FACT FOCUS: Trump repeats false claims as he discusses US raid to extract Venezuela's president

President Donald Trump on Saturday held an extended news conference to explain the U.S. raid on Venezuela to extract President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, at times veering off topic and repeating false claims around his initiatives.

In praising the military, Trump highlighted National Guard deployments into U.S. cities, making erroneous claims about crime in Washington, D.C., Chicago and Los Angeles.

Here's a closer look at the facts.

TRUMP, discussing the impact of U.S. strikes on boats allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela: “Each boat kills on average, 25,000 people.”

THE FACTS: Trump has previously made this claim suggesting that 25,000 American lives are saved with every alleged drug boat U.S strikes “take out.” But the numbers don’t add up and sometimes don’t exist. For example, people in the U.S. who die from drug overdoses each year are far fewer than the number of people Trump suggests have been saved by the boat strikes his administration has carried out since September.

According to the latest preliminary data from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention’s National Vital Statistics System, there were up to 76,516 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. during the 12-month period that ended in April 2025, down 24.5% from the up to 101,363 for the previous 12-month period.

The U.S. military has attacked at least 35 boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean since strikes began on Sept. 2, most recently on Dec. 31. Using Trump’s numbers, that would mean the strikes have prevented 875,000 fatal drug overdoses in the U.S — far more than the number of overdose deaths that have occurred in recent 12-month periods. This essentially implies that the administration is saving more lives than would have ever been lost.

Opioids accounted for 73.4% of drug overdose deaths in 2024, according to the CDC 's State Unintentional Drug Overdose Reporting System. That includes 65.1% from illegally made fentanyls. But while the boat strikes have targeted vessels largely in the Caribbean Sea, fentanyl is typically trafficked to the U.S. overland from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.

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TRUMP, discussing the National Guard deployment in Washington, D.C.: “We haven't had a killing. We had the terrorist attack a few weeks ago, a little bit of a different kind of threat. But we haven't had a killing in a long period of time. Six, seven months.”

THE FACTS: Trump has also made this false claim before. There have been 59 homicides in the past seven months, including two last week, according to the latest Metropolitan Police Department statistics.

That number also includes the fatal shooting of a West Virginia National Guard member on Nov. 26 by an Afghan national. Another Guard member was injured in the shooting, which FBI Director Kash Patel said was being investigated as an act of terrorism.

The city saw 126 homicides in 2025, 29 of which occurred after National Guard troops were deployed to the nation's capital on Aug. 11.

In launching the deployment, Trump declared a public safety emergency and said his administration also would be removing homeless encampments. He said he aimed to reduce crime, but the city’s attorney general said violent crime in the district reached 30-year lows in 2024 and was down an additional 26% in 2025.

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TRUMP, discussing National Guard deployments in Chicago and Los Angeles: “We also helped, as you know, in Chicago. Then crime went down a little bit there ... And likewise, Los Angeles, where — we saved Los Angeles early on.”

THE FACTS: Guard members were never on the streets in Chicago as legal challenges played out. When the Chicago deployment was challenged in court, a Justice Department lawyer said the Guard’s mission would be to protect federal properties and government agents in the field, not “solving all of crime in Chicago.”

Between 2020 and 2024, homicides in Chicago were down 25%. However, rape increased 27%, while robbery went up 17% and aggravated assault up 11%.

Trump deployed about 4,000 National Guard members and 700 Marines to Los Angeles in June to guard federal buildings and, later, to protect federal agents as they carried out immigration arrests.

The number of troops slowly dwindled until just several hundred were left. They were removed from the streets by Dec. 15 after a lower court ruling that also ordered control to be returned to Gov. Gavin Newsom. But an appeals court had paused the second part of the order, meaning control remained with Trump. In a Tuesday court filing, the Trump administration said it was no longer seeking a pause in that part of the order.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday ordered the Trump administration to return control of the National Guard to Newsom.

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