In his speech nominating Donald Trump as the Republican candidate for President, Senator Jeff Sessions repeated a debunked line that crime is rising and that President Obama is blaming the police. It’s the exact same lie that Trump has said on the campaign trail. But the numbers—and the President’s own words and actions—tell a very different story.
SESSION’S LIE: “Crime is rising—and the President blames the police.” [Jeff Sessions, Republican National Convention, 7/19/16]
THE TRUTH: Sessions and Trump are wrong: crime rates are not rising. “If you look at overall violent and property crimes — the only categories that would seem inclusive enough to qualify as ‘crime,’ as Trump put it — he is flat wrong. In fact, crime rates have been falling almost without fail for roughly a quarter-century. We rate his claim Pants on Fire.” PolitiFact, 6/9/16]
Politifact gave a “Pants on Fire” rating to a claim that President Obama “failed to condemn violence against police.” “Johnson said Obama had failed to condemn violence against police. Obama has repeatedly condemned violence against police. Most recently, he expressed his support for police the night before the Dallas attack happened, amid protests over two police shootings of black men, and again after the sniper attack on police officers. Obama’s consistent objections to violence against police is similar to rhetoric by Johnson, Nixon and the vast majority of American politicians and presidents. Johnson’s statement is outrageously wrong. We rate this claim Pants on Fire.” [Politifact, 7/12/16]
Obama has made clear to police that he grieves with them. “‘Time and again, you make the split-second decisions that could mean life or death for you and many others in harm’s way,’ Mr. Obama said in an open letter to police. ‘I want you to know that the American people see it, too. We recognize it, we respect it, we appreciate it, and we depend on you.’….. ‘Just as your tight-knit law enforcement family feels the recent losses to your core, our nation grieves alongside you,’ Mr. Obama wrote. ‘Any attack on police is an unjustified attack on all of us.’” [Washington Times, 7/19/16]