The murder rate just crashed to levels not seen since Eisenhower was in the White House.
Now Kash Patel walked into the Senate and told Democrats exactly how it happened.
They spent 18 months calling him unqualified – and he just showed up with the most stunning crime numbers in living memory.
Murder Rate Crashes to Levels America Hasn't Seen Since the 1950s
The numbers Patel delivered to the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday are staggering.
Murder down 20% over 18 months.
Violent crime down 9.3% in 2025 alone – the largest single-year collapse since 1937.
https://twitter.com/FBI_Response/status/2099888312487972895?s=20
The homicide rate hit 4.1 per 100,000 Americans, tying 1955 and 1956 for the lowest on record since tracking began.
That's the FBI's own Uniform Crime Report, drawn from more than 17,000 law enforcement agencies covering 96% of the American population.
Patel didn't mince words in his prepared statement.
"In 2025, according to the Uniform Crime Report, we delivered the LARGEST year to year reduction of violent crime in AMERICAN HISTORY," Patel told the committee.
His explanation for how: "They happened with an administration that BACKS the BLUE and a new FBI that has been REBUILT to crush violent threats BEFORE they harm Americans."
Patel Handed Biden's FBI Its Report Card – and It's an F
Before Patel walked in February 2025, the FBI was a Washington, DC bureaucracy.
The crime lab alone carried a backlog of 1.8 million unprocessed samples that had piled up over years.
As of last month, that number is zero.
Patel shifted more than 1,000 agents and staff out of Washington and into field offices where criminals actually live.
"A third of the crime doesn't happen here," Patel said, "so we're taking those folks and moving them out. Every state is getting a plus up."
He expanded the FBI's use of artificial intelligence by 605% to accelerate threat detection and analysis, and cut more than $300 million in bureaucratic spending Washington never bothered to trim.
The results go beyond the murder rate.
According to Patel's prepared statement, violent crime arrests jumped 90% and gang member arrests rose 30%.
More than 3,258 kilograms of fentanyl seized.
Nearly 11,000 child victims identified.
More than 5,000 child predators and human traffickers were arrested.
Just this past weekend, the FBI disrupted an ISIS-linked terrorist plot near Pittsburgh – one of 1,039 attacks thwarted on Patel's watch.
And this morning, Patel announced the capture of Anibal Alexander Canelon Aguirre in Venezuela – the 10th fugitive taken from the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list since Patel took over, more than double the total from the entire previous four-year span.
The FBI Democrats Tried to Destroy Just Saved America
Here's what Democrats will not tell you about today's hearing.
https://twitter.com/OffThePress1/status/2099857970477580569?s=20
The Left spent two years running attack ads about rising crime under Trump – and those ads were built on 2020 numbers, the year Biden's policies opened the gates and homicides jumped nearly 30% in a single year.
That was the largest one-year murder spike since the FBI began keeping records.
Trump's record runs in the exact opposite direction.
Patel laid it out in plain English: the FBI secured the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the Grand Prix, and UFC 250 without a single major security incident.
Democrats can call Kash Patel whatever they want.
He just delivered the safest America in 70 years – and he did it in 18 months.
Sources:
- Bonny Chu, "Kash Patel to tout 'largest' year-to-year violent crime drop in US history," Fox News, September 15, 2026.
- "Violent crime rates in 2025 see largest decrease since 1937: FBI," KMPH, May 2026.
- "FBI Shifts Agents Out of DC in Major Overhaul," Legal Insurrection, May 2026.
- "FBI: U.S. experiences historic drop in violent crime, lowest murder rate in 70 years," KBTX, August 2026.