‘No, No, No, These Are Murders’: Bret Baier Cuts Off JB Pritzker’s Deflection With Hard Data About Chicago

Bret Baier questioned Illinois Governor JB Pritzker about Chicago’s murder rate during a tense interview on Wednesday. The two had a heated back and forth about how to look at the city’s crime numbers.

According to Fox News, Baier asked why Chicago has the highest murder rate among America’s big cities. Pritzker disagreed with this, saying Chicago is not even in the top 30 cities for murder rates. The governor said the city’s murder rate has dropped by half over the last four years and that violent crime has gone down by double digits each year.

When Pritzker tried to talk about violent crime in general instead of murders, Baier stopped him. “No, no, no, these are murders,” the anchor said, bringing the talk back to killings specifically. “Well, here’s a map — most populous U.S. cities: 17.47 per 100,000 population. Chicago is number one over Philadelphia, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Phoenix, Los Angeles, New York and San Diego,” Baier said in response.

The Numbers Don’t Tell A Simple Story

The argument between Baier and Pritzker really comes down to how you count the numbers. Research from Wirepoints, an Illinois nonprofit group, found that Chicago had 573 murders in 2024. That was the highest total number among all major U.S. cities. New York City came in second with 377 murders, and Houston had 322.

But when you look at murder rates per 100,000 people instead of just total numbers, Chicago’s spot on the list changes. The city’s rate of 21.5 killings per 100,000 people put it in sixth place among all major cities. St. Louis was first on that list with 52.9 murders per 100,000, even though it only had 149 total murders because it’s a much smaller city.

The main point that backs up what Baier said is that Chicago did have the highest murder rate when looking only at the top 20 biggest U.S. cities in 2024. This seems to be the number Baier was talking about during the interview. Politicians arguing over crime stats has become pretty common, much like recent claims about energy policy that don’t match up with what really happened.

When Pritzker tried to defend himself by saying both of them could find different numbers to prove their points, Baier didn’t back down from his data. 

“Our murder rate has been cut in half over the last four years, and every year, it’s gone down by double digits. And if you look at all of the violent crime over the last four years, they’ve all gone down,” Pritzker said.

The governor kept saying that Chicago has done what it needed to do to lower crime. Chicago Police early data shows that murders from January to August 2025 were one third lower than the same time period in 2024, which does back up what Pritzker said about things getting better. Local leaders keep getting questioned about how they handle problems in their areas, much like how politicians deal with issues at the state level.