Stephen Colbert cheekily referenced the murder rate in Birmingham as evidence to debunk President Donald Trump’s claim that Chicago is the “worst and most dangerous city in the world.”
On Wednesday’s episode of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” the host said “f*** you” to Trump over the president’s statements on social media regarding crime in Chicago.
To make his point Colbert mentions a Newsweek article that cites 2024 FBI data to show that 22 major cities have higher murder rates than Chicago.
“According to the FBI, 22 major cities have higher rates of murder than Chicago, one of them being Birmingham, Alabama,” Colbert said. “Which explains their highways signs, ‘Welcome to Birming…AAAAGGH!’”
“The guy was murdered in the middle of painting the sign,” Colbert explained.
According to the article, Birmingham topped the list of major cities with 58.8 murders per 100,000 in 2024.
2024 was the deadliest year for the city in 90 years as 151 homicides were committed.
Over the first half of 2025, the murder rate in Birmingham has fallen over 50 percent in comparison to 2024‘s murder rate over the same timespan.
The focus on crime and murder rates across major cities comes as Trump tries to justify his imminent deployment of federal troops to Chicago as he did in Washington D.C.
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