President Donald Trump repeated several claims he has made before while discussing a U.S. raid aimed at extracting Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, according to an Associated Press fact check published Saturday.

In an extended news conference, Trump also praised U.S. military activity and U.S. National Guard deployments, at times veering off topic, the fact check said. The AP said it examined Trump’s claims about the effects of strikes that targeted boats allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela and about whether National Guard deployments reduced crime in Washington, D.C., Chicago and Los Angeles.

Trump’s claim about drug boats and deaths in the U.S.

At the news conference, Trump said that “each boat kills on average, 25,000 people,” while discussing the impact of U.S. strikes on vessels allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela.

The AP said Trump has previously made the same claim and suggested that the figure means 25,000 American lives are saved with every alleged drug boat the U.S. strikes “take out.” The fact check said the numbers do not align with government overdose death counts.

The AP pointed to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Vital Statistics System, saying there were up to 76,516 drug overdose deaths in the U.S. during the 12-month period ended in April 2025, down 24.5% from up to 101,363 for the prior 12-month period.

The AP also said the U.S. military has attacked at least 35 boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean since strikes began on Sept. 2, with the most recent attack on Dec. 31. Using Trump’s 25,000-per-boat number, the AP said that would imply the strikes prevented 875,000 fatal drug overdoses in the U.S.

Opioid and fentanyl context cited by AP

The AP reported that opioids accounted for 73.4% of drug overdose deaths in 2024, including 65.1% from illegally made fentanyls, citing the CDC’s State Unintentional Drug Overdose Reporting System. The fact check added that fentanyl is typically trafficked to the U.S. overland from Mexico, where it is produced using chemicals imported from China and India, while the boat strikes targeted vessels largely in the Caribbean Sea.

Washington, D.C.: “no killing” claim challenged

The AP said Trump also repeated a claim about National Guard deployment in Washington, D.C., telling reporters: “We haven’t had a killing. We had the terrorist attack a few weeks ago, a little bit of a different kind of threat. But we haven’t had a killing in a long period of time. Six, seven months.”

The AP said that claim does not match Metropolitan Police Department statistics, adding that there were 59 homicides in the past seven months, including two last week. The fact check said the homicide count included the fatal shooting of a West Virginia National Guard member on Nov. 26 by an Afghan national, and that another Guard member was injured.

The AP reported that FBI Director Kash Patel said the Nov. 26 shooting was being investigated as an act of terrorism. The AP also said Washington saw 126 homicides in 2025, including 29 after National Guard troops were deployed on Aug. 11.

Deployment goals vs crime-trend arguments

The AP said Trump launched the Washington deployment as a public safety emergency and said his administration would remove homeless encampments. The fact check further reported that the district’s attorney general said violent crime in the district reached 30-year lows in 2024 and was down an additional 26% in 2025.

In comments about Chicago, the AP said Trump told reporters: “We also helped, as you know, in Chicago. Then crime went down a little bit there … And likewise, Los Angeles, where — we saved Los Angeles early on.”

The AP said National Guard members were never on the streets in Chicago while legal challenges played out. When the Chicago deployment was challenged in court, the AP said a Justice Department lawyer told the court the Guard’s mission would be to protect federal properties and government agents, not “solving all of crime in Chicago.”

The AP also cited crime statistics for the period 2020 to 2024, saying homicides in Chicago were down 25% but that rape increased 27%, robbery went up 17% and aggravated assault rose 11%.

Los Angeles: Guard role tied to federal operations and court orders

For Los Angeles, the AP reported that Trump deployed about 4,000 National Guard members and 700 Marines in June to guard federal buildings and, later, to protect federal agents during immigration arrests. The fact check said the number of troops dwindled over time until just several hundred remained.

The AP said troops were removed from the streets by Dec. 15 after a lower court ruling ordered control to be returned to Gov. Gavin Newsom, while an appeals court paused the second part of that order, leaving control with Trump. The AP said that in a Tuesday court filing, the Trump administration told the court it was no longer seeking a pause in that second part, and that on Wednesday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ordered the administration to return control of the National Guard to Newsom.

The AP said its fact check was part of its ongoing “AP Fact Checks” coverage.