Trump bails on interview when challenged on Michigan 'crime wave' stats: local newspaper

Donald Trump called off an interview with a local newspaper during a visit to Michigan after he was asked to verify his claims about out-of-control crime in the area, according to a new report.

The Republican presidential nominee campaigned Tuesday in Howell, where he argued that a "crime wave" attributed to his Democratic rival Vice President Kamala Harris was occurring at levels "nobody has ever seen before," but he was unwilling or unable to cite evidence for those claims, reported The Detroit News.

"The Trump campaign had initially agreed that Trump would participate in an interview with The Detroit News on Tuesday," wrote state politics reporter Craig Mauger. "But after the newspaper began asking about the Michigan crime data before the event, a campaign aide said the presidential candidate no longer had time for an interview after the speech."

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The recently convicted felon told supporters at his campaign event that in bigger cities, "almost all run by Democrats," Americans can't even "walk across the street to get a loaf of bread. You get shot. You get mugged. You get raped. You get whatever it may be."

"The amount of crime that we have is unbelievable," Trump said.

National crime data shows the rate of violent crime decreased from 2017 to 2019 during Trump's presidency before spiking in 2020 to 398.5 incidents per 100,000 people, while the violent crime rate dropped in 2021 and 2022 in the first years of Joe Biden's presidency to 380.7 incidents per 100,000 people.

The Trump campaign waved away that FBI data as "totally unreliable" because the statistics were based on "estimated crime numbers" for law enforcement agencies that didn't report numbers.

Michigan State Police reported that violent crime increased 12 percent in the state between 2019 and 2020, the last full year of Trump's presidency, and then another 1 percent in Biden's first year in office before dropping about 7 percent the following year.

"Why would Michigan want to go back to the higher crime rates of the Trump years?" asked transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, who also challenged the former president's record on crime during a Fox News appearance.