Trump again claims Chicago is "most dangerous" city, but the data doesn't agree
President Donald Trump has been declaring Chicago "the most dangerous city in the world" for months, but the data doesn't back up those claims, especially when put in context.
Mr. Trump said again Tuesday that Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker should "beg for help" with Chicago's crime problem while speaking to reporters on board Air Force One.
"I want him to say, 'We have a problem. Bring in the troops and solve the problem,'" Trump said.
CBS News Chicago requested data from the White House behind those claims. They responded with a list of statistics and a comment from a White House spokesperson saying, "President Trump will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness plaguing American cities."
The White House pointed to data they said shows Chicago has had the most murders of any U.S. city for more than a decade and that for years Chicago has had the highest murder rate among U.S. cities with more than 1 million people.
"You're not really saying anything if you limit your evaluation to cities of a million or more," said Jeff Asher, co-founder of AH Datalytics.
MORE ANALYSIS: Is Chicago crime out of control, as Trump claims? The data says no
Asher, a crime data analyst, pointed out that Chicago's per capita murder rate is well below several other U.S. cities, but the White House is limiting the comparison to only nine cities that have populations over 1 million.
"New York has the highest rate of any U.S. city of 5 million or more. It's the only city of 5 million or more. And so, the more you limit it, the less you can sort of analytically say anything of value when comparing a city to the other cities of its size," Asher explained.
Asher also responded to the White House's claim that Chicago's murder rate is more than double the murder rate in Islamabad and nearly 15 times more than Delhi. First and foremost, he says it's unclear how the murder data in either of those places was collected.
"It's not necessarily a useful comparison to say that this enormous city, because as city populations tend to go up, you're including more people, you're including people that aren't at risk for being the victims of murders, and you're basically just sort of artificially lowering your rates," he said.
Asher said that while violent crime in Chicago is down significantly this year, he agrees with the White House that Chicago has a violent crime problem. But the data from Washington, D.C. doesn't necessarily show the National Guard is the answer.
"The question is, what are we doing about them, and whether or not this approach is necessarily helpful, and I think that there's certainly less evidence that we're going to see a long-term drop in crime from this. And the potential for harm and the expense of it is really high," he said.
The White House also highlighted the high number of illegal guns recovered in Chicago and the city's surge in car thefts as areas of concern.
Notably, Chicago police have pointed to getting guns off the street as a good thing, and the car thefts were largely due to Kia and Hyundai vulnerability issues, which CBS News Chicago has reported on extensively and which affected nearly every major city in America.
Full White House Statement
"President Trump is right, Chicago clearly has a crime problem. Chicago has had the most murderers of any US city for 13 consecutive years – which has destroyed the lives of many law-abiding Americans. President Trump will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness plaguing American cities."