President Donald Trumps claim in his State of the Union address that the United States recorded its lowest murder rate on record in 2025 has now been corroborated by independent data, underscoring a dramatic shift in the nations crime trajectory.
According to Western Journal, CBS News verified that Trumps statement aligned with findings from the Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan research organization. During his address, the President declared, Last year, the murder rate saw its single largest decline in recorded history. This is the biggest decline, think of it, in recorded history the lowest number in over 125 years, a boast that, unusually for establishment media coverage of Trump, has been backed by the data.
CBS cited a January analysis by the Council on Criminal Justice concluding there is a strong possibility that the 2025 homicide rate will fall to roughly 4 per 100,000 residents. That level, the report stated, would be the lowest recorded in law enforcement or public health data dating back to 1900.
Researchers acknowledged that the precise causes of the sharp decline remain uncertain, but they pointed to a range of likely contributors. These included changes in criminal justice policy and practice, shifts in peoples routine activities and social behavior, economic conditions, technology use, and local violence prevention efforts.
Based on data compiled from major U.S. cities, the Council estimated that homicides dropped 21 percent from 2024 to 2025, coinciding with the first year of Trumps second term. That would mark the largest single-year percentage drop in the homicide rate on record, the organization said, highlighting the scale of the reversal from the lawlessness that surged earlier in the decade.
The New York Times, which has often been critical of Trump, was forced to acknowledge the broader trend in a January report. The analysis of data from 40 cities, by the Council on Criminal Justice found across-the-board decreases in crime last year compared to 2019: 25 percent fewer homicides, 13 percent fewer shootings and 29 percent fewer carjackings, the outlet reported.
The Times further noted that The Federal Bureau of Investigation has not yet released nationwide crime data for all of 2025, but statistics published by cities and collected by independent researchers are already telling the latest chapter of a remarkable story. In just half a decade, cities have gone from upswings in murder and mayhem the likes of which some had not seen in 25 years to declines themselves worthy of headlines, a narrative that undercuts years of Democratic talking points about policing and criminal justice.
The paper conceded that The spikes began in 2020 with the shock of the global pandemic and, just a few months later, sweeping protests over police killings, both of which strained the capacity of law enforcement. Those protests, fueled by progressive activists and embraced by many Democrat-run cities, coincided with defund-the-police experiments and soft-on-crime policies that conservatives warned would end in disaster.
The Council on Criminal Justice observed that crime had already begun to ease in 2024 before Trump returned to office, though the pace of decline was far more modest. The acceleration in 2025 has given the White House ample reason to argue that a tougher, law-and-order approach is making a measurable difference where progressive governance failed.
The administration seized on the numbers in January, framing them as proof that one of Trumps central campaign promises is being realized: Make America Safe Again. In a statement, the White House declared, This monumental turnaround is a direct result of President Trumps unwavering commitment to Make America Safe Again. In addition to the historic drop in murders last year, the nation experienced steep declines in rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, shooting deaths (fewest since 2015), on-duty law enforcement officer deaths (80-year low), traffic fatalities, and overdose deaths, drawing a direct line between conservative policies and improved public safety.
The statement went further, placing blame squarely on progressive leadership for the chaos of recent years. President Trump is reversing the chaos and carnage unleashed by Radical Left Democrats who turned our streets into war zones by coddling criminals and opening our borders. Since taking office, President Trump has deployed a whole-of-government offensive in Democrat-run cities, driving down crime, ridding the streets of savage criminal illegal aliens, backing law enforcement, and bringing back order where incompetent Democrat politicians surrendered to anarchy and despair, Trumps team added.
Public sentiment appears to be shifting in tandem with the statistics, suggesting that Americans are not only safer on paper but feel safer in their daily lives. A Gallup survey conducted in October found that less than half of respondents, 49 percent, viewed crime as an extremely or very serious problem in the United States, down sharply from 63 percent the previous year.
Gallup reported that concern over crime is now at its lowest level since at least 2018, during Trumps first term, when a similar emphasis on law enforcement and border security prevailed. While final nationwide FBI figures for 2025 are still pending, the convergence of independent research, media acknowledgment, and public perception is already reshaping the debate over which policiesand which partycan be trusted to keep American communities safe.
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