and resilience of the people of New Orleans in recent days.
Presidents often avoid the scene of violent incidents in their immediate aftermath so as to not impede the investigation, but in this case authorities have homed in on Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old army veteran from Texas, and concluded that he acted alone. The driver killed 14 people before dying in a shootout with police. Victims included parents of young children, a Superdome worker and a former Ivy League football player. Among those injured are two Israeli citizens, according to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and a University of Georgia student who is in critical condition, university president Jere Morehead said.
Biden and FBI officials have said Jabbar posted videos on social media in the hours before the attack indicating that it was inspired by the Islamic State, a militant group that aims to create an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East. Jabbar, who had explosives in the truck and had planted others nearby, was killed at the scene in an exchange of fire that injured two officers.
Biden has been closely monitoring the investigation, White House officials said. He convened his national security advisers in the Situation Room when he returned to the White House from Camp David on Thursday, and he has provided updates on the FBI’s findings at several public appearances this week.
“To all the families of those who were killed, to all those who were injured, to all the people in New Orleans who are grieving today, I want you to know I grieve with you,” Biden said on Thursday. “Our nation grieves with you. We’re going to stand with you as you mourn and as you heal in the weeks to come.”
Before giving remarks on judicial confirmations at the White House the same day, Biden said federal law enforcement officials and intelligence operatives were continuing to probe whether Jabbar had any direct ties to the Islamic State and whether there was any connection between the New Orleans attack and a separate explosion outside a Trump property in Las Vegas.
Biden said authorities had told him they had not detected any connection between the two events but he had directed them to “keep looking.”
At a news conference Thursday, Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill said authorities believe the explosion of the Tesla Cybertruck in front of the Trump International Hotel on Wednesday was part of an apparent suicide. Evidence indicates, authorities said, that the suspect was 37-year-old Matthew Livelsberger of Colorado Springs, who was an active-duty U.S. Army soldier.