NBC’s Seth Meyers appeared torn on Wednesday’s Late Night between trying to argue that conservative talking points about crime in big cities are false and that, actually, it is red states that have a crime problem. To justify such a conclusion, Meyers appeared totally unaware that you can have a blue city inside of a red state.
Introducing some 2022 clips, Meyers declared, “The reality is that crime is down in major cities. And if you really want to be a stickler about it, you might even want to mention that violent crime rates are higher in some red states.”
In a brief montage, MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart was shown declaring on October 21, 2022, that “eight out of the ten states with the highest murder rates in 2020 voted for Donald Trump.”
A second clip featured a man the previous day elaborating, “Oklahoma had 342 homicides. That's a rate of nine deaths per 100,000. If you go over to California, their homicide rate is 6.1. And New York's rate, even lower at 4.7. In fact, there are many mainly Republican-led states that you see here in dark colors that have much higher homicide rates than many traditional Democrat-run states.”
Oklahoma’s murder rate is inflated by Democrat-run Tulsa. The same is true for other states shown on the map. Missouri, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee, and South Carolina, may be all red states, but St. Louis, Kansas City, Little Rock, Birmingham, Jackson, New Orleans, Atlanta, Memphis, and Charleston all have high murder rates and all are blue cities.
Nevertheless, Meyers responded, “Is it because Dick Wolf never gives any of those states their own Law & Orders. Because having a Law & Order can be a real deterrent. I mean, the only police I can remember from a red state TV show never caught anybody because the Duke boys' car was just so much faster. The point is, the right has created this myth about crime in big cities that isn’t true.”
Neither is Meyers’s point about red states. Except, in the case of blue cities, Meyers is also wrong. A slightly less high number— assuming the reductions are accurate—can still be a high number.
Here is a transcript for the August 13-taped show:
NBC Late Night with Seth Meyers
8/14/2025
12:46 AM ET
SETH MEYERS: The reality is that crime is down in major cities. And if you really want to be a stickler about it, you might even want to mention that violent crime rates are higher in some red states.
JONATHAN CAPEHART [10/21/22]: Eight out of the ten states with the highest murder rates in 2020 voted for Donald Trump.
MAN [10/20/22]: Oklahoma had 342 homicides. That's a rate of nine deaths per 100,000. If you go over to California, their homicide rate is 6.1. And New York's rate, even lower at 4.7. In fact, there are many mainly Republican-led states that you see here in dark colors that have much higher homicide rates than many traditional Democrat-run states.
MEYERS: Is it because Dick Wolf never gives any of those states their own Law & Orders. Because having a Law & Order can be a real deterrent. I mean, the only police I can remember from a red state TV show never caught anybody because the Duke boys' car was just so much faster. The point is, the right has created this myth about crime in big cities that isn’t true.
