AP publishes 'fact check' that admits president's DC claim is correct

Daily Mail​

16 hours ago

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The Associated Press has published a fact-check appearing to substantiate Donald Trump 's claim that the murder rate in Washington, DC , is higher than that of both Bogota, Colombia, and Mexico City. The piece - titled 'FACT FOCUS: Trump exaggerates, misstates facts on Washington crime' - comes after an impassioned press conference from the president. 'The murder rate in Washington today is higher than that of Bogota, Colombia, Mexico City, some of the places that you hear about as being the worst places on earth,' he told onlookers.
The administration, in turn, posted a chart to X comparing DC's murder rate to other cities around the world. The graphic showed DC's murder rate at roughly 27 percent, Bogota at 15 percent, and Mexico City at 10 percent. The AP piece conceded Washington is 'one of America's most-dangerous big cities,' but pointed to how 'the US in general' sees higher rates of than many other countries. 'Washington does have a higher homicide rate than many other global cities, including some that have historically been considered unsafe by many Americans,' a portion reads. 'But Trump is leaving out important context.'
The rest of the fact-check carried a similar tone, after Trump announced a federal takeover of the municipality's police just hours earlier. 'Look at these. Baghdad is … we doubled up on Baghdad. Panama City, Brasilia, San Jose, Costa Rica, Bogota, Colombia,' Trump told reporters as he showed charts comparing rates of crime in the nation's capital to other cities. 'Heavy drugs. Mexico City, I mentioned Lima, Peru, all double and triple what they are. So do you want to live in places like that? I don't think so. I don't think so.'
The White House attempted to substantiate its claims surrounding DC's 2024 murder rate with a screenshot of a New York Post article, which in turn cited a report published by the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in February 2025. The report showed D.C.'s murder rate sitting at 27.54 per 100,000 in 2024 - slightly more than the 25 percent tabulated by the FBI. Still, DC's murder rate is high - seventh in the nation when looking at cities with 250,000 or more citizens.
Its rate is also markedly less than that of numerous Mexico cities, like Colima (126), Tijuana (91), Celaya (86), Cuernavaca (74), and Juárez (71), and cities in Colombia like Santa Marta (45) and Cali (42), which the AP piece touched on as well. The AP piece, in turn, pointed out other factoids like murders in Washington in 2023 being 'high, but not the highest ever,' after Trump correctly noted at the press conference that the year was a terrible year for murders. He then flubbed by saying it was the 'highest rate, probably ever. Probably 25 years.'
'THE FACTS,' the AP fact piece blared. 'In 2023, the District of Columbia recorded 274 murders in a city of about 700,000, its highest number in 20 years. 'But the city's own crime statistics from the 1970s, 80s and 90s, when the population was smaller, show much higher numbers of homicides.' Other inconsistencies from Trump's speech honed in on included Trump's blaming of cashless bail for DC's crime situation despite an absence of data, and statistics from Washington's Metropolitan Police that contradicted claims that violent crime has risen in Washington since its post-pandemic peak in 2023.
The nation's capital, like the country overall, has been plagued by an uptick in violent crimes in 2020, where there was a nationwide 30 percent increase in murders compared to the year prior. Shoplifting crimes and attacks on government employees have persisted in DC even since, paving the way for Trump's revelation Monday that he was federalizing the local police department under section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act. The law allows the commander-in-chief to assume control of the capital's police force in the event of an emergency.