Donald Trump is at it again

Please click here to donate whatever you can to our fight against Trump.

Donald Trump is at it again. Not only is the groggy defendant saying what he wants people to believe about a situation when the truth is unflattering to him, but heโ€™s pretending that a legitimate authority is offering data that backs him up. With each such episode, Trump not only reminds us how easily he lies, but how wrong he has been on issuesโ€”and how desperate he is to save face and cling to relevancy.

At a rally in Wisconsin this week, Trump again tried to portray himself as the hopeful savior of a nation with an out-of-control crime problem. Trump promised that, if elected in November, โ€œweโ€™re going to bring our country back from hell. We have a country thatโ€™s in hell. Look at whatโ€™s going on. Look at the crime. Look at the crime.โ€

We should, indeed, look at whatโ€™s going on, because the crime statistics reflect a very different scenario from what Trump is describing. According to the FBIโ€™s preliminaryย 2023 crime report, which was released on March 18, violent crimes declined 5.7% from the prior year, with murders falling 13.2%. By contrast, the violent crime rate (including murders) climbed in 2020, as twice-impeached Trump limped to the end of his failed term.

As the week ended, the news got even better for the Biden administrationโ€”and the country. In an official statement issued on Friday, President Biden announced that violent crime declined across every category and the murder rate fell by 17% in the first quarter of 2024. Drawing a stark contrast with the former guy, Biden emphasized that after โ€œthe largest one-year increase in murders ever recordedโ€ under Trump, โ€œviolent crime is at a near fifty-year low.โ€

Not only is Trump lying about violent crime statistics, but the improvements are directly tied to the Biden administrationโ€™s actions. The American Rescue Plan, which passed despite zero Republican votes, has empowered cities and states to invest over $15 billion in meaningful steps to improve public safety and prevent violent crime.

Going a step further, Biden insisted, โ€œWe canโ€™t stop now.โ€ Indeed, Biden pointed out that his Safer America Plan, first outlined in August 2022, would build on this progress by having Congress invest $37 billion to support law enforcement and crime prevention. โ€œEvery family deserves to live in a safe community,โ€ he explained. โ€œI wonโ€™t stop until they do.โ€

Republicans now have a choice: they can either promote Trumpโ€™s bald-faced lie that violent crime was low under Trump but is now worse now than ever, or they can join Biden in pursuing sensible, bipartisan solutions that will save even more lives and make Americaโ€™s neighborhoods even less dangerous. Donald Trump should go back to sleep.

This is the fight of our lives. Donald Trump and his unelected henchmen are actively trying to destroy our government, our democracy, and our way of life. We only have one choice, and that's to fight back as loudly and aggressively as possible.
To that end, Palmer Report is expanding. We're bulking up our editorial and research staff and leaving no stone unturned on the editorial front and activism front. I'm asking you to help me build Palmer Report into what it needs to be. Please click here to donate whatever you can to this effort. Our future and our way of life depend on it.