President Trump gets the facts backwards in claim about murder rates
President Trump got his facts wrong again Tuesday, this time in a meeting with a group of sheriff’s officers.
“And yet the murder rate in our country is the highest been in 47 years right? Didn’t you know that? Right. 47 years? I used to, I’d say that in a speech and everybody was surprised. Because the press doesn’t tell it like it is. It wasn’t to their advantage to say that” Mr. Trump said.
FBI statistics show the president isn’t just wrong -- he has it backwards.
The fact is, the murder rate is close to the 57-year low it hit in 2014, before ticking up a bit in 2015, the most recent year of data available.
The president’s false claim that the media are consciously under-reporting the murder rate comes the day after he made the false charge that the media are conspiring to cover up terrorist attacks.