The White House claims the murder rate is down 18% in the U.S. “under Trump.” The problem with this number is that it doesn’t measure the entire United States and it doesn’t really measure Trump’s tenure. The figure comes from the Council on Criminal Justice, which compared preliminary police data from 30 large cities during the first half of 2026 with the same period in 2025. Across those cities, the average homicide rate fell 18%, representing 215 fewer killings. That is excellent news. But Trump took office on January 20, 2025, meaning almost the entire period used as the baseline was also “under Trump.” The comparison is essentially Trump’s second year against Trump’s first, not Trump against Biden. It’s also a sample of cities, not the FBI’s final nationwide count. The researchers explicitly warn that their preliminary findings may be revised and aren’t evidence that any particular policy or politician caused the decline. The broader context matters, too. Multiple datasets indicate that murders began falling before Trump returned to office, although changes in FBI reporting and gaps in local data make exact year-to-year comparisons complicated. The Council’s own report relies on preliminary figures from a changing sample of cities and makes a special adjustment for problems with Los Angeles’s data. Trump can accurately say the decline has continued during his presidency but neither this study nor the available data establish that his policies caused it. What could be causing it? There are likely many reasons, but I’m hesitant to give politicians credit for trends they can’t convincingly explain. The post The Murder Rate Is Down. Who Gets the Credit? appeared first on Redacted.