Trump, 80, Insults Host State in Bonkers Speech

Kevin Lamarque / REUTERS Donald Trump ranted about North Carolina during a rally speech in the battleground state on Wednesday.

The president, 80, took the stage in Gastonia to support Michael Whatley, a former RNC and North Carolina GOP chairman who is running to replace retiring Republican incumbent Thom Tillis.

Michigan-born Whatley, 57, is up against former North Carolina governor, attorney general and state representative Roy Cooper.

Trump blamed Cooper, 69, for crime in North Carolina, claiming he was a “murderer protector.” He then labeled the state “one of the worst.” “Nobody used to think of North Carolina as a dangerous state—criminally dangerous.

It was like, North Carolina, it was beautiful.

It was apple pie, right?” he said.

“And now it’s one of the most violent and one of the worst in the whole nation.

And it all started with Cooper.

And you have a lousy governor right now, but it started with Cooper.” Yet FBI data from 2024 show a higher violent crime rate in Alaska, New Mexico, Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, California, Nevada, Arizona, Montana, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Michigan, South Carolina, Maryland, and New York.

Trump asserted that Cooper “let out 3,500 murderers and criminals”—a reference to a settlement Cooper approved as governor that stemmed from a lawsuit by civil rights groups over COVID-19 safety in state prisons.

Roughly 3,500 inmates were released early as part of the settlement, while the plaintiffs initially sought 18,000.

Cooper opposed a larger release of inmates, which may have resulted had the state not settled.

How many of the 3,500 inmates were convicted murderers wasn’t immediately clear.

But the topic has been fodder for attack ads; a pro-Whatley Super PAC is currently running a spot that falsely implies that an alleged murderer was one of the inmates freed in the settlement.