President Trump walked into Gastonia, North Carolina, on Wednesday and made the case the establishment press refuses to carry: former Gov. Roy Cooper let thousands of criminals walk out of prison, and working North Carolinians paid the price.
The stakes are not abstract. Cooper's administration cut a deal with civil rights groups in February 2021 to release at least 3,500 convicts. According to the New York Post, more than 600 of those released went on to commit serious felonies — homicides, sex offenses, and other violent crimes. That is not a campaign ad. That is a body count.
Trump drove the point home with the case of Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee who was stabbed to death on a Charlotte light rail train in August 2025. The suspect, Decarlos Brown Jr., had previously served sentences for larceny, breaking and entering, and robbery with a dangerous weapon. The Post reported Brown was on the list of inmates set for release under Cooper's settlement, though he was actually freed months before that release date. The Guardian, meanwhile, framed Trump's claim that Cooper released Brown as "false" — splitting hairs about timing to shield a governor whose policy put a violent offender back on the platform where he killed a young woman.
"You can either vote for Roy Cooper to set loose criminals who rape and murder your children and your population, or you can vote for Michael Whatley to protect and defend your children and your population," Trump told the crowd.
Whatley, the former RNC chairman, has hammered Cooper on the releases for weeks. "Roy Cooper has blood on his hands," Whatley told Breitbart News in August. "We're talking the worst of the worst. We're talking rapists. We're talking pedophiles. We're talking murderers out of North Carolina jails because he didn't want them to get COVID." Whatley noted Cooper has "never offered an explanation of why he let these criminals out of jail" — and instead doubled down, claiming critics were upset he hadn't released more.
NBC News, for its part, was quick to note that crime "isn't a top-of-mind concern for most voters," citing its own polls showing the economy and healthcare rank higher. Tell that to the families of the 600-plus victims. The network also flagged that U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche appeared at the rally, calling it a break from post-Watergate norms — as if the permanent bureaucracy's comfort matters more than public safety.
The political math is blunt. Cooper leads Whatley by roughly 8 to 11 points in recent polling, and holds a massive fundraising edge — $21 million to $3.5 million. Whatley is betting that Trump's crime message can close that gap with independents and energize the MAGA base in a state Trump has carried three times. Cooper, for his part, is running as a moderate. Trump wasn't having it: "He tries to pretend he's a moderate. He's not."
The question heading into November is whether the crime argument — backed by hard numbers the press would rather contextualize than confront — can overcome Cooper's name recognition and cash advantage in a race that could decide Senate control.
