WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama fiercely rejected Donald Trump’s depiction of an America in crisis on Friday, arguing that violent crime and illegal immigration have plunged under his leadership to their lowest rates in decades.
Looking toward November’s election, Obama said, “We’re not going to make good decisions based on fears that don’t have a basis in fact.”
At a news conference alongside Mexico’s president, Obama sought to undermine two pillars of Trump’s speech Thursday night in which he accepted the Republican presidential nomination. Trump said that if he is elected, “safety will be restored” at home and abroad.
“This idea that American is somehow on the verge of collapse, this vision of violence and chaos everywhere, doesn’t really jibe with the experience of most people,” Obama told reporters.
The violent crime rate, he said, has been lower during his presidency than any time in the last three or four decades. While he acknowledged an uptick in murders in some U.S. cities this year, Obama said the violent crime rate today was still far lower than when Ronald Reagan was president in the 1980s.