Trump Touts Historic Crime Drop at Long Island Police Academy With Eye on Midterms

A Political Rally Wrapped in a Law Enforcement Setting

President Donald Trump traveled to Nassau County on Long Island on Friday, August 14, for a high-profile visit to the Nassau County Police Academy — an event that blended a major data release with unmistakable midterm campaign energy. Trump highlighted his record on crime and safety, pivoting to one of his strongest issues as he looks to boost Republicans in battleground races ahead of the November midterms. The backdrop was deliberate: despite the setting and an array of uniformed local police officers behind him on stage, the event was overwhelmingly a political one, with Trump lashing out at Democrats and promoting his record and his party's candidates.

Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel also traveled with the president — a show of force that underscored just how seriously the White House is treating public safety as a midterm weapon. Trump narrowly won Nassau County in 2024, flipping it for Republicans for the first time in more than two decades. It's home to two Democratic House seats that Republicans now see as winnable this fall, and it's home turf for Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, the Trump-endorsed Republican challenging Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul.

The Numbers Behind the Visit

The centerpiece of the event was the release of the FBI's 2025 Crime Statistics Report — and the numbers are genuinely striking. Trump touted newly released 2025 FBI crime statistics, which showed the largest year-to-year decrease in violent crime rates since the FBI began estimating in 1936. The new FBI statistics showed the homicide rate in the United States dropped to the lowest it's been in 75 years, and overall violent crime dropped 9.3% last year.

The specific category-by-category declines are hard to ignore. Trump touted an estimated 18.1% drop in murder and non-negligent manslaughter, an 18.5% drop in robberies, a 7.6% decrease in rapes, and a 7.2% decline in aggravated assault in 2025. Burglaries dropped by an estimated 15.8%, larceny decreased by 9.8%, and motor vehicle theft declined by 22.7%. The 2025 murder rate of 4.1 per 100,000 inhabitants is tied for the lowest murder rate ever recorded, according to the report.

Context the White House Didn't Emphasize

The administration was eager to take full credit, with White House spokesperson Lauren Bis declaring that "President Trump promised to make America safe again and the data proves he has done just that." But independent analysts offer a more complicated picture. The downward trend in homicides began in 2022, before Trump returned to office. Crime experts often caution against drawing too much from single-year changes and encourage a focus on long-term patterns.

The political context adds another layer of complexity. Trump is touting the issue as he faces low approval ratings on a number of other issues, including the economy and the Iran war. An AP-NORC poll from August 2025 found that Trump's handling of crime was among his strongest issues, though his approval on the issue had fallen by 10 points by December 2025. There's also a notable reversal worth flagging: Trump and his team previously referred to the FBI's data as "fake" during his 2024 campaign, arguing that crime was increasing despite evidence showing otherwise.

What This Means Heading Into November

It was the second time this year Trump visited New York in support of Blakeman and other Republicans. He stopped by the Hudson Valley area in May for a speech in which he said Blakeman would curb "out of control" crime. The repeated visits signal that New York — long considered safely Democratic territory — is being treated as genuinely competitive ground by the GOP this cycle.

Whether the crime numbers translate into votes remains to be seen. Republicans are betting that public safety fears, particularly in suburban communities like Nassau County, will drive voters toward their candidates in November. While many of Trump's recent swing-state speeches have focused on his tax breaks and economic policies, Trump often mentions his effort to curb crime by deploying the National Guard in Washington, New Orleans, and other Democrat-led cities. With the midterms now less than three months away, expect crime to remain a pillar of the Republican message — and expect Trump to keep showing up in places where that message lands hardest.