First, there was this headline in The New York Times on January 22: “What’s Behind the Staggering Drop in the Murder Rate? No One Knows for Sure.”
Then there was the analysis—an unusually public effort to force this good news during the Trump administration’s war on crime into a far-Left filter.
The Times reporters quickly call the decline in homicides across the country a “stunning reversal” from the violence in 2020—far-Left violence that prompted millions more Americans to buy guns for personal and home defense.
“Violence has been falling for several years. But last year for the first time, all seven categories of violent crime tracked by the analysis fell below prepandemic levels. The numbers provide further evidence that the surge in violence in the early 2020s was a departure during a time of massive social upheaval, not a new normal,” reported the newspaper.
They are citing data from the Council on Criminal Justice, a think tank that is financially supported by a long list of foundations that typically support progressive causes, like Arnold Ventures and the MacArthur Foundation, as well as corporate sponsors.
The Council’s key takeaways include:
- Reported levels of 11 of the 13 offenses covered in this report were lower in 2025 than in 2024; nine of the offenses declined by 10% or more. Drug crimes were the only offense category that increased (+7%); sexual assault remained even.
- Looking at changes in violent offenses, the rate of reported homicides was 21% lower in 2025 than in 2024 in the 35 study cities providing data for that crime, representing 922 fewer homicides. There were 9% fewer reported aggravated assaults, 22% fewer gun assaults, and 2% fewer domestic violence incidents last year than in 2024. Robbery fell by 23% while carjackings (a type of robbery) decreased by 43%.
- When nationwide data for jurisdictions of all sizes is reported by the FBI later this year, there is a strong possibility that homicides in 2025 will drop to about 4.0 per 100,000 residents. That would be the lowest rate ever recorded in law enforcement or public health data going back to 1900, and would mark the largest single-year percentage drop in the homicide rate on record.
Next, to give this the proper narrative, the Times says that crime statistics “have been at the center of heated political debate since President Trump returned to office, after he campaigned on fears of a migrant-led crime wave and complained of ‘bloodshed’ and ‘chaos’ in Democrat-led cities.”
A case in point has been Washington, D.C., as the Trump administration used National Guard troops and asserted federal control over Washington, D.C.’s, police department as part of a broader crime-emergency action.
The Times, however, downplays the impacts of this policing on crime rates. The article also disputes any claim that deporting criminal illegal aliens helped to reduce crime. The Department of Homeland Security said in a Dec. 10, 2025, press release they had deported about 605,000 individuals since January 2025, but it is unknown how many had criminal records beyond immigration crimes.
The Times did note that President Trump wrote on Truth Social: “ICE is removing some of the most violent criminals in the World from our Country.”
As they clearly could not talk all of this away, after stating that crime fell in Washington, D.C., after the Trump administration took charge, they added the line that this “dampen[ed] pedestrian traffic and other activity.”
Really?
The Times then claimed that its own examination of the data “found that only 7 percent of immigration detainees had a prior conviction for any violent offense.”
They then toss in the line: “Experts said there is little to justify any claim that President Trump is responsible for last year’s drop in crime.”
To substantiate this claim, they quote a former Biden administration official saying, “There are many more cities that didn’t have the National Guard that saw their crime go down than cities who had the National Guard who saw their crime go down.”
It is true that crime is complicated. Many factors impact crime rates, but this is an obvious attempt from the Times to talk away the impact of the Trump administration’s policies.
To cover its coverup, the Times does attempt a catchall. They write that “researchers have long struggled to explain why crime fluctuates. Research has credited policing strategies and incarceration rates, mental health treatment and gun laws, the beautification of vacant lots and the phasing out of lead, which impairs brain development, from gasoline in the 1970s … .”
So, it can’t be Trump’s policies, such as targeting criminals not law-abiding gun owners, but it could be lead paint, beautification attempts and other factors … hmm.
