Comedian and political commentator Bill Maher partially credited President Donald Trump for the nationwide drop in violent crime on Friday night.
Maher said it’s ”childish to pretend” the Trump administration’s tough-on-crime approach hasn’t deterred criminal behavior in a segment about bipartisanship on Real Time with Bill Maher. Violent crime fell nationwide by nearly 10 percentage points from June 2025 through May 2026 off the back of a sustained, post-pandemic decline that began in 2022, according to the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer.
“Good news stories get buried,” Maher said about the trend, “because they’re tainted by cooperation.” He specifically discussed the recent decline in drug overdoses and spoke of how “accidental bipartisanship” led to both of the decreases.
“Part of it is reasons beyond politics… but mostly it’s because Democrats did some things, and Republicans did other things. And by not actually ever working together, they stumbled upon positive change… or as Trump put it, ‘it was all me.’”
Maher credited former President Joe Biden for making Narcan, a medication used in opioid overdose emergencies, “more available” while also crediting the Trump administration for its policies related to preventing such illegal substances from entering the United States.
“We found something better, Narcan, and Democrats fast-tracked it, that’s contributed a lot to the huge decrease in drug deaths,” he said. “But so did closing the border. And deporting gang bangers. And disrupting supply. Narcan worked, and law enforcement worked.”
“And it’s not just drug crime that’s way down; it’s all crime that’s down. And again, probably much of it is not political — it’s because you can’t move two inches in America without being tracked, photographed, and followed by a Flock camera,” Maher continued. “But it’s also because when Democrats expand the safety net, there are less desperate people — and because Trump is a bad***. No, I don’t agree with many of his methods, like how they sometimes just deport people to countries where they have absolutely no connection.”
BILL MAHER CALLS FRANCESCA HONG ‘DEBBIE DOWNER’ FOR WANTING TO GET RID OF THANKSGIVING
“Is doing it this way the right thing? No,” he said. “But it’s just childish to pretend when you elect a f***-around-and-find-out president, a no-more-Mr. Nice Guy, booting-your-ass, V-for-Vendetta, kick-a**-and-take-names, say-hello-to-my-little-friend president, that’s not going to have any effect on crime.
“He has UFC fights on the [White House] lawn,” he said, referencing the UFC Freedom 250 event that took place in June as part of the administration’s Fourth of July celebrations. “I think the bad guys got the message.”