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'Blatantly Lying': Crime Is Falling in Every Single City Trump Threatened With Federal Police Takeover
Despite these trends, many Americans are persuaded by persistent claims that crime is rising, even when they are not. Critics say the media's rampant coverage of violent crime has helped to warp their perceptions.
Aug 12, 2025
When U.S. President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C. on Monday and claimed during a press conference that the city was overrun by "crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor and worse," critics were quick to point out that crime had actually been falling in the nation's capital.
Violent crime in D.C. has dropped by 26% since this time in 2024, which was already a 30-year low, according to data from the police department.
During that same surreal press conference, Trump threatened to have federal law enforcement occupy several other U.S. cities—Los Angeles, Baltimore, Oakland, New York, and Chicago.
"We're not gonna lose our cities over this," Trump said Monday morning. "And this will go further," he said, referring to his federal crackdown.
Trump said the cities he plans to target are "bad, very bad," concerning crime. But he didn't cite any specifics. Likely because there aren't any.
After temporary upticks in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, crime rates continued the precipitous decline that has been going on for decades. According to nationwide data released on August 5 by the FBI, both violent and property crime rates continued to drop throughout 2024, reaching their lowest points since at least 1969.
Like with D.C., in every single one of the cities he named, crime is actually falling, in some cases reaching historic lows.
Contrary to Trump's characterization that "lawlessness...has been allowed to fester," the Los Angeles Police Department reported last month that homicides had fallen by 20% in the first half of the year and that the city was on pace for the lowest number of killings in more than 60 years.
Violent crime is on the decline more generally across the city, with fewer aggravated assaults, gun assaults, sexual assaults, domestic violence incidents, robberies, and carjackings this year than in the first half of 2019, when Trump was still in his first term.
Baltimore, which Trump has derided as "filthy" and "so far gone" on crime, is likewise the safest it's been in 50 years, with a historically low homicide rate that has declined by 28% over the past year alone. Violent crime has more generally decreased by 17% from the previous year, while property crime has decreased by 13%.
In April 2025, the city saw just five homicides, the fewest in any month since 1970. In Popular Information, journalist Judd Legum noted how this dramatic shift has followed a change in approaches to policing in the city under Democratic Mayor Brandon Scott:
Scott, who was first elected in 2020, has brought the city's homicide rate down by treating violent crime as a public health crisis. That means treating violent crime as a symptom of multiple factors, including racism, poverty, and past violence. Addressing violent crime as a public health issue involves going beyond arresting people after violence is committed and taking proactive and preventative measures...
Under Scott, Baltimore has fought violent crime not only through policing but through a network of programs that provide support for housing, career development, and education.
Chicago has likewise seen a historic drop in homicides, with fewer this year than in any previous year in the past decade and a 30% decline in both shootings and homicides from the previous year. Violent crime on the whole, meanwhile, is 25% lower than it was in 2019—a larger drop than many other cities have seen.
Midyear data from Oakland's police department shows that overall crime is down 28% from the previous year, with the most significant drops in robbery, burglary, and theft crimes. Homicides, meanwhile, dropped 24%. This decrease continues the trend from 2024, when homicides also dropped by double digits.
Trump's ally in Gracie Mansion notwithstanding, crime is also down considerably in New York City. From January to May 2025, the city experienced the lowest number of murders in recorded history, marking an astonishing 46% decrease from the previous year.
And while—unlike most cities—overall crime is still higher in the Big Apple than it was before the pandemic, that comes at the tail end of a total collapse in its violent crime rate over the past four decades. In 1990, there were 30 homicides per 100,000 people, compared with just 3.2 homicides it is on track for in 2025.
Despite these trends, many Americans are persuaded by persistent claims that crime is rising, even when they are not.
In October 2024, even as crime rates were cratering around the country, 64% of Americans still told a Gallup poll that they believed it was on the rise. And even when Americans believe crime is down where they live, they tend to believe it is increasing nationally.
Alec Karakatsanis, a civil rights attorney and author of the book Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News, wrote on X Monday that the press's incessant decontextualized coverage of violent crime has helped to lend credibility to Trump's narrative that it is rising.
"How is this possible? What lays the groundwork for such ludicrous claims?" he asked. "The news media has been fearmongering for years."
According to a survey by Pew Research in 2024, local news covers crime more than any other topic, with the exception of the weather. And although violent crime occurs at about one-fifth the rate of property crime, Americans are shown news stories about it at about the same rate.
Karakatanis says, journalists at major news outlets like The Washington Post have uncritically spread the claim that crime is "out of control" despite its precipitous decline—a narrative that has been seized upon by Republicans hoping to enact authoritarian measures.
The Associated Press has been criticized for its coverage on Monday of Trump's deployment of the National Guard, which Mother Jones reporter Dan Friedman said on Bluesky "manages to treat the objective fact of declining crime in D.C. like it's a difference of opinion" between Trump and Democratic Mayor Bowser.
Really bad AP lead here manages to treat the objective fact of declining crime in DC like it' difference of opinion between Trump and Mayor Bowser.
[image or embed]
— Dan Friedman (@dfriedman.bsky.social) August 11, 2025 at 1:15 PM
"No publication, not the AP, not The New York Post, needs to accept Trump's claim that crime in D.C. suddenly constitutes an emergency as plausible and ignore the actual reasons for this authoritarian move," he added.
"If we get to walk back from the brink," Karakatsanis said, "there must be a rigorous reckoning among people of good will about how mainstream institutions tolerated, accepted, peddled, and even celebrated the lies and mythologies of the far-right."
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Trump DOJ Slammed for 'Desperate' Attempt at Retribution After Subpoenas for NY AG James
"Attorney General James took on Trump's fraud... and won," said New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. "So it's little wonder that Trump's politicized DOJ is now coming after her."
Aug 08, 2025
A lawyer representing New York's top law enforcement official, Attorney General Letitia James, said Friday that the news of the Trump administration's investigation into James and her successful legal cases against President Donald Trump amounted to "the most blatant and desperate example" of the president's "political retribution campaign."
In recent days, The Washington Post reported Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a subpoena to James as part of an investigation into whether the attorney general, a longtime adversary of Trump, violated the president's civil rights when she successfully sued him and his real estate business for fraud.
A second subpoena was related to James' litigation against the National Rifle Association, in which a New York jury found last year that former NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre and other executives had engaged in rampant corruption.
The civil rights statute that the Trump administration is reportedly using to investigate James' case against the president is typically used in cases related to law enforcement officers discriminating against or mistreating people based on race, religion, sex, or ethnicity. According to The New York Times, the DOJ is arguing that James used her law enforcement authority to deprive Trump of his rights.
James filed a civil fraud case against Trump and the Trump Organization in 2022 and won a $450 million judgment against the president in penalties plus interest. The interest the president owes has grown to half a billion dollars as he has refused to pay and has appealed the ruling.
New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engeron said that Trump and his company's executives were "incapable of admitting the error of their ways" regarding the "blatantly false financial data" they used to misrepresent of the value of their properties, which allowed them to get better loan and insurance rates.
The Democratic candidate in the New York City mayoral race, state Rep. Zohran Mamdani (D-36), expressed little surprise that Trump was apparently retaliating against the attorney general who won against him in court.
"Attorney General James took on Trump's fraud and the NRA's rampant corruption—and won both cases," said Mamdani. "So it's little wonder that Trump's politicized DOJ is now coming after her. The people of New York stand with their lawyer and champion."
The subpoenas were issued months after the DOJ appeared to try another tactic to punish James when it opened a criminal investigation into alleged mortgage fraud, accusing the attorney general of lying on loan documents for a home that she purchased in Virginia and saying the home would be her primary residence. James' attorneys have said the error was an honest mistake.
Dana Nessel, the Democratic attorney general of Michigan, came to James' defense on Friday and condemned "the depths to which Trump and his cronies will go to exact vengeance upon anyone who has dared to hold him accountable."
But the subpoenas, said Nessel, are not just a concern for James.
"Americans should know and understand how deeply compromised our federal law enforcement agencies are," she said. "If this can happen to AG James, it can happen to anyone."
Geoff Burgan, a spokesperson for James, agreed that "any weaponization of the justice system should disturb every American."
"We stand strongly behind our successful litigation against the Trump Organization and the National Rifle Association, and we will continue to stand up for New Yorkers' rights," said Burgan.
Abbe Lowell, the attorney general's lawyer, said that "weaponizing the Department of Justice to try to punish an elected official for doing her job is an attack on the rule of law and a dangerous escalation by this administration."
"If prosecutors carry out this improper tactic and are genuinely interested in the truth," said Lowell, "we are ready and waiting with facts and the law."
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Constitutional Lawyers Urge AGs to Probe Paramount-Skydance's Millions to Trump
"While these schemes may also violate federal criminal statutes, the DOJ has been co-opted by Trump and cannot be depended upon to fulfill its obligation to impartially investigate," said a Free Speech for People counsel.
Jul 31, 2025
Constitutional lawyers on Thursday wrote to leading prosecutors in California and New York, urging them to open criminal investigations into the recent payments made or promised to U.S. President Donald Trump, his personal associates, or his special interests by Paramount Global and Skydance Media, whose $8 billion merger was approved by federal regulators last week.
"Relevant state and local officials of New York and California must fulfill their investigatory obligations to protect their residents, and to launch criminal investigations into those responsible for the extortion of Paramount and Skydance," said Courtney Hostetler, legal director at the nonprofit Free Speech for People (FSFP).
Hostetler and three of her FSFP colleagues—president John Bonifaz, chairman and senior legal adviser Ben Clements, and senior counsel Suparna Reddy—sent letters to California Attorney General Rob Bonta, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman, New York state Attorney General Letitia James, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
They pointed to the Republican president's "baseless" $20 billion lawsuit against Paramount—whose subsidiaries include CBS—over a "60 Minutes" interview with former Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who faced Trump in last year's election.
"While some of these payments ostensibly were made to settle a frivolous lawsuit brought by Trump against Paramount subsidiary CBS Broadcasting Inc., the evidence strongly suggests that the lawsuit and its settlement merely veiled Trump's true purposes—namely, to chill the freedom of the press and unlawfully extort payments and other things of value," the letters state.
Paramount settled at the beginning of the month, agreeing to pay "$16 million toward Trump's attorney fees and to fund his presidential library or purported charitable causes chosen by Trump," the letters detail. Then, Skydance met with the Federal Communications Commission about its acquisition of Paramount, and the FCC swiftly approved the megamerger.
According to the FSFP lawyers:
Now it appears that Paramount and Skydance may have taken other, unreported-to-the-court actions in order to secure FCC approval of the merger. Trump claimed that once the merger is approved, Skydance would contribute $20 million in advertising, public service announcements, or similar programming to Trump as part of a side deal to the $16 million settlement. And CBS canceled the popular program "The Late Show" after its host Stephen Colbert, a longtime critic of Trump (and indeed of many politicians), derided the settlement on air as "a big fat bribe." Trump posted on Truth Social that he "absolutely loves" "The Late Show's" cancellation. Paramount also agreed to hire an ombudsman at CBS News to investigate complaints of "political bias," which has the potential to limit journalistic freedom at CBS.
In addition to providing this background, the letters lay out the basis for "an immediate and thorough" probe, citing various laws in each state, and stress that "the immunity available to federal officials under the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution is not available in all circumstances and does not preclude criminal investigation and prosecution here."
Although the letters do not name U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Trump loyalist has faced mounting allegations of "serious professional misconduct." Reddy suggested that she likely will not investigate the merger and related payments.
"States should not wait for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to act first," said Reddy. "While these schemes may also violate federal criminal statutes, the DOJ has been co-opted by Trump and cannot be depended upon to fulfill its obligation to impartially investigate."
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