Tangle - The attack in New Orleans.

I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

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Today's read: 13 minutes.

We're back!

Thanks so much for bearing with us through our annual holiday break. The team is recharged and ready to hit the ground running in 2025. Over the break, our mailing list also broke 300,000 subscribers — so a quick thank you for all your amazing support last year. As always, this Friday, we'll start the year with a members-only post reviewing our coverage from 2024. If you're interested in seeing how our writing held up with the benefit of hindsight, keep an eye out for that post on Friday.

What we missed.

We’re back from an extended holiday break that included major news stories in the U.S. and abroad. Here are 10 stories from the last two weeks that we didn’t have the chance to cover.

1. Former President Jimmy Carter passed away at age 100 on December 29. (The passing)
2. A passenger jet operated by Jeju Air crash-landed in South Korea, killing 179 of the 181 people on board. The plane’s landing gear did not appear to deploy properly, and investigators are working to determine what caused the failure. (The crash) Separately, an Azerbaijan Airlines plane crashed in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people. Azerbaijan's preliminary investigation found that Russian air defenses likely downed the plane. (The crash)
3. A federal appeals court blocked an order by the Federal Communications Commission to reinstate net neutrality rules governing internet service providers, finding that the agency overstepped its authority. (The ruling)
4. A widespread blackout that hit Puerto Rico on New Year’s Eve is believed to have been caused by a failure in an underground electric line. Power was restored to most of the island on New Year’s Day. (The blackout)
5. The Treasury Department said its systems were hacked by a state-sponsored actor in China. The hacker accessed some unclassified documents, but the department said they had contained the threat. (The hack)
6. President-elect Donald Trump asked the Supreme Court to pause the January 19 deadline for a potential TikTok ban in the U.S., suggesting that he would resolve the challenges to the ban after his inauguration. (The request)
7. Newly surfaced photos from the National Archives and Records Administration appear to show then-Vice President Joe Biden meeting with Chinese business associates of his son, Hunter, casting doubt on Biden’s claims to have not been involved in his son’s business activities. (The photos)
8. Judge Juan Merchan upheld President-elect Trump’s conviction in his New York criminal trial and scheduled his sentencing for January 10. Merchan said Trump would not be sentenced to prison or probation. (The decision)
9. The Biden administration announced a $306 million commitment toward preparedness for managing the risk of H5N1, an avian influenza, which has affected millions of livestock across the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that the current risk to humans remains low. (The announcement)
10. New data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development found that 771,480 people were homeless in the United States in 2024, an 18% increase from 2023. (The data)

Today's quick hits.

1. Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) was re-elected as Speaker of the House on the first ballot after two Republican holdouts changed their votes to support him. (The vote)
2. President Joe Biden blocked Nippon Steel’s proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel, citing potential security issues posed by the deal. Nippon and U.S. Steel filed a federal lawsuit challenging the decision. (The latest)
3. Winter Storm Blair dumped the heaviest snowfall in decades across Kansas, with some areas recording 18 inches of snow. The storm is now moving from the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic, with more than 350,000 people without power and four reported deaths. (The storm)
4. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced his resignation as leader of the Liberal Party. Trudeau plans to remain prime minister until a new party leader is chosen. (The resignation)
5. Ukraine launched a surprise offensive in Russia’s Kursk region amid ongoing fighting with Russian and North Korean troops. (The offensive) Separately, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s security services defied a warrant for his arrest despite a court upholding the warrant’s validity. Yoon was impeached in December for his decision to declare martial law, and he is suspended from official duties while South Korea’s Constitutional Court decides whether to reinstate or remove him. (The standoff)

Today's topic.

The New Orleans attack. In the early hours of New Year’s Day, a man drove a pickup truck into a crowd on New Orleans’s Bourbon Street, killing 14 people and injuring 35 others. Additionally, the attacker reportedly planted multiple improvised explosive devices in the area, but they did not detonate. Investigators said the suspect appears to have been inspired by ISIS, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, and was flying an ISIS flag from the truck's rear bumper during the attack. The attacker was killed in a shootout with the police.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) identified Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, as the perpetrator of the attack. Jabbar was a United States citizen and Army veteran, most recently working as a senior consultant at the professional services firm Deloitte. He reportedly rented the truck used in the attack in Houston, Texas, on December 30 and drove it to Louisiana, where he posted videos on social media declaring his allegiance to ISIS. FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia said that Jabbar initially planned to harm his friends and family, but changed course in an attempt to portray his attack as part of a "war between believers and disbelievers." On Sunday, the FBI revealed that Jabbar visited New Orleans twice in the months prior to plan the attack, wearing smart glasses to record video. 

In the immediate aftermath, the special agent in charge for FBI New Orleans said it was not “considered a terrorist event,” but the agency changed its assessment later that day. Investigators also explored a possible link between the incident and a Tesla Cybertruck that exploded outside of a Trump hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, hours later. The perpetrator of that attack, Matthew Livelsberger, was also an Army veteran who served at Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg) and deployed to Afghanistan at the same time as Jabbar. Livelsberger was killed in the explosion, but no other casualties were reported. On Sunday, the FBI said it had not found any “definitive link” between the incidents and believes Jabbar was acting alone. 

A Fox News report on New Year’s Day also created some confusion about the suspect’s identity after the network mistakenly reported that he had crossed the border into the U.S. from Mexico two days prior. While Fox later corrected the report, the initial story led some Republicans — including President-elect Donald Trump — to link the attack to broader immigration issues.

President Joe Biden will visit New Orleans on Monday to meet with law enforcement officials and family members of victims. 

Today, we’ll explore perspectives on the attack from writers on the right and left, followed by my take.

Agreed.

• The right and left express horror at the attack and sympathize with the victims and their families. 
• Commentators across the political spectrum also say the incident shows the U.S. remains vulnerable to terror threats.

What the right is saying.

• The right is critical of the FBI’s initial response to the attack, worrying that federal law enforcement agencies have become distracted by progressive politics.
• Some say the Biden administration’s policies helped create an environment in which this attack could take place.
• Others suggest the country is not taking domestic terror threats seriously enough.

The Washington Examiner editorial board wrote “the public deserves blunt honesty from the FBI.”

“Just hours after Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove a rented Ford F-150 with an ISIS flag on the trailer hitch along a crowded Bourbon Street, evidently to kill as many people as he could, FBI special agent Alethea Duncan took to a podium in New Orleans and confidently said, ‘This is not a terrorist event,’” the board said. “Unfortunately, what has emerged at the FBI under President Joe Biden is a pattern of behavior in which supposed threats from some communities are promoted or outright invented while real threats from other communities are minimized or ignored for political reasons.”

“It often seems as though federal agencies are more concerned with message massaging rather than with honesty in giving the public solid information. The public usually understands that acts of violence have been committed by people motivated by political ideas — Islamist or otherwise — before investigators are prepared to admit it as a possibility,” the board wrote. “It is not the FBI’s job to placate the feelings of sensitive communities. It is its job to investigate crime and acts of terrorism, bring the perpetrators to justice, and keep the public informed about their progress along the way.”

In Fox News, Mike Pompeo called the attack “a reminder Team Biden took wrong 'threats' seriously and ignored real dangers.”

“The heinous act of terror in New Orleans early on New Year’s Day underscores the Biden administration’s staggering failure to keep America safe and deter radical Islamic terror. By allowing focus on this persistent threat to America’s national security to lapse, and instead wasting time and resources attacking political opponents, parents going to school board meetings and Catholics, Team Biden left America vulnerable,” Pompeo said. “Instead of combating radical Islamic terror at home and abroad, Biden downplayed this threat in favor of conjured political threats and allowed the real threats to metastasize culminating in the New Orleans attack.”

“For four years, our wide-open borders have allowed extremists, with ties to groups like ISIS, to cross into our country unfettered, bolstering their capacity to plan and carry out attacks and enhancing their radicalization efforts. By treating counterterrorism as another political weapon or tool for advancing woke ideology, Team Biden left a gap in our national security apparatus that actors like ISIS have eagerly exploited,” Pompeo wrote. “Correcting these gaps in our national security is urgent and must be a priority for the incoming Trump administration.”

In City Journal, Hannah E. Meyers said “we’ve forgotten a key part of counterterrorism.”

“In many ways, Jabbar fits the decades-old mold of a homegrown extremist. His life wasn’t going great: two divorces and a failing business left him cash-strapped and sounding desperate in correspondence with lawyers. One of his exes stopped allowing him to see their shared daughters. Jabbar’s religious observance became increasingly ‘radical,’ and he kept largely to himself. It’s a familiar portrait,” Meyers wrote. “What these incidents suggest is a growing lack of awareness and care by American citizens and institutions… This obliviousness is evident not only in our response to jihadi threats but also in our ignoring many criminal and anti-Semitic threats.”

“We have yet to learn whether authorities missed any crucial signals leading up to Jabbar’s attack. But in our current relaxed milieu, it’s easy to imagine. We have convinced ourselves that vigilance is just another symptom of our Western privilege,” Meyers said. “Government officials have let down their guard. Last June, the Department of Homeland Security belatedly identified more than 400 migrants smuggled into the U.S. by an ISIS-affiliated network. Record-breaking illegal border crossings in recent years demonstrate a collapse of institutional vigilance… When the criminal-justice system ignores so many signs that someone is dangerous, it’s no wonder that citizens drop their guard, too.”

What the left is saying.

• The left notes how commonplace the threat of mass-casualty events has become in the United States.
• Some argue the U.S. should reassess its preventative measures to address terrorism. 
• Others criticize Trump for his response to the attack. 

The Guardian editorial board wrote “a familiar horror marks an anxious new year.”

“The method of attack – ploughing a vehicle into crowds – and the decision to strike those celebrating at a time associated with togetherness and joy are now far too well recognised internationally,” the board said. “Part of the grimness of this event is that ordinary activities that should require no special protections are now guarded as a matter of course – and that even such precautions can prove inadequate. Bollards were reportedly being upgraded in New Orleans ahead of next month’s Super Bowl, and patrols and barricades were being used in the meantime.”

“The Department of Homeland Security’s 2025 threat assessment, released in October, warned that the risk of terrorism was expected to remain high, with lone offenders and small groups most likely to carry out attacks with little or no warning. It also noted that most mass casualty attacks were related to mental illness or relationship grievances rather than ideology,” the board wrote. “Yet the uncertainties surrounding the New Orleans attack have done nothing to temper the incoming president’s response. While Joe Biden’s remarks focused on the need for a full and assiduous investigation, and the prevention of any further threat, Donald Trump – who takes office on 20 January – seized the opportunity to fearmonger and point-score.”

In MSNBC, Cynthia Miller-Idriss called the attack “an urgent national warning.”

“The apparent ease with which the perpetrator planned and executed the attack — despite the FBI warning — suggests our national strategy for preventing mass violence and violent extremism is failing,” Miller-Idriss said. “A main prevention strategy for the U.S. government in this area is called ‘secondary prevention,’ and it is almost entirely focused on stopping an already-radicalized actor from effectively executing an attack. Other countries put more emphasis on both primary prevention (preventing people from becoming radicalized in the first place) and tertiary prevention (deradicalization and disengagement of already-committed extremists).”

“It is impossible to infiltrate a group that doesn’t exist, just as it’s hard to surveil a lone actor who isn’t communicating with a terrorist cell commander. This is where ‘primary prevention’ … can make a real difference, but if only we would invest in it,” Miller-Idriss wrote. “Early prevention also requires addressing the root causes that underpin people’s attraction to extremist ideologies in the first place — including, for many lone actors, a yearning for a greater sense of meaning or purpose in their lives. This is especially true for veterans, who have disproportionately engaged in violent extremism in ways that are both predictable and preventable.”

In USA Today, Chris Brennan said “Trump lying about terrorism in New Orleans is no surprise.”

“Compare President Joe Biden's reaction to Wednesday's attack with Trump's disinformation and distortion. Biden waited for detailed briefings to know what he could share about the act of terrorism,” Brennan wrote. “Trump, as president-elect until Jan. 20, also receives intelligence briefings. He chose to use his social media platform, the incredibly inaccurately named Truth Social, on Wednesday morning to blame ‘criminals’ entering the country illegally for the day's mayhem. He threw in some blame for Democrats and the ‘Fake News Media.’

“One big problem there – Trump appeared to be running with an unconfirmed, and we now know inaccurate, Fox News report Wednesday morning suggesting that the rented pickup truck used had entered the country from Mexico two days before the attack. Trump connected dots to draw a picture he wanted while either not having or not caring about accurate information,” Brennan said. “Fox News did the right thing, walking back that claim and clarifying in follow-up reports Wednesday… But Trump would never acknowledge a mistake that plays to his base, that stokes fear while ignoring facts. So he just kept posting on Thursday about immigration, painting America as a nation in decline with his threadbare only-I-can-fix-it nonsense.”

My take.

Reminder: "My take" is a section where I give myself space to share my own personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, don't unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or leave a comment.

• Some have said this attack either is or is not terrorism, but it’s still too early to say and may not be particularly clarifying either way.
• Instead we should be talking about apparent patterns: the ISIS threat is still real, veterans have been getting radicalized, and our borders are still porous.
• Overall, domestic terrorism has clearly become a larger threat to security than foreign terrorism.

One thing I’ve learned after doing this job for a while is that criticizing people from the sidelines, and with hindsight, is exceedingly easy.

Was FBI special agent Alethea Duncan wrong to declare definitively that this attack was "not a terrorist event" in the immediate aftermath? Yes, she was. It had the hallmarks of terrorism (clearly intentional, done in public, designed to maximize damage, and involving political images) and no obvious marker to justify ruling terrorism out so quickly. But Duncan was also addressing a panicked public in a city hosting a major sporting event that day (a college football playoff game) and trying to assuage concerns about ongoing threats — her transparent effort to calm the nerves of the public was at least understandable, if not misguided. Still, what people in her position need most from the public is trust, and this statement didn’t help her credibility.

Similarly, a lot of media organizations got ribbed for not "calling this what it was" (or, rather, calling it what it appeared to be) in the immediate hours after the attack. Yet, claiming an attack is terrorism prematurely can be just as dangerous as prematurely denying it. Places like Fox News, CNN, or The New York Times have rules for reporting on events like this. Even with trustworthy on-the-ground accounts saying that the suspect had an ISIS flag on his truck, media outlets still can’t definitively state the attack was an act of terrorism. First, they have to confirm those details themselves. Then, they have to suss out a motive. Then, they have to confirm the suspect’s identity, track down that suspect's family, and then their internet history and friends and past bosses and records. And then they have to try to confirm all that information with law enforcement (who may not yet have answers themselves) and make sure publishing it won't interfere in an ongoing investigation.

It's simply impossible to do all of that in a matter of hours, and when you try to move too fast, you make mistakes. In this case, Fox News initially reported that the suspect came into the U.S. from Mexico two days before the attack. However, Fox had to retract the claim after it learned that the vehicle Jabbar rented had come in from Mexico (a reminder things aren’t always what they seem) and that Jabbar was a U.S. citizen and Army veteran who grew up in Texas. But it was too late: President-elect Donald Trump, members of Congress, and thousands of social media users had already run with the claim that the suspect was a migrant of some sort who had come across the porous Southern border to commit terrorism.

As natural as it feels to draw conclusions that confirm our assumptions, motives often aren't understood in the immediate aftermaths of attacks — even (and sometimes especially) when the attackers leave what appear to be obvious signs. For instance, we still don’t know why the shooter who nearly killed Trump in Pennsylvania in July pulled the trigger — and we may never figure it out.

Of course, all of this is made more difficult by the fact that we don't have a great working definition for terrorism. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as "the use of violent action in order to achieve political aims or to force a government to act." The FBI differentiates between domestic and foreign terrorism. It defines domestic terrorism as "violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature" and international terrorism as "violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups who are inspired by, or associated with, designated foreign terrorist organizations or nations (state-sponsored)." Pretty much every definition includes violence against civilians for some broader ideological purpose.

In America and the West, we apply these definitions mainly to Islamic extremists. Plenty of people have tried to apply the terrorist label to states like Israel (for killing civilians in the pursuit of political aims) or individuals like Luigi Mangione (currently being charged with terrorism in New York). Both cases use “terrorism” as an extremifier that I don’t think adds clarity or understanding. Personally, I’m more interested in saying plainly what took place, and then identifying patterns so we can prevent events like this from happening in the future.

So here are a few patterns I’m seeing: First, the ISIS threat is still globally prevalent, and it's alarming to see someone potentially motivated by the group commit an attack here in the U.S. The New York Times has a list of all the ISIS organized or inspired attacks over the past five years, and it's longer than you might think for a group that has purportedly been wiped out.

Second, it's long past time for a real conversation about how to prevent current or former U.S. military members from being radicalized. Both Jabbar and the suspect in the Las Vegas car explosion — which happened on the same day — were U.S. military veterans. This is part of a disturbing pattern of mass killings or radical political acts committed by active or ex-service members.

In 2023, a U.S. Army reservist committed a mass shooting in Maine that killed 18 people. In 2020, an active duty airman killed two police officers. In 2009, in perhaps the most well known event of this kind, an Army major and psychiatrist killed 13 people and injured more than 30 others in an attack at Fort Hood. Meanwhile, many current or former military members are being recruited into armed militia groups or foreign extremist organizations (like Jabbar apparently was). Even the most basic efforts to study the association between military service and extremism have been stymied by allegations of starved funding and misleading reports.

And third, the erroneous Fox News report notwithstanding, it is also fair to ask questions about our own border security when discussing the general threat of terrorism. The federal terror watchlist casts a notoriously (and sometimes dangerously) wide net, but hundreds of people on it crossed into the U.S. through the northern or southern border in the last fiscal year. The Department of Homeland Security has warned that in 2025 they expect dangerous groups and organizations to exploit high rates of migration and try to enter the U.S.

None of these are new threats, and frankly we are still pretty safe. In the post-9/11 world, foreign terrorist attacks in the U.S. have been pretty rare. For better or for worse, we've sacrificed a great deal of personal liberty in exchange for safety (or the appearance of it). Yet it seems obvious to me that domestic radicalization is a larger national security threat than “foreign invaders.” Sometimes that radicalization is inspired by foreign actors; sometimes it is inspired by domestic politics, driven by racism or anti-government sentiment, or exacerbated by mental health issues or easy access to guns. But the uncomfortable truth is that most (not all) of these killings involve American citizens who have been compelled to commit violence. This has been true since 9/11, was true in 2016, and has been true for the last nine years.

For the sake of reducing and eliminating these frightening public events, which take a massive toll on the psyche of Americans and invite more encroachment on our personal freedoms, we need to at least talk honestly about who and what we are dealing with. Yes, groups like ISIS are still a threat. Yes, there have been a few examples in the last 10 years of attacks by foreigners. But the biggest threat is an ideological war — one that invites U.S. citizens and often veterans like Jabbar to join a cause and find purpose through violence. These are the scenarios we see again and again, and the ones we most urgently need to find a way to address.

Take the survey: What do you think is currently the biggest threat to national security? Let us know!

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Your questions, answered.

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Under the radar.

Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a proposed class action lawsuit over allegations that the company’s voice-activated digital assistant, Siri, violated user privacy. The suit claimed that Apple regularly recorded conversations after users inadvertently activated Siri using basic voice prompts, or “wake words.” Information from the unauthorized recordings was then allegedly sold to third parties, leading users to see advertisements for products they had recently been discussing without knowing their device was recording them. While Apple continues to deny any wrongdoing, the settlement could lead to payouts to tens of millions of users, pending approval by a district judge. Reuters has the story.

Numbers.

• 246. The number of individuals charged in the United States on offenses related to the Islamic State (IS) since 2014, according to the George Washington University’s Extremism Tracker. 
• 28. The average age of those charged. 
• 28%. The percentage of those charged who were accused of involvement in plots to carry out attacks on U.S. soil.
• 14. The number of IS-related arrests in the U.S. in 2024, according to the Islamic State Select Worldwide Activity Map. 
• 5. The number of those arrests that involved attack plots against the U.S. 
• 9. The number of IS-related arrests in the U.S. in 2023. 
• 0. The number of IS-related arrests in the U.S. in 2023 that were related to attack plots.
• 66%. The percentage of Americans who say they worry about the possibility of future terrorist attacks in the U.S. a fair amount or a great deal, according to a March 2024 Gallup poll. 
• 63%. The percentage of Americans who said they worried about the possibility of future terrorist attacks in the U.S. in March 2014.

The extras.

• One year ago today we were still on break and had just posted our 2023 end-of-year letter. 
• The most clicked link in our last full newsletter was the man who allegedly set a woman on fire on a New York subway. 
• Nothing to do with politics: Why scientists are dumping fake whale poop in the ocean.
• Our most recent survey: 1,659 readers responded to our survey asking about the government spending bill with 40% disapproving of the bill and how it was passed. “Honestly, they’ve been doing this performative game of budget chicken for over a decade and it’s exhausting. Shutdowns also cost money, which also undercuts any assertions that they’re concerned about government spending,” one respondent said.

Have a nice day.

Jessica Rivera had a special Christmas wish: she asked listeners of the radio station The Fish Atlanta to send holiday cards to her son, Logan, who was stationed at an Air Force base in California. She was invited on the air to thank listeners for their generosity, but behind the scenes a bigger surprise was brewing. The radio station had arranged with Air Force officials for Logan to come home for Christmas — and he surprised his mom on the air. Good News Network has the story. 

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