ABC Debate Moderator David Muir’s Fact Check Aimed at Donald Trump Breaks Down After FBI Revises Crime Statistics

A fact check aimed at former President Donald Trump regarding violent crime rates in the United States during the ABC News presidential debate in September has not held up well.

During the debate between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris (D), Trump highlighted the fact that crime has been plaguing Americans under President Joe Biden (D) and Harris’s leadership, Fox News noted on Friday.

After he said crime across the nation is “through the roof,” moderator David Muir tried to fact check his statement, saying, “President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is actually coming down in this country.”

Readers can watch the exchange here:

Despite Muir’s attempt to correct him, Trump fought back and said, “They were defrauding statements. They didn’t include the worst cities. They didn’t include the cities with the worst crime. It was a fraud. Just like their number of 818,000 jobs that they said they created turned out to be a fraud.”

Fox noted that after the FBI reported a 2.1 percent drop in violent crimes throughout 2022, the agency has now admitted there was actually a 4.5 percent increase.

Breitbart News reported the updates in percentages on Wednesday:

On June 24, 2024, Breitbart News did a “FACT CHECK” on the FBI report showing lower crime for 2022 and noted the report was missing information from thousands of police precincts that did not report crime data.

Other outlets called out the FBI report as well and now, months later, the federal agency has corrected the record.

In August, Crime Prevention Research Center president John Lott wrote in an op-ed published in the New York Post that violent dropped when Trump was in office and — despite establishment claims — rose under Biden and Harris, as Breitbart News reported.

It is interesting to note that ABC’s Muir reportedly suffered a ratings decline after the debate between Trump and Harris, according to Breitbart News, which observed that many conservatives suggested the debate was unfair.