At a Wednesday rally backing Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley, President Donald Trump described North Carolina as “one of the most violent and one of the worst in the whole nation.” He tied that claim to former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper, who is now the Democratic Senate candidate. Cooper’s campaign spokesperson rejected the description when speaking with Newsweek and called it “false.” The spokesperson said, “Independent fact-checkers have called these attacks false – Michael Whatley is getting desperate and it’s shameful that he’s using heinous crimes to try to deceive North Carolinians.” The event took place in Gastonia. Trump brought up the death of Iryna Zarutska, who was killed on a train in the state last year, and said, “The animal who murdered Iryna Zarutska should never have been on your streets; after 14 arrests he should have been locked up for many, many years.” He continued, “That monster and countless others were set loose to prey on the people of North Carolina…I mean, I know North Carolina so well, so much crime here.” FBI counts rank North Carolina seventh for aggravated assault by total offenses Trump went on to say, “For years, pro-crime politicians like Roy Cooper have tried to bully you into silence while they turned your cities into blood-soaked killing fields, flooded your communities with migrant criminals, destroyed your schools with gangs and drugs and filled your streets with lawlessness, filth and squalor…but those days are over.” He also said, “I mean it’s on the national news…it’s your governors, but it’s Cooper. Cooper was really bad.” The FBI’s Crime Data Explorer listed 24,686 aggravated assault offenses in North Carolina from September 2025 through September 2026. In that stretch, the dashboard also showed 11,145 clearances, 573 homicide offenses, 2,623 rape offenses, and 3,737 robbery offenses. Over the same months, New York logged 42,518 aggravated assault offenses, 357 homicide offenses, 2,839 rapes, and 14,508 robberies, the FBI figures showed. Florida’s totals were 35,794 aggravated assaults, 560 homicides, 4,780 rapes, and 6,437 robberies. Newsweek’s review of those FBI numbers put California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Michigan in the top five for aggravated assault offenses by raw count from September 2025 to September 2026. North Carolina sat at seventh. The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation said violent crime across the state fell in 2024 compared with the prior year, including lower rates for murder, aggravated assault, and robbery. The FBI said the national violent crime rate dropped 9 percent from June 2025 to May 2026, with murder down 18.7 percent, robbery down 19.4 percent, rape down 10 percent, and aggravated assault down 6.2 percent. The Bureau described that national year-over-year decline in violent crime as the largest in almost 90 years. FBI data as of September 2026 put North Carolina’s aggravated assault offense rate at 9.31 per 100,000 people, against a U.S. rate of 4.42. An earlier Newsweek look at violent crime rates grouped North Carolina with states that had higher rates, while Arkansas, Alaska, and Tennessee posted higher rates still. That review also noted that several of the highest-rate states had smaller populations than America’s largest states. Violent crime rates in North Carolina are not the only safety concern, as a black nurse pulled onto the wrong driveway and faced armed residents. DeCarlos Brown Jr. faces charges in the killing of 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska. Local outlets reported he was recently found incompetent to stand trial and is now in federal custody. Cooper’s spokesperson said, “While Roy spent his career putting rapists and violent criminals behind bars and signing tough on crime laws as governor, Michael Whatley has continued to knowingly appoint, campaign with and elevate convicted child sex predators who spent time in prison and is celebrating the support of a President who released over 13,000 prisoners during COVID without a court order.” The Associated Press reported that Pastor Daimon L. King, a registered sex offender, led a prayer at a Whatley campaign stop earlier this month. Whatley campaign spokesman DJ Griffin told the outlet King was not known to the Republican nominee and the event “was NOT planned nor organized by the Whatley campaign nor did the campaign invite any of the guests.” Trump also discussed his administration’s immigration policy and the war in Iran. He claimed to have blocked Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and raised the idea of a $5,000 dividend for every adult in America if Republicans keep the House and Senate in the midterms. Trump’s visit comes amid heightened concerns about violence in North Carolina, a state where a recent courtroom shooting left two attorneys injured. He said he plans to come back to North Carolina before November. Cook Political Report rates the Cooper-Whatley contest as a lean Democrat, and recent polling showed Cooper ahead.