Trump’s closing argument: It doesn’t have to be this way   

When Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) rebuked Martha Raddatz on air a few days ago, he was not just pointing out the bias of the liberal media. The GOP vice presidential candidate was also calling out a far more sinister threat to our country.  

In a conversation about the violent criminals of Tren del Aragua entering our country illegally, ABC host Raddatz sought to minimize reports that the feared Venezuelan gang had taken over housing units in Aurora, Colo. “The incidents were limited to a handful of apartment complexes,” she claimed — as though that were somehow acceptable.  

But Vance was having none of it. “Martha, do you hear yourself?” the senator prodded, rightly astonished at her attitude.

What he spotlighted is how the media, and Americans generally, are beginning to normalize our open border, rising crime and other heinous activities that would never have been tolerated in the past and should not be tolerated now. 

We now accept that millions of people have been allowed to enter the country illegally, and that even though some commit serious crimes, many times they are allowed to stay. The toxic combination of sanctuary city, “raise the age” laws and “criminal justice reform” has made it almost impossible to lock up or deport criminals, putting increasing numbers of Americans in harm’s way. 

Just recently, in New York City, a 15-year-old Venezuelan migrant who is being housed at a “taxpayer-funded hotel” has allegedly committed what the New York Post calls a “one-man crime spree of assaults and thefts.” Notwithstanding a lengthening crime sheet totaling 11 purported robberies and thefts — including one with a deadly weapon — the juvenile has been cut loose after every alleged crime. He belongs to a pack of violent young thugs robbing tourists and New Yorkers alike, often at gunpoint, none of whom has been thrown in jail.

This is outrageous. But such reports have become so commonplace they barely quicken the pulse of weary city-dwellers. Nonetheless, people increasingly fear for their personal safety — and are also convinced that no one is riding to their rescue.  

It is not just undocumented migrants who are wreaking havoc in our cities and in our country. Lawlessness in general has surged, driving down the quality of life and harming businesses.

Walgreens announced in recent days that it would be closing 1,200 stores. This comes on top of CVS and Rite-Aid similarly pruning back their brick-and-mortar presence. In the past, before crime was such a hot-button issue, CEOs declared out-of-control retail theft as contributing to their firms’ poor performances. Now they are wary of blow-back for calling out the costly “shrinkage” they endure, especially in cities. 

Walgreens announced in 2021 it was shuttering stores in San Francisco, citing rampant shoplifting as driving the closures. As the New York Times reported, “In June 2021, a video of someone shoplifting from a San Francisco Walgreens on his bicycle and, with a garbage bag filled with stolen merchandise, riding past a television news reporter and security guard, drew millions of views.”

Those scenes play out daily in our big cities — just ask anyone working in those stores — but it is now politically incorrect to bring it up.

When stores must protect their everyday goods behind plastic shields, requiring customers to wait for help, costs go up and volumes plummet. It is far easier to order what you need on Amazon. 

Voters rate crime as one of their top concerns. During the debate a month ago between the two presidential candidates, the ABC anchor who co-moderated the face-off memorably weighed in to fact-check Donald Trump on the subject. The former president had said that crime in the U.S. under the Biden-Harris administration was “through the roof.” David Muir stepped in to correct the record, saying “President Trump, as you know, the FBI says that overall violent crime is actually coming down in this country.” The GOP candidate called the FBI data “defrauding statements,” meaning “false.”  

And now it turns out Trump was right.    

Although the FBI stats initially showed that crime had gone down 2.1 percent in 2022, the agency has revised the data to show the number of violent misdeeds has actually increased by 80,029, or 4.5 percent. The FBI added to the tally an additional 1,699 murders, 7,780 rapes, 33,459 robberies and 37,091 aggravated assaults that year. That was awkward for the Biden-Harris White House, which had taken a premature victory lap for driving crime to a “near 50-year low.” 

But no one actually needed the FBI to tell us what we all know from our daily experience. If crime stats in New York are down, it is probably because people have given up reporting assaults and thefts, knowing that the police are reluctant to respond. Cops will tell victims that their “hands are tied.” Eventually, people give up.  

As a result, many think that the Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey, which showed increases in rape, aggravated assault and robbery from 2020 to 2023, has become the more reliable barometer of wrongdoing. According to the report, the total number of violent crimes in 2023 was 6.4 million, up from 5.8 million in 2019. That is an increase greater than 10 percent, so it’s no surprise people notice.

Democrats want us to believe that the border is under control, that crime is down and that the economy is excellent. None of that is true, and the voters know it. When 79 percent of registered voters say the country is on the “wrong track,” as respondents did in a recent Marquette Law School poll, the incumbent party should worry. 

The risk is that far too many Americans may be like Raddatz — normalizing and becoming inured to our country’s big problems. Trump’s closing argument in the days ahead should be that it does not have to be this way and that he will turn things around. He has, after all, done it before. 

Liz Peek is a former partner of major bracket Wall Street firm Wertheim and Company.