President-elect Donald Trump attacked ABC News' David Muir when he recalled his claim that "violent crime is going down" during the ABC presidential debate in September.
At a pre-inauguration rally on Sunday, Trump acknowledged that immigration crimes have "hundreds and thousands of victims" and said crime is increasing even without illegal immigration.
Trump later recalled how Muir fact-checked him during a presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris in September.
"You remember I was in the debate and ABC's David Muir said, 'No, crime has not gone down.'" I said, "No, no, it's through the roof." David (said) no, crime hasn't gone down, and then he said, 'Well, I don't agree with that.' The next day they announced that crime was up 40 percent, and this guy... the whole thing is terrible," Trump said.
US President-elect Donald Trump arrives in Washington, the United States, on January 19, 2025, to attend a rally the day before he plans to be inaugurated for re-election. (Reuters/Carlos Barria)
ABC's David Muir dismisses post-debate 'noise' about moderators
Muir, who was co-moderator with Lindsay Davis at the time, insisted during the debate that Trump's claims that crime rates were "skyrocketing" were not accurate.
"President Trump, as you know, the FBI has said violent crime overall is going down in this country," Muir said.
"The FBI - they're making deceptive statements. They didn't include the worst cities. They didn't include the cities with the worst crime. It's a scam. Just like the number they claimed to have created of 818,000 jobs turned out to be a liar ," Trump responded.
ABC presidential debate co-moderators David Muir and Lindsay Davis have been heavily criticized for continually fact-checking former President Trump but refusing to correct Vice President Kamala Harris. (ABC News)
While ABC News did not announce the crime increase "the next day," an FBI revision a month later in October seemed to vindicate Trump's original comments. The FBI initially reported a 2.1% drop in violent crime in 2022, but later admitted that the number of violent crimes in 2022 increased by 4.5% over 2021, a net increase of approximately 80,029 crimes.
After the revised version was released, Muir did not acknowledge the change on his show, World News Tonight.
Fox News Digital reached out to ABC News for comment.
Trump repeatedly attacked Muir for fact-checking him during the debate and ignoring Harris.
ABC's David Muir sees newscast ratings falling after controversial debate performance
"During the debate, I mentioned that, and David Muir, a real lightweight," Trump said in September. "I'm one to three, but I think we're doing a good job. But ABC's David Muir, Fake News, corrected me when I said we have a high crime rate in this country, he corrected I wait, that's right I said he didn't correct (Vice President Kamala Harris) once and what she said was wrong, absolutely wrong - Charlottesville, she was wrong, all different About almost everything she said, she was never corrected.
Trump frequently attacked Muir after FBI revisions showed a rise in violent crime. (Heidi Gutmann/ABC, Getty Images; Win McNamee/Getty Images)
"But he corrected me on my question about crime. He said, 'No, no, crime has not gone up.' "I said crime has gone up significantly, and he said, 'I want to state for the record, crime has not gone up,' "Trump said.
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