Trump Touts Record Crime Decline as Analysts Question Credit

Overview

• In his State of the Union and a White House post, President Trump credited National Guard and federal law enforcement deployments in cities such as Washington, D.C., Memphis and New Orleans with a "big success" in cutting crime.
• The White House asserted that murders fell to the lowest level in at least 125 years in 2025 with the largest single-year drop, alongside declines in robberies and aggravated assaults.
• A Council on Criminal Justice analysis reported a roughly 21% year-over-year homicide decline across 35 large cities, and experts said nationwide records cannot be verified until the FBI releases 2025 data.
• Crime statistician Jeff Asher said the multi-year drop in murders began in 2023 and cautioned that any effect from limited or late-2025 federal deployments is difficult to isolate.
• Local data show steep declines in places highlighted by Trump—D.C. violent crime fell about 28% in 2025 with January homicides down sharply year over year, and New Orleans marked its lowest homicide rate in 50 years—though causes remain contested.