FLASHBACK: Biden downplays ISIS threat to US, repeatedly says white supremacy 'most lethal' danger

Before the devastating terror attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day rocked the nation, President Biden and his administration repeatedly stressed that the greatest threat facing the country was white supremacy — even explicitly stating that terrorist organizations such as ISIS could not compare to the danger posed by white supremacists. 

"According to the intelligence community, terrorism from white supremacy is the most lethal threat to the homeland today. Not ISIS, not al Qaeda — white supremacists," Biden said in June of 2021 on the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre. 

The comment came just weeks after he declared during the State of the Union that year, "We won’t ignore what our intelligence agencies have determined to be the most lethal terrorist threat to the homeland today: White supremacy is terrorism."

Early on New Year’s Day, New Orleans and the nation were rocked by a suspected terror attack when a man identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, allegedly rammed a truck into crowds of revelers celebrating the holiday on the city’s famed Bourbon Street. The FBI confirmed on Wednesday that they were investigating the incident as an act of terror, noting that they had confirmed the suspect had an ISIS flag in the vehicle at the time of the attack. 

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President Joe Biden speaks about his administration's economic playbook and the future of the American economy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

ISIS is a jihadist group that has carried out terrorist attacks worldwide but has lost momentum in recent years, including in 2019 when U.S. forces killed Iraqi militant and ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The FBI said Thursday that Jabbar had been "inspired" by ISIS, adding that they have not found any evidence that he was directed by ISIS to carry out the attack. 

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The shocking attack has resurrected Biden's previous rhetoric on white supremacy and the state of national security, which was also promoted by administration leaders such as Attorney General Merrick Garland. 

"In the FBI’s view, the top domestic violent extremist threat comes from ‘racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists, specifically those who advocated for the superiority of the white race,’" Garland declared in May of 2021 before the Senate Appropriations Committee of the top threats to the U.S.

Law enforcement officers from multiple agencies work the scene on Bourbon Street after at least ten people were killed when a person allegedly drove into the crowd in the early morning hours of New Year's Day on January 1, 2025, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Dozens more were injured after a suspect in a rented pickup truck allegedly drove around barricades and through a crowd of New Year's revelers on Bourbon Street. The suspect then got out of the car, opened fire on police officers, and was subsequently killed by law enforcement.  (Michael DeMocker/Getty Images)

Garland was joined by Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayarokas in sounding the alarm on the threat that white supremacists posed to the U.S. that year. Garland and Biden administration officials at the time argued that Jan. 6, 2021, when supporters of President-elect Donald Trump breached the Capitol building, opened the floodgates to concern over home-grown threats to democracy. 

"I have not seen a more dangerous threat to democracy than the invasion of the Capitol," Garland said at the time, calling it "an attempt to interfere with the fundamental element of our democracy, a peaceful transfer of power."

Biden has also cited the threat of white supremacy in more recent public remarks, including during his commencement address to Howard University in 2023. 

Shamsud-Din Jabbar, pictured in an undated photograph released by the FBI after he attacked New Orleans' Bourbon Street with a pickup truck and died in a shootout with responding officers.  (FBI)

"White supremacy … is the single most dangerous terrorist threat in our homeland," Biden said. "And I’m not just saying this because I’m at a Black HBCU. I say this wherever I go."

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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security under the Trump administration released a report in 2020, called the "Homeland Threat Assessment," which found that white supremacists and other "domestic violent extremists" posed "the most persistent and lethal threat" to the nation. Following Biden’s inauguration, Mayorkas declared that DHS was "taking a new approach to addressing domestic violent extremism, both internally and externally," compared to the previous administration. 

New Orleans police and federal agents investigate a suspected terrorist attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on New Year's Day, 2025.  (Chris Granger/The New Orleans Advocate via AP)

Following the attack on Wednesday morning, conservative social media users and critics of the Biden administration resurrected Biden’s previous comments on white supremacy, quipping that the comments have "not aged well."  

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The brother of the suspected terrorist told the New York Times that Shamsud-Din Jabbar had been raised Christian, but converted to Islam. The brother, Abdur Jabbar, underscored that his brother does not represent the Islamic faith and instead called his actions an example of "radicalization."

"What he did does not represent Islam," he added. "This is more some type of radicalization, not religion."