By COLLIN BINKLEY and MICHELLE L. PRICE, Associated Press<\/p>\n
GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump highlighted his record on\u00a0crime and safety<\/a>\u00a0during a visit to New York on Friday, pivoting to one of his strongest issues as he looks to boost Republicans in battleground races ahead of the November midterms.<\/p>\n Trump was visiting the Nassau County police academy in suburban Long Island, where he was expected to promote new FBI crime statistics being released Friday showing a decrease in violent crime for 2025. But despite the setting and an array of uniformed local police officers behind him on stage, the event was overwhelmingly a political one, with Trump lashing Democrats and promoting his record and his party\u2019s candidates.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s visit aimed at boosting Republicans in closely contested races across his home state, but just how much his presence will help is in question as he faces\u00a0lagging approval ratings<\/a>\u00a0and a deeply unpopular\u00a0war in Iran<\/a>\u00a0with no end in sight.<\/p>\n Trump briefly touched on the new crime statistics, but before long he was returning to familiar attacking lines, calling his opponents \u201cRadical left Democrats\u201d and his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, \u201cSleepy Joe.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe call them Dumb-ocrats now because their policies are so dumb. Fighting to defund the police. Does that play well in this room?\u201d Trump said at one point, turning around to look at the officers behind him.<\/p>\n Trump slams Democrats and promotes policies on crime, tariffs and more<\/p>\n He criticized the state\u2019s Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and insulted the state\u2019s Attorney General, Letitia James, as \u201ca real slob\u201d and \u201ca disgrace.\u201d<\/p>\n James successfully sued the president and his companies for financial fraud. The Justice Department last year secured a mortgage fraud indictment against James, but the case was dismissed after a judge concluded that the prosecutor who charged her and another Trump adversary, former FBI Director James Comey, was illegally appointed.<\/p>\n He touted his deployment of the National Guard to cities around the U.S., including in the nation\u2019s capital. Trump repeatedly said that \u201cyoung, beautiful girls in the White House\u201d have thanked him for making Washington safer. It was not clear who he was referring to, but he said, \u201cThese young, these gorgeous, beautiful girls are \u2014 they want to be safe.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTwo years ago, we were in a hellhole, and now we have one of the safest cities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The new FBI statistics released Friday showed the homicide rate in the United States dropped to the lowest it\u2019s been in 75 years. The report on 2025\u00a0crime<\/a>\u00a0statistics also showed that overall violent crime dropped 9.3% last year. Experts note that national violent crime rates have been declining since 2022, and pinpointing an exact reason is difficult.<\/p>\n Trump also promoted his tariff policies, along with his tax cuts and spending law passed last year and suggested that the tax breaks on overtime would be popular with police officers. Many of his lines, especially the political attacks, didn\u2019t get as much of a reaction from the uniformed officers as it did from the crowd of regular Trump supporters in the audience, who enthusiastically cheered and booed on cue.<\/p>\n To the side of the stage during his remarks were the new U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel, who each spoke to warm up the crowd before the president. Their appearance at an event that in part was designed to help Republican candidates broke longstanding norms in which the nation\u2019s law enforcement generally tried to steer clear of participating in overtly political events.<\/p>\n Also seated among the guests of honor was actor Kelsey Grammer.<\/p>\n Trump narrowly won Nassau County in 2024, flipping the county in the largely Democratic state to Republicans for the first time in more than two decades.<\/p>\n It\u2019s home to one of the\u00a0largest police forces<\/a>\u00a0in the nation and two Democratic House seats that Republicans now see as winnable this fall, and it\u2019s home turf for Nassau County Executive\u00a0Bruce Blakeman<\/a>, the\u00a0Trump-endorsed<\/a>\u00a0Republican challenging Democratic\u00a0Gov. Kathy Hochul<\/a>.<\/p>\n Crime becoming a theme in New York races<\/p>\n It\u2019s the second time this year Trump has visited New York in support of Blakeman and other Republicans. He\u00a0stopped by the Hudson Valley area<\/a>\u00a0in May for a speech in which he said Blakeman would curb \u201cout of control\u201d crime.<\/p>\n Crime has emerged as a significant issue in the governor\u2019s race, with both candidates claiming to have the better track record of making New Yorkers safe. Hochul visited a different Long Island police department in July to announce a statewide investment in policing technology.<\/p>\n Blakeman, who briefly took the stage during Trump\u2019s remarks, said he was honored Trump was visiting.<\/p>\n In a Fox Business interview on Thursday, Blakeman downplayed concerns that Trump\u2019s visit would be unpopular with voters in New York City.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen the most powerful person in the world comes to visit you and shows that you have a relationship together, I think that\u2019s a very good thing,\u201d Blakeman said, adding that even voters who disagree with Trump might appreciate a governor with a direct line to the president.<\/p>\n Hochul campaign spokesperson Ryan Radulovacki said the governor \u201chas invested billions in public safety to protect New Yorkers \u2014 \u2018MAGA all the way\u2019 Bruce Blakeman is bringing Donald Trump to tour the county where he let violent crime spike to decade highs and Trump\u2019s unaccountable ICE agents abuse their power.\u201d<\/p>\n For GOP, safety is seen as a winning issue<\/p>\n Matt Gorman, a Republican strategist, said Trump\u2019s visit stands to boost Blakeman along with Republican challengers looking to unseat a pair of Democratic incumbents in Nassau County districts. Michael LiPetri Jr. is challenging Rep. Tom Suozzi in New York\u2019s 3rd Congressional District, while Jeanine Driscoll is opposing Rep. Lauren Gillen in the 4th Congressional District.<\/p>\n The focus on crime is seen as a cornerstone issue for Republicans that appeals to Trump\u2019s base along with suburban swing voters, Gorman said.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the strategic level, crime is an issue that Republicans feel comfortable going on offense with, where the country kind of broadly agrees with them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Trump is touting the issue as he faces low approval ratings on a number of other issues, including the economy and the Iran war. An\u00a0AP-NORC poll from August 2025<\/a>\u00a0found that Trump\u2019s handling of crime was among his strongest issues, though his approval on the issue had\u00a0fallen by 10 points by December 2025<\/a>.<\/p>\n Price reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Eric Tucker in Washington and Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By COLLIN BINKLEY and MICHELLE L. PRICE, Associated Press GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump highlighted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7],"tags":[18,65,2521,56254,3278],"class_list":["post-115722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-geneva","tag-donald-trump","tag-geneva","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-police-academy","tag-violent-crime"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117097440535780845","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}