The Trump campaign has released a memo Thursday morning dismantling President Joe Biden’s talking points on crime ahead of the evening’s presidential candidates’ debate.
The presumptive GOP presidential nominee took aim at four of what he termed “Biden lies” — statements used by his Democrat rival when discussing crime in America.
According to the Trump campaign, the first “Biden lie” is “[t]rust the FBI crime ‘data.'"
“When Crooked Joe Biden took office, the FBI changed how it collects crime data — and thousands of local jurisdictions stopped reporting their crime stats,” the memo read. “In fact, the FBI's Q1 2024 data is missing nearly a third of the nation's law enforcement agencies — including from many of the most violent cities, such as Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, and New Orleans.”
“The data is also missing an entirely new category of crime against U.S. citizens at the hands of illegal aliens the Biden administration has ferried in — BIDEN MIGRANT CRIME,” it added.
The campaign highlighted the stories of Rachel Morin, Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungaray, who were all allegedly murdered by migrants who were in the United States illegally.
“Crooked Joe Biden has their blood — and the blood of many others — on his hands,” the memo said.
The second “Biden lie” the Trump camp took issue with is that “crime rates are down nationally.”
“Biden is relying on highly incomplete data to make wildly inaccurate claims as he tells Americans not to believe their lying eyes — but a much more accurate picture emerges from the DOJ's National Crime Victimization Survey,” the memo read.
According to statistics cited by the campaign, “more Americans were victims of violent crimes in 2022 than in any year since 2012.”
“There was a 43% increase in violent crimes, a 58% increase in rapes, an 89% increase in aggravated assaults, and a 56% increase in robberies between 2020 and 2022, the most recent year for which data is available,” the memo read.
The claim that “public safety and crime reduction is a top priority” — dubbed the third “Biden lie” — was next on Trump’s chopping block.
“Crooked Joe Biden has repeatedly prioritized the wellbeing of criminals over the safety of law-abiding Americans — and the police officers who defend them,” the campaign wrote. “In 2020, Crooked Joe explicitly campaigned on ENDING cash bail, calling it a ‘modern-day debtors' prison’ as cities were by overrun by BLM [Black Lives Matter] rioters.”
Since Biden took office, Trump’s campaign said there has been a 21% increase in the number of police officers shot on the job, with the number of ambush-style attacks on law enforcement doubling under the Democrat president.
Finally, Trump’s operation disputed the “Biden lie” that “Democrats ‘have a great record’ on crime.”
“‘DEFUND THE POLICE’ Democrats like Crooked Joe don't care about public safety,” the memo said. “Major Democrat-run cities across the country have seen dramatic crime spikes between President Trump's final year in office and the end of 2023.”
Citing sizeable increases in major crime categories in Washington, D.C., New York City, Atlanta, Chicago and Philadelphia, Trump said “Crooked Joe Biden’s record is indefensible.”
“So all he can do is LIE, and that's exactly what he is going to do tonight,” he added.
Trump and Biden are set to square off at 9 p.m. ET Thursday at the CNN-moderated debate in Atlanta.
Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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