Trump attacks ABC presidential debate moderator over fact-checking crime rates during rally

President-elect Donald Trump attacked ABC News’ David Muir by recalling his claim that “violent crime is declining” during The ABC presidential debate in September.

During his pre-inauguration rally on SundayTrump acknowledged the “hundreds and even thousands of victims” of immigration crime and noted that crime was on the rise even without illegal immigrants.

Trump then recalled how Muir fact-checked him during his presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris in September.

“Do you remember I did the debate and ABC’s David Muir said, ‘No, no crime has gone down’? I said, ‘No, no, it has gone up.’ Crime has gone up. David (said) no, no. Crime is down. I said it’s skyrocketed and then he says, ‘Uh, I don’t agree with that.’ The next day they announced that crime was up like 40%. This guy is… the whole thing is so. bad,” Trump said.

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Muir, who served as co-moderator with Linsey Davis at the time, insisted during the debate that Trump was inaccurate when he claimed crime was “through the roof.”

“President Trump, as you know, the FBI says that violent crime overall is declining in this country,” Muir said.

“The FBI… were defrauding statements. They didn’t include the worst cities. They didn’t include the cities with the worst crime. It was a fraud. Just like the 818,000 jobs they said they had created turned out. “It’s a fraud,” Trump responded.

While ABC News did not announce that crime would increase “the next day,” an FBI review a month later in October appeared to vindicate Trump’s original comments. After initially reporting that violent crimes were down 2.1% in 2022, the FBI later admitted that there was a 4.5% increase with a net total of about 80,029 more violent crimes in 2022 compared to 2021.

Muir did not acknowledge the change on his “World News Tonight” show after the revision was published.

Fox News Digital contacted ABC News for comment.

Trump has repeatedly attacked Muir for checking it out during the debate while ignoring Harris.

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“And during the debate I mentioned that and David Muir, a true lightweight,” Trump said in September. “I had one against three, but I think we did very well. But David Muir from ABC, fake news, when I said that crime is very high in our country, he corrected me, he corrected me a lot, and what I said was right. He didn’t correct (Vice President Kamala Harris) once, and what she said was wrong, absolutely wrong. In Charlottesville, she was wrong, all the different things, almost everything she said, and she was never corrected.

“But he corrected me on crime. He said, ‘No, no, crime hasn’t increased.’ Trump said.

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