WATCH LIVE: Trump to highlight violent crime reduction during visit to NY police academy

Michelle L. Price, Associated Press Michelle L. Price, Associated Press

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (AP) — President Donald Trump highlighted his record on crime and safety during 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.

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's candidates.

READ MORE: FBI report shows violent crime declined in 2023. Here's what else the numbers show

Trump's 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 lagging approval ratings and a deeply unpopular war in Iran with no end in sight.

Trump briefly touched on the new crime statistics, but before long he was returning to familiar attacking lines, calling his opponents "Radical left Democrats" and his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, "Sleepy Joe."

"We call them Dumb-ocrats now because their policies are so dumb. Fighting to defund the police. Does that play well in this room?" Trump said at one point, turning around to look at the officers behind him.

He criticized the state's Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul and insulted the state's Attorney General, Letitia James, as "a real slob" and "a disgrace."

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.

He touted his deployment of the National Guard to cities around the U.S., including in the nation's capital. Trump repeatedly said that "young, beautiful girls in the White House" have thanked him for making Washington safer. It was not clear who he was referring to, but he said, "These young, these gorgeous, beautiful girls are — they want to be safe."

"Two years ago, we were in a hellhole, and now we have one of the safest cities," he said.

READ MORE: Violent crime fell in 2025 for a third straight year in New Orleans. That's before National Guard troops began patrolling

The new FBI statistics released Friday showed the homicide rate in the United States dropped to the lowest it's been in 75 years. The report on 2025 crime statistics 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.

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.