The new year is off to a turbulent start — and Donald Trump is only days away from having to confront the kinds of crises he has long been railing against as a candidate and now president-elect.
If the first days of 2025 are any indication, it will be a difficult opening to his presidency. A driver plowed a truck into a crowd of revelers in New Orleans, killing more than a dozen people in what federal authorities are describing as a “premeditated” act of terrorism. Hours later, authorities were investigating the detonation of a Tesla Cybertruck in front of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas. And that all came after the government said Chinese state-sponsored hackers breached the Treasury Department in a “major” cybersecurity incident, adding fuel to the fire started by an ongoing breach of U.S. telecom systems by Chinese hackers.
Trump has used the tumult as proof positive of the dark image of a declining nation that he projected on the campaign trail and pledged to reverse — suggesting the attacks, whose main suspects are U.S. citizens, were in fact the byproduct of “open borders,” erroneously claiming the nation’s crime rate is at a high and blaming the recent incidents on President Joe Biden’s weaknesses domestically and abroad.
It’s the kind of rhetoric that helped propel Trump back to the White House. But he did so from a position out of power. Now, the president-elect is just days away from having to assume responsibility for the various ailments and conflicts he has long and successfully attributed to others — and for which there are no immediate or easy fixes.
“This is something Trump made a major point of during the campaign: People don’t feel safe and don’t feel the current Democratic administration or local administrations in cities and states are really doing enough about it,” said Ryan Williams, a Republican strategist and former aide to Mitt Romney.
“It’s a point he can continue to make until he becomes president. Then he’s got a period of time to show people he’s changing direction and fixing the problems. And then he’ll have to deliver solutions,” Williams said.
Trump has pledged large-scale mass deportations upon taking office, and he and his advisers have signaled they intend to start with migrants convicted of serious crimes. Trump has also vowed to work with state and local leaders — even Democrats — to cut down on criminal activity in cities.
But the president-elect’s assertions about both immigration and crime in the wake of the New Orleans and Las Vegas incidents run counter to reality. Federal authorities have identified the suspect in the deadly New Orleans attack, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, as a U.S. citizen and Army veteran from Texas. And they have said the suspect in the Las Vegas explosion, Matthew Livelsberger, was an active-duty Army soldier. Authorities do not believe the two incidents are connected.
That Jabbar proclaimed support for ISIS prior to the New Orleans incident undermines Trump’s long-touted claim that he “defeated” the Islamic terrorist group during his first presidency. And despite Trump’s repeated claims that crime is “at an all-time high,” statistics show the homicide rate plummeting across several of the nation’s major cities, and violent crime more broadly was down last year.
Meanwhile, the recent Chinese-backed hack of the Treasury Department marks the country’s latest intrusion into U.S. cyberspace revealed in recent weeks. It also represents the latest major U.S. counterintelligence failure, following federal officials’ admission that a Chinese government-linked hacking group known as Salt Typhoon had infiltrated major telecommunications firms and targeted the cell phones of Trump, his then-running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, and high-ranking U.S. officials for surveillance.
Trump has seemingly reacted to the latest hack by referring to the U.S. as a “laughing stock all over the World!” in a Thursday social media post and declaring that “[o]nly strength and powerful leadership” can reverse the “violent erosion” of the nation’s safety and security. While Trump has announced nominations for a large swatch of incoming administration roles, he has not yet announced candidates for leading the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or for top cyber roles at the White House.
Incoming Trump administration officials have gone into more detail on next steps. Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), the incoming national security advisor, earlier this month called for China to face “higher costs and consequences” for the Salt Typhoon hacks, including the U.S. potentially going on offense against Beijing. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Trump’s pick for secretary of state, described the hack as “the most disturbing and widespread incursion into our telecommunications systems in the history of the world.”
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have also been vocal about the need to push back against China for the ongoing hacks. House Homeland Security Committee Chair Mark Green (R-Tenn.) and House Select Committee on China Chair John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) earlier this month published a joint op-ed for Fox News calling on Trump to use “cyber-enabled operations” against China in response to Salt Typhoon. Green this week made clear he is also watching the Treasury hack closely, noting the committee was in touch with CISA on the topic.
“China’s state-sponsored hackers remain an urgent threat to our homeland security,” Green said in a statement provided to POLITICO. “This intrusion into the Treasury Department through a third-party vendor is a clear message from Beijing about its unwavering commitment to undermining our sovereignty, as well as a vital reminder of the importance of collective defense to protect our government networks.”
Meanwhile, the incoming Republican chairs of the House Financial Services and the Senate Banking committees sent a letter Thursday to the Treasury Department requesting a briefing on the hack, and House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) separately raised the issue with the agency. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is set to be briefed “in the coming days” on the Treasury Department breach, according to a committee aide.
But the president-elect’s approach to China threatens to inflame already tense relations between nations as he prepares to pad his administration with China hawks and threatens new tariffs against one of the U.S.’ largest trading partners. Despite this, Trump invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to his upcoming inauguration, an invitation that was turned down.
