President-elect Donald Trump and other GOP leaders blasted President Joe Biden on Thursday, blaming him for border security lapses they say may have led to the New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans that left 15 people dead and at least 35 others injured.

While Republicans sought to tie border security to the attack, investigators say the driver was born in the United States. The FBI said Thursday it believes he acted alone after it initially said Wednesday he may have had accomplices. 

“Our country is a disaster, a laughing stock all over the World!” Trump posted on Truth Social on Thursday. “This is what happens when you have OPEN BORDERS, with weak, ineffective and virtually nonexistent leadership.”

Trump called on the CIA to get involved, although it was unclear in what capacity. He wrote that a “violent erosion of Safety, National Security, and Democracy is taking place all across our Nation.”

According to the FBI, which is leading the investigation and has called the attack an act of terrorism, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, an Army veteran from Texas, rented a Ford truck Monday in Houston and drove it into a crowd on New Orleans’ famed Bourbon Street at 3:15 a.m. Wednesday. Jabbar posted videos on social media in the hours before the attack indicating he was inspired by the Islamic State group, the FBI said.

“We all know for the last four years the Biden administration has been completely derelict in its duty, that the Congressional Republicans that we here in the House and Senate have repeatedly asked the [Department of Homeland Security] under Biden administration about the correlation, the obvious concern, about terrorism and the wide open border,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told “Fox & Friends” on Thursday. 

“Dangerous people were coming here in droves and setting up potentially terrorist cells around the country. We have been ringing the alarms,” Johnson added.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., on Wednesday called on Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray to publicly testify before they leave office later this month about the attack. 

“They must give a full account of this attack and any departmental failures related to the incident,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., wrote in a letter to Senate Homeland Security Chair-elect Rand Paul on Wednesday. 

Hawley cited a post on X referencing a Fox News story that said the Ford truck used in the attack was rented and crossed into the U.S. from Mexico two days earlier. That reporting was later contradicted by the FBI.

“Until January 20, the American people remain at risk unless the outgoing administration is held to account for policy changes that have made this country less safe,” Hawley said, adding that Mayorkas and Wray skipped an oversight hearing in late 2023 to discuss “threats to the homeland.”

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told Spectrum News in a statement: “DHS responds to Congressional inquiries directly via official channels, and the Department will continue to respond appropriately to Congressional oversight."

Spectrum News also has reached out to the FBI for comment.