Fox News host Bret Baier pressed Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Thursday about Chicago’s persistent struggle with violent crime, challenging the governor’s assertions that the city is making meaningful progress.
“Why does Chicago have the highest murder rate of all the big cities?” Baier asked during the nationally broadcast interview.
Pritzker pushed back immediately. “Well, we are not in the top 30 in terms of our murder rate,” he claimed, insisting that “our murder rate has been cut in half over the last four years and every year it’s gone down by double digits.”
But Baier countered with the latest numbers: a chart showing Chicago at 17.47 murders per 100,000 residents — “number one over Philadelphia, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Phoenix, Los Angeles, New York, and San Diego.”
The exchange escalated as the governor attempted to shift the focus from homicides to broader crime statistics. “What I’m explaining to you is–” he began, before Baier cut in: “No, you’re talking about violent crime.” When Pritzker suggested one could “pull statistics up,” Baier shot back, “No, no, no, these are murders!”
Pritzker remained firm in his argument that the state has taken the right steps. “Very importantly, Bret, you gotta hear this,” he said, “we’ve been doing the things that are necessary to bring crime down, right? We’ve invested in community violence interruption, we’ve invested in police. I’ve added more state police than any governor in quite a long time.”
He also accused President Donald Trump of failing to address crime effectively, remarking, “You know who’s doing the opposite? Donald Trump. That’s not what we need.”
But Trump administration has shown no hesitation in making Chicago’s crime rate a national issue. In August, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt criticized Pritzker for “parading out there, saying that there is nothing wrong with Chicago” when, as she put it, “the statistics beg to differ.”
“For thirteen consecutive years, Chicago has had the most murders of any U.S. city. This is JB Pritzker’s legacy,” she said, noting that “in 2024, just last year, Chicago’s murder rate per capita was three times higher than Los Angeles and nearly five times higher than New York City.”
Leavitt added that the situation looks worse in global comparison, saying Chicago’s murder rate was “nearly double” that of Islamabad and “nearly fifteen times more than Delhi.”
Even as local officials insist conditions are improving, the debate underscored a grim reality: Chicago remains a city struggling to outrun its reputation as the nation’s murder capital — a distinction critics say cannot be spun away with talking points about unrelated crime metrics.
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