Murder Rate PLUMMETS to Historic Low?

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CBS News fact-checked President Trump’s 2026 State of the Union and confirmed his headline claim: America’s murder rate is down—potentially to a 125-year low.

Quick Take

CBS News rated Trump’s statement about the murder rate decline as true in a 2026 State of the Union fact-check.
Preliminary research cited by CBS suggests the 2025 homicide rate may have fallen to roughly 4 per 100,000 residents—possibly the lowest since records dating back to 1900.
FBI annual reporting shows the homicide rate has been trending downward since 2022, though definitive national 2025 figures were still described as preliminary.
Researchers cited multiple possible drivers for the drop, but no single, proven explanation was identified.

CBS Fact-Check Confirms the Core Claim From Trump’s Address

CBS News’ fact-check of President Trump’s 2026 State of the Union focused on whether his crime claim matched the available data. CBS concluded the murder-rate claim checked out as true, pointing to early 2025 findings from independent researchers. The fact-check cited a Council on Criminal Justice study describing a “strong possibility” that the 2025 homicide rate fell to about 4 per 100,000 residents, an extraordinary figure in modern context.

The CBS analysis also referenced the longer trend line: annual FBI reporting indicates homicide has been declining since 2022. That matters because it frames the 2025 number not as a one-year fluke but as part of a multi-year direction. While political arguments often reduce crime to slogans, the key takeaway is simpler: a major legacy outlet reviewed the claim and, using the best available numbers it cited, confirmed it.

What “125-Year Low” Actually Means—and What It Doesn’t

The “125-year low” framing comes with important caveats that readers should understand. CBS described the 2025 figure as preliminary, based on independent researchers, and the Council on Criminal Justice language emphasized probability rather than finality. In other words, the available work suggests a historic low could be real, but it was presented as an early estimate rather than the last word from a single official, finalized dataset.

That caution cuts both ways in today’s heated environment. It means no one should overstate precision beyond what the underlying data can support. It also means critics who reflexively dismiss the claim as “made up” are not engaging the same record CBS evaluated. The basic point—homicide has fallen substantially and may be at a generational low—was treated by CBS as consistent with what its cited researchers and trend indicators show.

Researchers Say the Drop Is Real, But the Causes Are Still Unsettled

CBS reported that researchers have not pinned the decline on one clear factor. The fact-check listed several plausible influences that researchers have discussed, including changes in criminal justice policies and programs, shifts in technology use, and broader social, economic, and cultural trends. That wide list is a reminder that national crime patterns can move for multiple reasons at once, and that honest analysis sometimes means admitting uncertainty rather than forcing a tidy narrative.

For voters who lived through years of political messaging that often prioritized ideology over outcomes, that uncertainty should sharpen—not dull—the demand for accountability. If homicide is falling, Americans deserve to know which approaches were associated with success and which were not. But the research summarized in the fact-check does not claim a definitive causal story, and it does not provide enough detail to isolate one policy lever as the decisive reason.

Why This Matters to Conservatives Watching Media, Policy, and Public Trust

The episode matters beyond one speech line because it touches credibility and the public’s ability to evaluate government performance. CBS’ fact-check, alongside broader coverage of the address and follow-up reporting, shows that even outlets often viewed as hostile to Trump will sometimes validate a specific claim when the underlying numbers point that way. The practical question for the country is what leaders do with that reality—whether they scale what works and drop what doesn’t.