Donald Trump held a press conference on Wednesday to take credit for decreases in violent crime that were already happening without his intervention.
“I campaigned on crime, but I never thought we would go into every city and take a really safe city that we’ve all been living with for years and make it safe,” he said. “And now it’s a passion for me. I did get elected for crime, but I didn’t get elected for what we’re doing.”
Trump, flanked by the FBI director, Kash Patel; the US attorney general, Pam Bondi; and the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, touted the federal takeover of policing in Washington DC and the amassing of arrests by federal agents in “Operation Summer Heat”.
Operation Summer Heat, as described by Patel, was a three-month initiative to surge arrests of wanted fugitives across the country. The initiative is similar to seasonal surges by the US Marshals Service and other agencies in previous years, though its scope appears to be much broader.
“As a result of these efforts, violent crime declined nearly 20% nationwide compared to the same period last year,” Trump said. “And it was the safest and most peaceful summer in the last two decades.”
Crime began falling precipitously in major cities in 2022 and 2023. On the day Trump was inaugurated in January, crime had fallen to nearly 60-year lows. Nonetheless, the president has used the threat of crime in major cities as justification for extraordinary intervention by federal law enforcement personnel, including the deployment of national guard troops in Memphis, Tennessee, last week.
“In a little while, you’re going to see some numbers that you’re not going to believe,” Trump said. I think you’re probably start with Memphis because I’m hearing the numbers are much quicker than we even thought possible.”
Violent crime has been falling in Memphis for the last year. The Memphis police department released a note on 9 September – before the Memphis Safe Task Force of federal law enforcement agents and national guard personnel had been fully deployed – that overall crime there was at a 25-year low, with robbery, burglary and larceny also reaching 25-year lows. Murder is at a six-year low, aggravated assault at a five-year low and sexual assault at a 20-year low.
Operation Summer Heat, an initiative to arrest violent criminals, as described by Patel, reflects “the best numbers for fighting crime in US history”.
Patel offered arrests of 28,600 people over the first nine months of Trump’s presidency as evidence for the claim, with 8,700 arrests of “violent criminals” during the summer push, along with 2,200 firearms seized as well as 421kg of fentanyl – “enough to kill 55 million Americans, alone”, he claimed without providing a basis for that figure.
Reporters present at the White House presentation did not ask Patel, Bondi or Trump about the quality of those arrests – that is, whether those arrests would hold up to historical conviction rates in which more than 99% of arrests result in a conviction.
after newsletter promotion
Trump repeated his threat to ask World Cup organizers to take games from Boston because the city’s mayor is not sufficiently cooperative.
Trump also defended strikes on boats the administration alleges are smuggling drugs from Venezuela. “When they’re carrying drugs, they’re fair game,” he said. “Every boat we knock out saves 25,000 lives,” he added, also without a basis for the claim.
The president attributed the continuing government shutdown to Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader, whom he called a “loser” seeking renewed relevance. But Trump also said the shutdown is working out for his interests, with programs Republicans wanted to cut being terminated permanently – a prospect of questionable legality, given the appropriation power afforded to Congress by the constitution.
“We have the people we want paid, paid, OK,” Trump said. “We want the FBI paid, we want the military paid.”
