Trump falsely claims murder numbers are “skyrocketing” and blames Kamala Harris

“Under Kamala Harris, murder rates in American cities are skyrocketing,” Donald Trump's campaign claimed in a statement Monday. Like Trump's claim that “our crime rate is rising,” this claim is completely at odds with reality.

According to FBI data, the murder rate rose more than 27 percent in 2020, when Trump was president; it rose slightly in 2021, the first year of the Biden administration, and fell 7 percent in 2022. Preliminary FBI numbers show larger declines in 2023 (about 13 percent) and this year (26 percent for the first quarter). So far this year, murders have fallen about 17 percent, according to data from 277 cities.

So it is obviously not true that “the murder rate in American cities is skyrocketing under Kamala Harris.” The Trump campaign team nevertheless criticizes “a ridiculous story” in Axios “the claim that violent crime falls under Kamala Harris,” which she calls “a lie.”

Based on data from the Major Cities Chiefs Association, Axios described “an overall 6% decrease in violent crime in 69 cities during the first six months of 2024 compared to the same period last year.” Axios “also found that the number of homicides in the 69 cities reported fell by more than 17% in the first half of 2024 compared to the previous year. [same] period last year.”

The Trump campaign is not claiming that these numbers are false, as the “lie” label implies. Instead, it contradicts the focus of the story: “It may be true that in *some* cities, some categories of violent crime are lower in the first six months of 2024 than in 2023 — but violent crime is still SIGNIFICANTLY HIGHER under President Trump compared to 2019. Axios can cherry-pick all the crime data they want, but it won't change what Americans know: Our communities are more dangerous under Kamala Harris.”

Speaking of cherry-picking, it's true that despite recent declines, the murder rate remained higher in 2023 than it was in 2019. But the Council on Criminal Justice reports, based on data from 39 cities for the first half of that year, that “most violent crimes,” including murder, “are at or below 2019 levels.” And by far the largest increase in the murder rate occurred in 2020. Remind me: Who was president then?

I'm not saying that Trump can be blamed for the huge increase in the murder rate during the pandemic. Given all the other factors, and the fact that crime control is primarily a state and local responsibility, it would be unrealistic to assume that any president has much influence on the murder rate.

Trump would still like us to believe that Harris, who had even less control over such things as vice president, is responsible for crime trends since January 2021. If that were the case, Harris could take credit for the recent drastic drop in the murder rate—a conclusion Trump avoids only by pretending it never happened.

[This post has been updated with crime numbers from the Council on Criminal Justice for the first half of 2024.]