President Barack Obama has sought to reject outright the claims of Donald Trump that America is in a state of acute crisis, saying that his grim portrayal does not square with facts on the ground.
Quizzed on Trump’s series of assertions at the just-concluded Republican convention in Cleveland, Obama maintained at a White House news conference that violent crime and illegal immigration have both dropped down their lowest rates in decades.
“This idea that America is somehow on the verge of collapse, this vision of violence and chaos everywhere, doesn’t really jibe with the experience of most people,” he said, adding: “It is important just to be absolutely clear here that some of the fears that were expressed throughout the week (at the convention) just don’t jibe with the facts.”
“The violent crime rate in America has been lower during my presidency than any time in the last three, four decades,” Obama argued. While conceding that there has been an uptick in murders and violent crime in some cities this year, he asserted that the overall rate of murder and violence today is “far lower than it was when Ronald Reagan was President — and lower than when I took office”.
Referring to the recent horrific incidents involving black citizens and white police officers, Obama said, “We are all heartbroken by that, and we’re all troubled by how we can rebuild trust, support law enforcement and make sure that communities feel that they are being fairly policed. But the fact is that the rate of intentional killings of police officers is also significantly lower than it was when Ronald Reagan was President.”
On illegal immigration, too, he maintained that far fewer undocumented workers were crossing the border today than what happened “in the 1980s, or the 1990s, or when George Bush was President”.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, meanwhile slammed Donald Trump for offering “a lot of fear and anger and resentment, but no solutions about anything” at the Republican convention.
“I heard about Donald Trump’s dark and divisive vision. last night’s speech took it to a whole new level,” Clinton said at an election rally in Tampa and pooh-poohed his assertion that he alone can fix the problems.