MSNBC's Andrea Mitchel Reports
March 28, 2024
12:07 p.m.
ANDREA MITCHELL: And, Phil, the politics of this election is now turning to Long Island -- Massapequa, Long Island -- where there's a funeral for NYPD officer Jonathan Diller on Long Island. He was killed after approaching an illegally parked car this week, President Biden just spoke with New York mayor Adams about the tragedy today. Donald Trump's spokesman says he was invited by the officer's family to the funeral, but the political context is that Mr. Trump's claim that crime is rampant in New York City when the statistics show it's actually down. Every incident, every case is horrible of course. This murder is horrible of a police officer, but speaking to a larger issue of whether crime is a terrible problem in New York City.
PHILIP RUCKER, THE WASHINGTON POST NATIONAL EDITOR: Yeah, Andrea, we've saw this in the midterm elections last year actually where a lot of Republicans, including in New York state, were running on crime with some limited success. It was not necessarily a winning issue for Republicans then, but it has been core to Trump's political brand. It's something that he has talked about a lot. He's especially tried to link crime to the immigration issue and border security, and I think him going to this funeral today in New York is an attempt by him to try to draw attention to the killing of this police officer and try to blame that on Biden even, as you say, crime is down in New York City. It's down in a lot of cities. It's not actually down in Washington, D.C., here, but it is down in a lot of cities around the country. Nonetheless, it is a concern that we see registering in polling, especially among suburban voters and some of those voters that Trump is really going to be looking to motivate in the general election. And I think we'll probably continue to see him talk about crime and try to make the state of crime seem a lot worse than the statistics might actually show for the purposes of motivating his supporters and convincing persuadable voters out there
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MSNBC's Morning Joe
March 29, 2024
6:30 a.m. Eastern
JOE SCARBOROUGH: There's an NBC article that I just now posted on my threads account, and it just shows the facts. I know the facts don't matter to Donald Trump, but crime rates keep dropping. Crime, in fact, the rate is lower now than when Donald Trump was in office -- lower than it was in 2020, even slightly lower than it was in Trump's best year as it pertains to crime in 2019. Murder rates over the past year in the big cities that he's constantly harping on, down 20 percent, rapes down 16 percent -- you can go down the list on and on. The most serious crimes way down. And, again, the overall crime rate for 2022 -- the last year recorded -- the crime rates lower again than Donald Trump's best year in 2019 -- certainly a lot lower than 2020. So he'll say what he says, Republicans will keep lying, other news outlets will keep lying about it, and people will whip themselves into a frenzy and say, "What about crime?" And you can show them the facts.
And it's just like -- seriously, it's just like I can show people, you know, maybe they're UNC fans where they don't want to know Alabama won last night. I think it was 79-77. But Alabama beat UNC, but they go, "Nah, nah, nah, nah, that's not the truth!" It's the fact. It's just the fact. They may not like it, but it's the fact. And that's how Trump extremists have gotten, and that's how cable news networks run. It's their business model to lie about the facts -- to twist and distort reality for viewers day in, day out, night in, night out.
And when you talk about crime, it's not as low I want it to be -- it's not as low as you want it to be. We've both said we think the bail issue in New York City is a joke. We think cops aren't allowed to do their jobs enough -- we think that's a joke. That said, if you look at the numbers, Donald Trump is lying when he says crime rates are way up. They're not -- they're down. They're lower than they were when he was President.
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MSNBC's Chris Jansing Reports
March 29, 2024
1:02 p.m. Eastern
CHRIS JANSING: Less than an hour away on Long Island, Donald Trump was in full attack mode, using the funeral of a police officer as a platform to go after Biden. He criticized the lack of law and order -- a message he repeated this morning on Fox News.
DONALD TRUMP (on Fox News): It's getting worse and worse for police because we're not -- we're not taking care of them. We're not -- we're not -- we're not allowing them to do their job properly (editing jump) because this country is going to hell. Our country is not respected anymore. We're really -- I say it in my rallies and my speeches -- we're a nation in decline.
JANSING: Well, the facts are that crime in New York City is about where it was a decade ago when it was often referred to as America's safest big city. Violent crime has actually declined all across the country. Rates of rape, robbery and aggravated assault are down even though polls show Americans believe the crime rate is going up.
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I want to start with this huge issue for Joe Biden of disinformation and misinformation. President Biden suggests this is really something voters need to work out for themselves talking to each other with their neighbors, but can the Biden campaign really afford to do that? What do they need to do?
PHILIP RUCKER, WASHINGTON POST NATIONAL EDITOR: Yeah, Chris, it is a huge concern for the Biden campaign in part because Trump and his allies have been so effective the last number of years in spreading misinformation, and it's gone deep within Trump's network of supporters, millions of people getting falsehoods through email, through social media, through, you know, pro-Trump communications. And it's really, I think going to require more than just neighbor to neighbor communication, but the Biden campaign communicating their own message and communicating, you know, the counter-facts in addition to, of course, just fair and objective media coverage across the board of presenting facts as you just did about the crime in New York City. That's essential, too, but I think only relying on neighbors to talk to their neighbors to get facts straight is a risky proposition considering that so many millions of Americans who have neighbors and are neighbors are being inundated with misinformation all the time.
JANSING: Every day, Tim, it seems we have these crazy split screens. Yesterday was misinformation by Donald Trump about crime. He kept saying things are getting worse. The fact is, violent crime is down, as I said, but in New York City specifically, major felony offenses are on track to be lower than last year -- far lower now than they were back in the '90s. And yet there are many New Yorkers, including Democrats and progressives, who will say they're nervous about the subways. They don't feel safe on the streets. Is it kind of like the economy? The facts are one thing, feeling is another thing, and, in many ways, that's the harder hurdle to get over.