Trump issues bold six-word response to US having 'biggest single-year decline in murders on record'
Topics: Donald Trump, US News, News, Crime
Niamh Shackleton
Featured Image Credit: Getty Images/Scott Olson
Topics: Donald Trump, US News, News, Crime
Donald Trump has reacted to the news that America has seen a significant decline in murders over the last year.
In fact, there's been an overall decline in crime rates, according to the Real-Time Crime Index (RTCI).
Such data comes from local crime rates from nearly 600 jurisdictions around the country, says NPR. The RTCI does note, however, that it can only give its analysis on crimes that have been reported to the police.
Per the data put together in the RTCI, violent crimes in the US have declined this year. Between January and October 2025, there were 450,186 violent crimes recorded in comparison to over 501,000 violent crimes in the same time frame in 2024.
Advert
There's also been a decline in what the RTCI defines as 'property crimes', including burglaries, thefts and motor vehicle thefts, which have gone down by 281,584 in comparison to 2024 (marking a 12.3 percent decline).
Looking at murders specifically, there's been almost a 20 percent decline across the US this year in comparison to last year.
There has, however, been a worrying 600 percent increase in murder rates in Johnston County, North Carolina, and Gilbert, Arizona, reports Axios.
Trump has responded to more optimistic news of the general murder rate decline across the country though, in a rather unorthodox way.
Sharing a Twitter post showing the decline in rates, which highlighted murder being one of the types of crimes that have seen a decline over the last year, the president penned on Truth Social on December 26 while seemingly quoting someone: "'TRUMP IS DOING AN AMAZING JOB!'"
The decline in crime rates might not solely be down to Trump and his policies, but also because of the aftermath of the pandemic finally calming down.
Across 2020 and 2021, homicide rates are said to have skyrocketed in the US, but now the country is seemingly on the other side of the surge.
Speaking on this, Adam Gelb, president of the Council on Criminal Justice, told NPR of the previous homicide spike: "There was a wide array of stresses — economic, financial, psychological — that the pandemic produced.
"And there were greater opportunities to settle beefs with rivals, precisely because there were fewer people on the streets and fewer cops on the streets."
John Roman, who directs the Center on Public Safety & Justice at NORC, a research group at the University of Chicago, also weighed in on the data.
"It's the best year in crime I've seen in 27 years in this business," he said of the 2025 data.
Roman added that people should view violence as an epidemic.
"If epidemics cause things to spiral up, they should create virtuous cycles on the way down," he went on to explain.
"The fewer serious crimes there are, the more resources law enforcement has to investigate each crime."