Leland Vittert Calls Out CNN Using ‘Misleading’ Crime Stats to Fact Check Trump: ‘Does That Make You the Same’ as Him?

NewsNation’s Leland Vittert called out CNN over a Thursday fact check of former President Donald Trump that the anchor said employed “highly misleading” FBI statistics on crime.

CNN used a report released by the FBI showing an overall 15% decrease in violent crime in the first quarter of the year compared to the same point last year. Vittert had on Wednesday already run a segment breaking down why these numbers were “at best, highly misleading.”

“That didn’t stop CNN from using them to, quote, fact check Donald Trump after his speech today on Capitol Hill,” he said.

Vittert then rolled a brief clip of the fact check.

“Then there’s a little smile from the CNN anchor…My job’s to ask questions so here goes. If you are fact checking with objectively misleading statistics, does that make you the same as Donald Trump who makes up most of his statistics?” he asked.

According to the report, major crime like murder, rape, and robbery all saw two digit decreases in the first months of the year. Vittert found these numbers astonishing, especially in light of polling showing how concerned Americans are with crime. A recent CBS poll found more than 60% consider it a “major factor” in which candidate they’ll support for president in November.

On Wednesday, Vittert compared President Joe Biden celebrating these numbers on crime to him touting small decreases to inflation, which also remains a major concern for many Americans.

“The American people don’t feel it. It’s kind of like inflation with the economy. You can say the economy is doing great, you can say crime numbers are down, but [people] believe they’re worse off. They believe they are less safe,” Vittert said.

Datalytics co-founder and former CIA analyst Jeff Asher told Vittert that the data the FBI receives for such overall reports is “preliminary” and “unaudited” data.

On top of polling, Vittert also cited a damning report from the Kansas Reflector last year that highlighted just how wrong national crime statistics from the FBI can be. For instance, Witchita Mayor Brandon Whipple (D) claimed that crime had dropped by a whopping 50% during his first term. However, the source for this information — the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer — missed half the crime recorded by the city’s police department.

Vittert also argued the FBI’s report is “misleading” as crime can be “regionalized,” pointing out that major cities like Tampa and Jersey City have seen double digit increases in their crime rates.

Watch above via NewsNation.

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