After the Justice Department recently released two reports documenting crime trends in the U.S., the liberal media seized on the less accurate of the two to portray crime as being down in spite of violent crime rates (primarily in Democrat-run parts of the country) actually being up compared to five years earlier. And aggravated assault levels appear higher than they’ve been in decades.
Most journalists used their misleading spin to portray Donald Trump as wrong to complain about high crime even though the former President quoted numbers from actual government reports documenting surges in crime from within the past several years.
As the story broke on MSNBC on Monday morning, NBC reporter Ken Dilanian claimed crime is “back down to around 2019 levels, which was historic lows…” As he appeared again an hour later, he complained: “That should be uncontroversial, but it’s not because the Republicans and others are pushing the narrative that this data is wrong — that crime is somehow up when it’s down.” He lamented: “It’s a good news story — it’s too bad that not everybody’s prepared to accept it.”
Host Andrea Mitchell made sure to undermine Trump’s claims: “…new numbers out today showing overall crime rates are down across the country despite what Donald Trump is saying on the campaign trail. … Donald Trump is repeatedly accusing the Biden-Harris administration of letting crime run rampant, especially crime from undocumented immigrants, despite all indications to the contrary.”
Afternoon host Katy Tur made cracks about how she survived her most recent trip to the store, and cued up Dilanian to claim Trump was wrong in August when he cited a 43 percent increase in violent crime:
After admitting there had been a “huge spike in violent crime” during the pandemic, Dilanian returned to claiming crime is “historically low.”
But, according to the National Crime Victimization Survey, which tries to estimate the large amount of unreported crime in addition to reported crime, there was about a 43 percent increase in violent crime from 2020 to 2022, according to the most recent edition available when the former President made the statement in August.
The 2023 survey (released September 12) shows violent crime starting to drop, but still higher than it was before the pandemic. Robberies and aggravated assaults were both still up since 2019. Even after dropping somewhat, aggravated assaults in 2023 were still 22 percent higher than in 2019.
(Gallup has made similar findings that more Americans report being victims of crime.)
A few hours later, MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace similarly dismissed Trump.
Several CNN hosts pushed similar spin, but CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller admitted that murders and aggravated assaults are still up from five years earlier.
And PBS reporter Lisa Desjardins quoted Attorney General Merrick Garland declaring crime rates are “almost their lowest level in 50 years.”
But the FBI report released on September 23 has been called out for failing to document the majority of crimes that are unreported, and for having a history of significant errors. And the CDC routinely reports higher homicide numbers than the FBI.
Last spring after Trump made an issue of elevated crime levels both nationwide and in New York, MSNBC and CNN hosts similarly tried to portray crime as down.
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough claimed crime was higher when Trump was President, and accused Republicans of lying about the subject. CNN’s John King hinted that Fox News was to blame for Americans believing crime is increasing.
MSNBC’s Jose Diaz-Balart Reports
September 23, 2024
11:17 a.m. Eastern
KEN DILANIAN, NBC NEWS JUSTICE AND INTELLIGENCE CORRESPONDENT: This report is entitled “Crime in the Nation.” It’s the FBI’s best estimate of what happened last year in terms of crime, and it shows a significant decrease. Violent crime decreased an estimated three percent last year, according to the FBI. Murder and manslaughter came down an estimated 11.6 percent. That’s the biggest drop in the last 20 years. Aggravated assault down 2.8 percent. And here’s what’s also important to hear about this, Jose, because there’s been a lot of criticism of FBI crime data. This data covered 94 percent of the U.S. population. And while it’s true that not all crimes are reported, all murders are counted.
And what this shows, big picture — because this is the second year in a row that the FBI has documented a decline in violent crime — it shows that after a big spike during the pandemic, violent crime is back down to around 2019 levels, which was historic lows really when you compare it to the 1990s. And, of course, this contradicts what Donald Trump and many of his Republican allies have been saying. They’ve been out on the campaign trail saying that violent crime is increasing dramatically in cities around the country. It’s just not what the numbers show, Jose.
(…)
MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports
September 23, 2024
12:36 p.m.
ANDREA MITCHELL: And next, new numbers out today showing overall crime rates are down across the country despite what Donald Trump is saying on the campaign trail.
(commercial break)
12:40 p.m.
MITCHELL: Donald Trump is repeatedly accusing the Biden-Harris administration of letting crime run rampant, especially crime from undocumented immigrants, despite all indications to the contrary. Today the FBI released statistics showing a three percent decline in violent crime in 2023. That suggests a steady decline since the uptick that occurred during the pandemic. Those numbers for the FBI’s annual report were compiled from law enforcement agencies across the country using data covering 94 percent of the population. Separately, the FBI has repeatedly reported that crime from immigrant groups is actually lower than the national average. … So what do the numbers really mean? What are you seeing in these numbers?
KEN DILANIAN: Most striking thing, Andrea, is that they say that murder declined 11.6 percent last year, and that’s the largest single-year decline on record. And it’s happening, of course, after murder had the largest spike on record in 2020 during the pandemic. So what we’re seeing, big picture, there was a huge spike in volent crime during the pandemic. It’s been gradually going down, and it’s pretty much back down to pre-pandemic levels. That should be uncontroversial, but it’s not because the Republicans and others are pushing the narrative that this data is wrong — that crime is somehow up when it’s down.
And there was a year — 2021 — when some of this FBI data was missing several big cities, but that’s no longer true. As you said, it covers 94 percent of the population, every city of over a million, and it clearly shows that violent crime was down last year. And we have other data from this year that shows that that trend is continuing in the first half of 2024 with violent crime and murder. It’s a good news story — it’s too bad that not everybody’s prepared to accept it, Andrea.
(…)
CNN News Central
September 23, 2024
3:37 p.m. Eastern
JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: If you zoom back, though, and you get the larger story, which is: What’s the five-year trend? Well, take a look at our other graphic, which is you see that over the time, say, from the five-year analysis, murder is actually up almost 10 percent. Aggravated assaults up almost seven percent — 6.5 percent. So you see that we are not where we were before — pre-pandemic, pre-criminal justice reform laws in many states, pre the defund the police movement — all of which had different effects on police agencies across the country.
(…)
MSNBC’s Katy Tur Reports
September 23, 2024
3:53 p.m.
DONALD TRUMP: We’re here today to talk about how we are going to stop the Kamala crime wave that is going on at levels that nobody has ever seen before. (editing jump) Since comrade Kamala Harris took office, her administration’s crime statistics show she’s presided over a 43 percent increase in violent crime. These are all government numbers — 43 percent increase in violent crime —
KATY TUR: Donald Trump is running on claims that the country is a violent dystopia — a place where, as he says, you can’t even go buy a loaf of bread without being mugged, shot or raped. But do the actual numbers match his rhetoric? Joining us now, NBC News justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Dilanian. I bought two loaves of bread yesterday, Ken, and I’m happy to report I did not get mugged, shot or raped when I was doing it. What do the crime numbers — the FBI numbers say in regards to what’s happening in this country? And what do they mean for Donald Trump’s 43 percent numbers?
KEN DILANIAN: Well, that’s just flatly wrong when Donald Trump said that. The latest numbers from the FBI which come from cities by the way — the FBI doesn’t make these numbers up — show that violent crime overall declined by a rate of three percent in 2023, and then murder declined 11.6 percent, and that’s the largest single-year drop on record. Now, of course, the context here, Katy, is this is coming after a huge spike in violent crime during the pandemic, and really what’s happening is it’s settling back to pre-pandemic levels, which were historically low.
(…)
MSNBC’s Deadline: White House
September 23, 2024
4:55 p.m.
DONALD TRUMP: They’ve got to stop crime. You go out for a loaf of bread today, and you end up getting mugged, killed, shot. (editing jump) Crime is absolutely out of control. (editing jump) Yeah, they just released, as you saw, numbers saying that crime is up 44 percent.
NICOLLE WALLACE: No they didn’t. That is Trump’s version of the triple threat, right? Lying, slurring and making things up in his imagination — he’s never bought a loaf of bread. That was him doing all those things about crime over the weekend, but here on Earth One, there is new data — statistics — from the FBI run by someone Donald Trump appointed to the post. It confirms a clear trajectory across the country of massively declining violent crime statistics in America with a more than 10 percent drop in murder between 2022 and 2023. That’s the largest year over year decline in crime reported by the FBI in 20 years. And if you’re thinking, “Well, what if the DOJ has different numbers than the numbers Trump’s talking about?” the answer is no. The DOJ’s preliminary data also from 88 cities also shows that violent crime has continued to decline considerably this year.
(…)
CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360
September 25, 2024
8:16 p.m.
ANDERSON COOPER: As you know, actually, violent crime is down, you know. Car robberies, you know, shoplifting has been up — violent crime is down. And, as you know, also, migrants generally commit — do not commit crimes at the same level. They commit crimes at a lower level than the U.S. population.
(…)
PBS NewsHour
September 27, 2024
7:35 p.m.
GEOFF BENNETT: It might be a resonant political issue, but do a fact check because crime rates in this country have actually come down.
LISA DESJARDINS: Right. We hear this again, and again, especially from Trump and Republicans. There were new figures out just today — or just this week rather — from the FBI. Today Attorney General Merrick Garland said that crime rates have gone down to almost their lowest level in 50 years.
(…)
MSNBC’s Alex Wagner Tonight
March 20, 2024
9:33 a.m. Eastern
ALI VELSHI: If you were to randomly flip on Fox News, there are pretty decent odds you will find yourself watching a segment about how Biden’s America is rampant with crime. “America is in a crime crisis.” And it’s not just Fox — Trump is also obsessed with crime, but a very specific kind of crime.
DONALD TRUMP CLIP #1: It’s a new kind of crime — I don’t know if you’ve heard this — but I came up with this one — “migrant crime.” There’s crime, there’s violent crime, there’s migrant crime. We have a new category of crime — it’s called “migrant crime.”
TRUMP CLIP #2: The United States is being overrun by the Biden migrant crime. It’s the new form of vicious violation to our country. It’s migrant crime. We call it “Biden migrant crime.”
VELSHI: There’s a problem with that because what Trump and Fox are pushing lack facts. Across the country, the crime rate is down, and it’s continuing to drop. We got new FBI crime data yesterday that shows that, no matter how you slice it, America is getting safer. Property crime is down, violent crime is down, the murder rate saw the sharpest annual decline ever recorded. And that supposed wave of migrant crime that Trump is obsessed with, Fox News ran 400 segments on it in the first 10 weeks of this year. But the facts are not on Trump or Fox’s side on that either. Statistically speaking, immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than U.S.-born citizens are, but you don’t hear that on Fox News.
Now, none of this is to say that many communities across the country aren’t still grappling with very real incidents of crime or that we should turn away from efforts to reduce crime. But the narrative being pushed here that crime is on a precipitous rise under Biden’s Democratic administration is simply false. What facts — Fox News lacks in facts, it makes up, though, in vibes.
DANA PERINO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Democrats will say, “Well, but crime is down. It’s not how people feel.”
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: We all know communities don’t feel safer.
MICHELE TAFOYA, FORMER NFL SIDELINE REPORTER (on Fox News Channel): You do see crime on the rise, and I, you know, President Biden held that whole presser about how crime is down in America. I don’t know. Again, it’s — do you believe your lying eyes? Or do you believe the President of the United States?
He just at the White House a few moments ago was just touting a drop in crime statistics. That is not what we’re all feeling and seeing.
VELSHI: Don’t believe your lying eyes. The reality is that crime in America started spiking in 2020 during the pandemic when Donald Trump was President. But Fox News is taking advantage of a gap between perception and reality here. Polling shows us that almost every year for the past few decades, Americans have felt like the country was getting more dangerous even when it wasn’t. And those feelings now have a partisan split to them. Last year, Gallup found that 92 percent of Republicans believe crime rose from the year before compared to 58 percent of Democrats. I wonder why.
(…)
MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes
March 21, 2024
8:44 p.m. Eastern
CHRIS HAYES: If you happen to be a frequent viewer of this program, you might be familiar with this chart. The picture paints about as clear as it gets. There was a record spike in violent crime under Donald Trump in 2020 — it shoots up to the left there. There’s been a consistent decline since President Joe Biden took office. The thing about crime data, it takes a long time to aggregate. It’s actually gotten worse over time. The chart is based on preliminary information because it takes a while for the full picture to come into focus. These stats trickle out before the FBI drops its final report for the year before, but there’s the thing. The Bureau just released some more data — new data from 2023 — indicating that, yes, there was a massive drop in crime last year. According to one crime data analyst who spoke to NBC News, when all is said and done, 2023, quote, “We will have seen likely the largest one-year decline in murder that has ever been recorded.” It is indisputable the country is getting both safer and more prosperous in the last four years under President Biden. It doesn’t seem like that message is getting through, at least not for now. I think it’s true for a lot of reasons — generally related to media consumption.
Local news has a number of mostly financial incentives to hyperfixate on crime, and they do. It’s especially true for violent crime, often in a way that’s disproportionate to actual statistics. And, of course, right-wing cable news has an obvious political incentive to portray life in President Biden’s America as negatively as possible. (montage of 10 different people on Fox News Channel stating that “crime is out of control”) I think the media focus is one reason why this message is not getting through, but some of the responsibility also falls on the Biden administration itself which, until recently, hasn’t done a great job of articulating the real tangible successes on this front. Which is why it is very interesting to me when earlier this week, the Biden-Harris White House released this statement touting the new data from the FBI and taking credit for making Americans safer. Quote, “Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, which every Republican in Congress voted against, we made the largest ever federal investment at fighting and preventing crime at any time in our history. This record investment in crime reduction is delivering results.”
The Biden White House isn’t just touting the decline in crime, but they’re actually taking credit. They’re pointing to legislation investments as the cause. It’s a pretty darn
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