The sparks flew on CNN’s “NewsNight with Abby Phillip” when conservative radio host Ben Ferguson credited Donald Trump with driving down violent crime nationwide — a declare that landed simply hours after the president ordered the Nationwide Guard into Washington, D.C., and positioned town’s police pressure underneath direct federal management.
Trump framed the transfer as a response to “rising violence” within the nation’s capital, however federal knowledge reveals crime there’s really falling, igniting a political firestorm over whether or not the president is manufacturing a disaster to justify flexing his extraordinary powers.
The alternate grew to become the flashpoint of the evening as Abby Phillip challenged Ferguson to again up his declare. “I agree, and numerous it’s the management of Trump,” Ferguson mentioned, chopping into Phillip’s rationalization that the nationwide decline started earlier than the president returned to workplace.
“What proof do you’ve gotten that it was Donald Trump?” Phillip pressed, citing federal knowledge displaying crime charges hit a 30-year low in 2024 after spiking in 2023.
Ferguson insisted Trump had emboldened regulation enforcement via marketing campaign rhetoric, inadvertently admitting that the president had given police the inexperienced mild to behave with better pressure and impunity.
Phillip shot again, “Don’t let information get in the way in which of political speaking factors.”
The on-air conflict got here as Trump’s unprecedented transfer to grab management of D.C. policing dominated headlines, with critics stating that his rationale — “rising violence” — runs counter to town’s personal crime knowledge.
Violent crime in Washington surged in 2023, hitting its highest murder rely for the reason that late Nineteen Nineties and almost doubling carjackings from the 12 months earlier than. However these numbers have been falling sharply ever since. Homicides dropped 32 p.c in 2024 and one other 12 p.c to this point in 2025, with carjackings additionally reduce by greater than half since their 2023 peak. Crime analyst Jeff Asher says town’s violent crime fee is now as little as it’s been for the reason that Sixties.
Nationwide numbers inform the identical story. FBI knowledge reveals violent crime fell 4.5 p.c in 2024, with murders down almost 15 p.c, robberies down 8.9 p.c, and aggravated assaults down 3 p.c. Property crimes fell much more steeply, together with an 18.6 p.c drop in motorized vehicle thefts. A mid-year 2025 report from the nonpartisan Council on Legal Justice discovered continued declines in most main offenses throughout 42 U.S. cities, together with double-digit drops in murder, theft, and carjacking.
Critics accused Trump of utilizing outdated 2023 crime figures as a political pretext to crack down on cities with Black mayors who resist his immigration insurance policies. They word that whereas Washington’s crime fee stays larger than the nationwide common, its latest enhancements mirror declines in different traditionally high-crime cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, and Detroit.
Trump additionally instructed reporters that 2023 noticed the capital’s highest homicide fee “most likely ever,” however that declare is flatly incorrect. Whereas 2023’s 274 homicides had been town’s highest since 1997, Washington recorded much more killings within the late Eighties and early Nineteen Nineties — topping 470 in each 1990 and 1991, when town’s inhabitants was smaller.
The town’s murder rely fell to 187 in 2024 — a 32 p.c drop — and has fallen one other 12 p.c to this point in 2025, with 99 killings via Sunday. Carjackings inform an identical story: after peaking at 959 in 2023, the quantity plunged to roughly 500 final 12 months and stands at 188 to this point this 12 months, down from almost 300 on the similar level in 2024.
The town’s police union has accused native leaders of “cooking the books” by downgrading some offenses to make crime traits look higher, a cost the White Home has eagerly amplified. However the allegation stays unproven, and crime analyst Jeff Asher notes that impartial sources — together with ShotSpotter gunfire alerts and hospital knowledge on gunshot accidents — additionally present violence declining in step with official figures.
Nationwide, FBI knowledge reveals almost each main crime class fell in 2024: rape was down 5.2 p.c, aggravated assault 3 p.c, housebreaking 8.6 p.c, larceny 5.5 p.c, and reported hate crimes 1.5 p.c. The steepest drop got here in motorized vehicle theft, which fell 18.6 p.c after years of sharp will increase.
However listening to Trump inform it, America is teetering on the sting of collapse, with violent criminals overrunning the streets. From his press conferences to marketing campaign rallies, he paints an image of a nation underneath siege — a story that stands in stark distinction to the steep drops in crime documented by regulation enforcement companies nationwide.
Trump has hinted at extending his D.C. mannequin to different “lawless” cities. However the knowledge reveals crime is mostly heading in the wrong way of the disaster he describes — undermining the central argument for his federal takeover of native policing.
