Gastonia, North Carolina — President Donald Trump used a campaign rally Wednesday to describe North Carolina as “one of the worst in the whole nation” while repeating multiple claims about former Gov. Roy Cooper that conflict with state records.
Trump, campaigning for Republican Senate candidate Michael Whatley, called Democratic opponent Cooper a “murderer-protector” and again blamed him for the release of DeCarlos Brown Jr., the man accused of killing 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska aboard a Charlotte light-rail train in 2025.
That accusation is false. The North Carolina Department of Adult Correction says Brown was not released early. He served 100% of his minimum sentence, including credit for time already served, and left prison in September 2020, five months before a February 2021 COVID-era prison settlement Republicans have attempted to connect to his release. The department has said neither that settlement nor Cooper caused Brown to leave prison.
Trump also claimed North Carolina had become “one of the most violent” states and said the decline “all started with Cooper.” The latest complete statewide figures from the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation provide no support for that narrative. Violent crime fell 4.3% in 2024, including a 9.2% decline in the murder rate. Statewide violent crime totaled 40,875 offenses, or about 390 per 100,000 residents.
Trump then accused Cooper of doing “nothing” after Hurricane Helene. Public records also contradict that characterization. Cooper declared a state of emergency before the storm, mobilized National Guard soldiers and rescue teams, requested an expedited federal disaster declaration and later sought more than $25 billion in federal recovery aid. By October 2024, thousands of state and federal responders were working throughout western North Carolina.
Trump’s remarks came during a rally intended to boost Whatley in his Senate contest against Cooper. While criticism of an opponent’s crime or disaster record is standard campaign politics, the specific claims tying Cooper to Brown’s release and portraying the Helene response as nonexistent are contradicted by official records.
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