Trump Calls Chicago a War Zone (Again), Cites 'Alternate Facts' About U.S. Murder Rate (Again)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Since taking office Jan. 20, President Donald Trump has made a point of using his bully pulpit to decry Chicago's widespread gun violence and city officials' inability to get it under control on a weekly basis. This week's criticism — accompanied with a false statement about the U.S. murder rate — came Tuesday during a White House listening session with sheriffs from counties around the nation, according to presidential pool report.

After inaccurately claiming the U.S. murder rate was the highest it has been in the past 45 to 47 years, Trump brought up Chicago, his perennial whipping boy for cities with out-of-control crime problems, saying it is worse than some Middle Eastern war zones, the report said.

"If you ran Chicago, you would solve that nightmare, I'll tell you," Trump said to the sheriffs, according to the Chicago Tribune, adding later, "It's so sad. Chicago's become so sad a situation."

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This isn't the first time Trump has compared Chicago to an overseas battlefield. He made the same connection during his ABC News interview last month, which was televised days after his infamous "send in the Feds" tweet threat aimed at Chicago:

"Chicago is like a war zone. Chicago is worse than some of the people you report, in the some of the places you report about every night in the Middle East."

In that interview, Trump also claimed two people were fatally shot during President Barack Obama's Jan. 10 farewell address at McCormick Place, despite the fact Chicago police records indicate no one was shot and killed in the city for 24 hours before and after Obama's speech, according to the Tribune at the time.

Recently, Trump officials has used the term "fake news" as rallying cry to deflect media reports that put the administration in a negative light and the term "alternate facts" to give the patina of accuracy — with just a rebellious hint of "I color outside the lines" edginess — to otherwise wholly inaccurate statements. In Tuesday's comments about the U.S. murder rate, the president employed a combination of the two tactics, blaming the media for glossing over the facts.

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"[T]he murder rate in our country is the highest it's been in 47 years, right?" Trump said at the listening session, according to the Tribune. "Did you know that? Forty-seven years. I used to use that — 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."

Except Trump isn't telling it like it is. In 2015, the most recent year compiled in the FBI's Uniform Crime Report, the U.S. rate for murder and non-negligent manslaughter was 4.9 murders per 100,000 people. Here are the rates (per 100,000 people) for the previous 10 years:

• 2014: 4.5 murders
• 2013: 4.5 murders
• 2012: 4.7 murders
• 2011: 4.7 murders
• 2010: 4.8 murders
• 2009: 5.0 murders
• 2008: 5.4 murders
• 2007: 5.6 murders
• 2006: 5.7 murders
• 2005: 5.6 murders

While the murder rate has clearly been increasing — with a considerable jump between '14 and '15 — it hasn't even reached the highest point of the 21st century yet, let alone the past 45 to 47 years. In fact, the U.S. murder rate isn't even close to being the highest in 20 years. In 1995, the rate was 8.2 murders per 100,000 people, according to FBI data.

So why the discrepancy between the president's assertion and the government statistics? Maybe the FBI left out all the victims in the Bowling Green Massacre.

President Donald Trump delivers his law-and-order speech that mentions Chicago at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland (photo by Rick Uldricks)

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