Axios based its 2025 ‘‘major cities’’ comparisons on preliminary counts from the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) survey covering the nation’s largest police departments. The MCCA releases note that roughly 67 of the association’s member agencies—police executives from the biggest U.S. and Canadian cities—reported for the relevant 2025 period; the MCCA PDFs (First Quarter, Midyear, Jan–Sept) list participating agencies by name (e.g., many large U.S. departments such as Chicago, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, etc.). Axios’s piece draws its city-level totals from those MCCA agency reports rather than a separate, named city roster created by Axios.
Axios reported year‑over‑year percent changes (about –19% homicides, –20% robberies, ~–10% aggravated assaults) by analyzing preliminary monthly/quarterly counts compiled in the Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) violent‑crime survey for 2025 vs. 2024. Axios’s figures are derived from MCCA’s per‑agency tallies (voluntary police submissions) aggregated to national totals for the participating cities; Axios notes the numbers are preliminary and based on the MCCA dataset rather than finalized FBI counts.
Not exactly. The MCCA counts are preliminary, voluntary submissions for specific date windows (MCCA reports show comparisons such as Jan–Mar, Jan–Jun, Jan–Sep, or full 2025 vs 2024). Other sources cited in the White House post (FBI/NIBRS year‑end, NLEOMF, AP, The Trace, council reports, RT Crime Index) use different scopes, reporting lags and definitions (some use FBI year‑end NIBRS/Uniform Crime Report data, others use overdose/traffic or officer deaths data). The timeframes and inclusion rules therefore differ—Axios’ headline relies on the MCCA preliminary city‑report window used in its analysis, not a single uniform dataset shared by all cited reports.
The White House attributes the declines to several Trump administration actions it lists: sending federal resources to cities (FBI/DOJ deployments and task forces), stepped‑up immigration enforcement/border actions, support for police and prosecutors, and other ‘public‑safety’ policies. Those references point to initiatives announced during 2024–2025 (federal deployments and enforcement priorities) but the White House statement does not provide a detailed timeline or specific program names in the post itself—its claims are attributional rather than a traceable policy‑impact analysis.
Independent researchers and many local departments caution against simple causal claims. Crime analysts point to multiple drivers (post‑pandemic trend reversal, local policing tactics, case processing, community programs, data quirks and reporting lags) and say MCCA figures are preliminary and voluntary; local police sometimes report declines but stress variation across cities and note that different metrics and timeframes matter. Major‑city police chiefs and research groups (Council on Criminal Justice, academic analysts) urge careful, multicausal interpretation rather than attributing the drop to any single federal policy.
The ‘‘lowest in at least 125 years’’ claim refers to a long‑run comparison of homicide rates (murders per 100,000) in large U.S. cities versus historical records. Reporters trace that wording to analyses comparing 2025 city homicide totals to U.S. city homicide rates going back to the late 19th/early 20th century (data compiled from historical FBI/municipal records); such claims hinge on which cities are included, whether city‑proper rates or national rates are used, and on preliminary vs. finalized counts. In short, it’s a long‑run rate comparison but depends heavily on the selected sample, definitions and provisional data.