Washington DC - President-elect Donald Trump and some of his most ardent MAGA allies have insisted that immigrants are to blame for the attacks that took place in the US on New Year's Day.

In a Truth Social post shared on Wednesday, Trump lamented "criminals coming in" from other countries and argued that because of them, crime in the US is "at a level that nobody has ever seen before."

Trump's comments came minutes after Fox News reported on a terror attack in New Orleans on Wednesday, where a man – who was eventually identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar – drove a pickup truck into a crowd of people, killing more than a dozen people.

Fox News originally reported that the suspect's truck crossed the US border in Eagle Pass, Texas, "two days ago," leading its right-wing base to believe the suspect was an immigrant.

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Though it has now been confirmed that Jabbar was a US citizen and Army veteran and Fox News has retracted the false information, Trump continued to push messages of fear.

In one follow-up post shared on Thursday, he said America is "a disaster" and "a laughing stock all over the World!" and claimed the country is "breaking down" due to a "violent erosion of safety."

In another, he warned that President Joe Biden's "open borders policy" will cause "Radical Islamic Terrorism" to become "worse than ever imagined."

Fox News has been quietly attempting to clean up their mistake, later clarifying the truck – which was a rental – was spotted entering through Eagle Pass two months ago by a driver who was not the suspect.

On Wednesday afternoon, a Fox anchor read Trump's comments live on the air and clarified the suspect was a US citizen – but did not mention that their network was the source of the false claims.

Despite this, the claims have spread like rapid fire across social media and now appear to be the narrative MAGA Republicans are still sticking to.

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Vice President-elect JD Vance shared a screenshot of Trump's post in support, and Trump's eldest son, Don Jr., said in an X post the attack was "Biden's parting gift to America – migrant terrorists."

Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene quickly shared the misinformation from the Fox News report in a post, writing, "Shut the border down!!! Who did our government bomb lately that is taking it out on innocent Americans?"

Billionaire Elon Musk and Greene have both suggested the attack may be linked to a seperate incident that took place in New Orleans that same day when a Tesla Cybertruck exploded in front of Trump Tower, but there has been no evidence to support that claim so far.

Texas Rep. Wesley Hunt asked in a post, "Has the enemy already infiltrated our borders due to Joe Biden's incompetence and his failure to secure our homeland?"

In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, House Speaker Mike Johnson said the left has insisted "racially motivated extremism" was the number one problem in America, and argued the New Orleans attack proves that's "nonsense."