President Trump made sure North Carolina will not forget Iryna Zarutska. At his rally in Greenville on Tuesday night, the President slowed down to remember the 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee who was stabbed to death on a Charlotte light-rail train in August 2025, and he named the man he holds responsible for leaving her killer on the street: former Gov. Roy Cooper, now the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate.
Trump described the accused killer, Decarlos Brown Jr., as a “violent and deranged animal with 14 prior very, very serious and dangerous arrests.” He recalled the video that shocked the nation. “You could see how frightened she was just to be there,” the President said. “She sat in front of him, and she probably knew she was in trouble.” Then, he said, the attacker “stood up and violently slashed her neck.”
The President did not soften what happened, because the people of North Carolina have not forgotten it either. Of the video, he said, “If you watch it to the end, which nobody should see, you wouldn’t believe it.” And he came back to the young woman herself: “I mean, you could see how scared she was.”
Then he delivered the charge against Cooper. “The only reason that the brutal monster was roaming free to kill Iryna, and probably other people, because now they’re saying probably other people too, is because Roy Cooper released him from jail, released him,” Trump said. “And it’s a betrayal that can never, ever be forgotten.”
Cooper faces Trump-backed Republican Michael Whatley for the Senate seat on Nov. 3, and early voting in North Carolina runs through Oct. 31. President Trump’s message was simple: public safety is on the ballot, and Iryna Zarutska’s name will be remembered.
