Debunking Trump’s claims about violent crime
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 September 2024
⏱️ 35 minutes
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Summary
In preparation for Tuesday’s debate between Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, “Post Reports” fact-checks the former president’s claims about crime and immigration.
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Crime is falling rapidly in many U.S. cities for the second year in a row. But the decrease in homicides and assaults has been largely ignored by Republican politicians like Donald Trump, who publicly blames his opponent Kamala Harris and other Democrats for what he claims is a surge in violent crime across the United States.
Ahead of the first –– and probably only –– debate between Trump and Harris on Tuesday evening, reporter Devlin Barrett joins host Martine Powers to give some context to what we might hear on the debate stage when it comes to crime, policing and immigration.
The teams behind “Post Reports” and “The Campaign Moment” will also be working late to get you an episode first thing tomorrow, breaking down the biggest moments of the debate and fact-checking some of the candidates’ answers. Keep an ear out for that episode.
Today’s show was produced by Rennie Svirnovskiy, with help from Elana Gordon. It was edited by Peter Bresnan and mixed by Sean Carter.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's an honor and I'm thrilled to be back with the incredible heroes and |
| 0:06.6 | patriots of the Fraternal Order of Police an incredible group. |
| 0:11.3 | So Donald Trump spoke recently to the Fraternal Order of Police. |
| 0:15.0 | They're a very influential and high profile police organization, which had |
| 0:20.2 | previously endorsed Trump is endorsing him again this year. |
| 0:24.0 | That is Devlin Barrett. He writes about law enforcement and the Justice Department for the post. |
| 0:29.0 | And in his speech to the group on Friday, the former president said a lot of things |
| 0:36.3 | about how the Democrats basically are enabling, facilitating, encouraging a rise in |
| 0:42.3 | crime. |
| 0:43.0 | Over the past four years, |
| 0:45.0 | Kamla Harris and the Radical Democrat Party |
| 0:47.0 | have led a war on law enforcement in America. |
| 0:50.0 | They're against you so strongly. |
| 0:52.0 | As a result, families that do everything right and carry this country on their shoulders have watched helplessly as their communities dissolved all around them. |
| 1:01.6 | He referred to at one point as Kamala's crime wave. |
| 1:04.3 | The day I take office is the day that Kamala's crime wave comes to an end. |
| 1:10.4 | It's a crime wave in our country. We've never seen it. |
| 1:12.4 | And that's been pretty typical of how he talks about crime on the campaign trail this year. |
| 1:18.0 | Recently, Devlin has been working on fact-checking some of Trump's claims about crime in the US. |
| 1:25.0 | Trump has repeatedly said that violent crime is rising and that both Democrats and recent immigrants |
| 1:32.0 | are responsible. |
| 1:34.0 | But there was something a little strange about that speech Trump gave to the Fraternal Order |
... |
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