Donald Trump once again targeted David Muir, the controversial ABC News star, over the journalist's fact-checking during the presidential debate.
On the eve of his inauguration, the President-elect called out Muir after contradicting Trump's claim that violent crime has increased.
“Remember when I was doing the debate, and ABC's David Muir said, 'No, no crime was committed,'” Trump said of the September debate.
'I said, “No, no, it's gone through the roof.” Crime has gone through the roof. David [said] “No, no crime was committed.” I said, “It's gone through the roof.” And then he says, “Um, I don't agree with that.”
“The next day they announced that crime had increased by about 40 percent. This guy is, the whole thing is so bad.”
A review of FBI figures the following month showed that there was a 4.5 percent increase in violent crime between 2021 and 2022, equating to about 80,029 incidents, Fox reports.
“President Trump, as you know, the FBI says that violent crime in this country is generally declining,” Muir said at the time.
But yesterday the president-elect, who will be sworn in later today, hit back again.
Donald Trump again targeted ABC News' David Muir for the journalist's fact-checking during the presidential debate
“The FBI deceived statements,” Trump said. “That didn't include the worst cities. They do not include the cities with the worst crime. It was fraud.'
Muir co-moderated the debate with Linsey Davis.
Both were criticized by Trump immediately after the confrontation with Kamala Harris, after the president-elect claimed it was “one against three.”
“ABC's David Muir, fake news, when I said crime is high in our country, he corrected me, he corrected me and so much, and it was true what I said,” Trump fumed.
'He didn't correct [Harris] once, and what she said was wrong, absolutely wrong.
“So many different… Charlottesville, she was wrong, all these different things, almost everything she said, and she was never corrected.”
Muir, 53, recently made headlines for an embarrassing gaffe while reporting on the California wildfires earlier this month.
The anchor was criticized for using pins to fasten the waist of a fire-retardant jacket while reporting from the fire-ravaged landscape.
Muir previously disputed Trump's claim that violent crimes exist in the US, which he made during the presidential debate in September
The Anchor was recently criticized for using pegs to tie down the waist of a fire-retardant jacket while covering the California wildfires.
Muir – known for posting photos of himself in tight-fitting black t-shirts – was accused of pulling up his jacket to show off his impressive physique.
However, insiders at the network claimed that the “narcissistic” behavior is typical Muir behavior.
He is said to be involved in a long-running feud with fellow ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos.
The two journalists are known to have tension and are therefore rarely seen on screen together, as revealed by Oliver Darcy in a holiday edition of the Status newsletter.
“There has certainly been some historical tension – to put it lightly – between the two anchors,” Darcy wrote in response to a question about the dynamic between Muir and Stephanopoulos.
Stephanopoulos caused scandal at ABC News last month when the network was forced to pay $15 million to settle a defamation suit brought by Donald Trump.
During his presentation of This Week last March, Stephanpoulos said Trump had been “found responsible for rape” in a civil lawsuit filed by writer E. Jean Carroll.
A jury had found Trump liable for Carroll's sexual abuse after a 1996 incident in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York.
Insiders at ABC News reportedly settled out of court because they feared that Stephanopoulos' embarrassing text messages and emails would be made public if the case went to trial.
He remains employed by the network.
