Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani sharply criticized Democrats in an interview with Newsmax on Tuesday, accusing them of siding with violent criminals instead of supporting law enforcement.
Drawing on his record as “America’s Mayor,” Giuliani argued that the modern Democrat approach to crime is a dangerous departure from proven strategies that once transformed New York City from one of the nation’s most dangerous cities into one of its safest under his watch.
“They’re all but defending murderers in our nation’s capital,” Giuliani told “Rob Schmitt Tonight” and guest host Ed Henry, pointing to Washington, D.C.’s skyrocketing crime rate. “There’s a five times greater chance when you walk out at night in D.C. that somebody will shoot and kill you than in New York City. It’s unbelievable.”
Giuliani compared today’s climate to the crisis he faced when he took office in 1994, inheriting a city with nearly 2,000 murders a year, rampant drug activity, and widespread fear. Under his leadership, the Big Apple saw overall crime drop more than 50%, murders fall 66%, and shootings plummet 72%.
Giuliani credited the dramatic turnaround to two key initiatives: The “Broken Windows” policing strategy and the CompStat crime tracking system.
The “Broken Windows” theory, popularized by criminologists James Wilson and George Kelling in 1982, emphasizes the importance of addressing minor offenses — such as vandalism, fare evasion, and public disorder — to prevent more serious crimes. Giuliani implemented it aggressively, believing that restoring order in small ways set a tone that discouraged major offenses.
“It’s about paying attention to small things as well as big things,” Giuliani said. “When you restore discipline and order, you send a signal that lawlessness won’t be tolerated.”
The second pillar of Giuliani’s approach was CompStat, a data-driven policing system he introduced with former Police Commissioner William Bratton. CompStat uses real-time crime data to pinpoint hotspots, track trends, and hold precinct commanders accountable for results.
“The big revolution was measuring success by reducing crime, not just making arrests,” Giuliani said. “An arrest is a failure because the crime already took place. The goal is to prevent it.”
CompStat’s accuracy was so crucial, Giuliani noted, that officers caught falsifying statistics were fired.
“It took a year, but in the first year, we brought crime down by 12 to 15%,” he said, adding the system has proved effective globally — he implemented it in Medellín, Colombia, and saw crime fall 57%.
Giuliani dismissed a recent suggestion by Democrat D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb that the city should focus more on social programs and less on arrests, and that to be safer, D.C. “cannot prosecute and arrest our way out of it.”
“You need both,” Giuliani said, stressing that in the short term, law enforcement is the only way to address an immediate crime wave. “You’re not going to deal with crime in the next three or four years with a long-term social program. For that, you need law enforcement — and a lot of it.”
He said Democrats’ reluctance to fully support police is a dangerous gamble that ignores decades of hard-learned lessons.
“They haven’t learned from 40 years of history,” Giuliani said. “If you want safer streets now, you need accountability, tough policing, and proven methods — not excuses.”
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