White House Touts Plummeting Murder Rates Under President Trump

WASHINGTON—A nationally recognized crime analyst says 2025 may see the lowest murder rate ever recorded, and the White House is touting the news as evidence of President Donald Trump’s tough-on-crime policies.

“Since President Trump took office, murder rates have plummeted across the entire United States,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Tuesday morning.

“American families were promised their communities would be safer and President Trump swiftly delivered by vocally being tough on crime, unequivocally backing law enforcement, and standing firm on violent criminals being held to the fullest extent of the law,” she added.

Her remarks come after analyst Jeff Asher, co-founder of AH Datalytics, found more than a 20% decrease in murders from 2024, including murders down 31.6% in Baltimore, 34.5% in St. Louis, 36.8% in Cleveland, 63% in Denver, 30.6% in New Orleans, 26.8% in New York, and 23.7% in Chicago.

Jeff Asher, Substack.

Asher hedges that the trend could “regress back towards a more normal rate of decline,” but he still argues that “it’s fairly clear that a decline in the direction we’re currently seeing would safely give 2025 the title of lowest US murder rate ever recorded.”

Rafael Mangual, a Manhattan Institute fellow and member of the Council on Criminal Justice, told The Daily Wire that there are a number of factors behind the drop in homicides, including “depopulation in urban America, more police activity across the country, an increase in the incarceration rate over the last couple of years, as well as the fact that, the homicide spikes and shooting spikes took a lot of would-be shooters off the street permanently.” 

Homicide rates in the United States rose in 2020, peaked in 2021, and have steadily fallen since.

Trump has made fighting crime a major goal of his second term, particularly in Washington, D.C. Violent crime rose 33% in the nation’s capital in 2023, making it Washington’s deadliest year in two decades. Violent crime dropped 35% between 2023 and 2024, likely the result of the appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia deciding to ramp up prosecutions towards the end of his term.

On the campaign trail, Trump said he would “take over our horribly run” capital, a promise he delivered on in March, when he signed an executive order creating the “D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force.” The task force is directed to combat crime and restore public order by clearing homeless encampments and cracking down on lower-level offenses like turnstile jumping and public urination.

But Trump’s efforts to restore public order have gone beyond Washington, as well. His administration’s crackdown on illegal crossings at the southern border has led to the largest fentanyl bust in history, and his Treasury Department has issued sanctions against the notorious Sinaloa Cartel in an effort to disrupt their operations.

Late last month, The Washington Post reported on “The mysterious drop in fentanyl seizures on the U.S.-Mexico border,” quickly drawing criticism from Republicans. On X, Texas Rep. Troy Nehls wrote that there was “nothing ‘mysterious’ about the drop in fentanyl seizures at the southern border,” noting that “President Trump’s America First border security policies are working.”

Let me be clear:

There’s nothing “mysterious” about the drop in fentanyl seizures at the southern border.

President Trump’s America First border security policies are working. pic.twitter.com/w8jkLfqQli

— Congressman Troy E. Nehls (@RepTroyNehls) June 3, 2025

The Department of Homeland Security also weighed in on X, saying, “It’s no mystery. On day one, @POTUS Trump closed our borders to drug traffickers. From March 2024 to March 2025 fentanyl traffic at the southern border fell by 54%.”

It’s no mystery. On day one, @POTUS Trump closed our borders to drug traffickers. From March 2024 to March 2025 fentanyl traffic at the southern border fell by 54%.

The world has heard the message loud and clear. pic.twitter.com/7RJVY8ISwS

— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) June 2, 2025

Fentanyl killed over 48,000 Americans in 2024, according to the CDC.