And Trump wants to be more aggressive with the death penalty

At 3:15 am (New Orleans time), a terrible tragedy occurred when an evil person drove a truck into a crowd of people on Bourbon Street in the Big Easy. As of 6 pm Eastern time, 15 victims were dead and over 30 injured. Following his mowing down of a number of innocent partygoers, the driver engaged in a gun battle with New Orleans police. Two officers were wounded, but the murderer was killed in the shootout.

As authorities investigated the scene, President-elect Trump posted online at 10:48 am Eastern. The first line of the post was: "When I said that the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we have in our country, that statement was constantly refuted by Democrats and the Fake News Media, but it turned out to be true." Well, it didn't turn out to be true. Trump never provided any evidence to support his wild claims that countries such as Venezuela and Kenya were emptying their prisons to send all their criminals to the United States. There is little doubt that some of the undocumented individuals entering the U.S. had criminal backgrounds, but Trump could not back up his hyperbole.

Trump went on, "The crime rate in our country is at a level that nobody has ever seen before." That statement is false. The most recent crime figures show that crime is the lowest it has been in a decade. There are a couple cities (Chicago, DC) where violent crime has been up, but Trump's claim is just blatant fear mongering.

This response is typical Trump. Make a claim -- factual or not -- to get the desired effect from the audience. Since many MAGA types won't -- or lack the ability to -- critically evaluate what Trump has to say, they will believe him. That's frightening because Trump wants to increase the number of crimes that are eligible for the death penalty as well ramp up its frequency. This from the person who took out a full-page newspaper ad to call for the death penalty for the Central Park Five, who were later released because they were not guilty of the crimes.