A young refugee from Ukraine who was killed in an apparently random attack in North Carolina is being pulled into America’s culture war.
Iryna Zarutska, who was stabbed on a light-rail train last month in Charlotte, North Carolina, by a man with a history of mental illness and previous arrests, became the subject of a social media post Monday by President Donald Trump and his focus on crime.
The president blamed her killing on policies by Democrats including former Gov. Roy Cooper, who is running for Senate in North Carolina in one of the most closely watched races of 2026.
“The blood of this innocent woman can literally be seen dripping from the killer’s knife, and now her blood is on the hands of the Democrats who refuse to put bad people in jail, including Former Disgraced Governor and ‘Wannabe Senator’ Roy Cooper,” Trump wrote.
His post comes amid a broader push by the Trump administration, which has deployed troops to Los Angeles and Washington over the objections of local officials, to make a law-and-order pitch to voters despite falling rates of violent crime across the country.
The attack on the 23-year-old Zarutska, who came to the U.S. to escape Russia’s invasion of her country, was captured on security video and has been widely condemned by local officials in North Carolina. The suspect has been taken into custody on a charge of first-degree murder.
In his social media post, the president reiterated his endorsement of former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley in the Senate race, writing that “only Republicans will deliver” on crime and order for North Carolina.
Whatley — who called Trump’s response to the murder “spot on” — has seized on the attack to assail Cooper’s record on crime, falsely suggesting that a 2020 executive order signed by the former governor was responsible for the release of Decarlos Brown Jr., the suspect in Zarutska’s killing, from prison after a five-year sentence for robbery.
That executive order, which established a Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice, did not call for the early release of anyone convicted of a crime, and its first recommendations were not released until after Brown’s release.
Kate Smart, a spokesperson for Cooper’s campaign, called the attack “a heartbreaking, despicable act of evil” and accused Whatley of “lying again because he knows his support for federal policies that cut local and state law enforcement funding is wrong for North Carolina” in a statement.
“Roy Cooper knows North Carolinians need to be safe in their communities; he spent his career prosecuting violent criminals and drug dealers, increasing the penalties for violence against law enforcement, and keeping thousands of criminals off the streets and behind bars,” she said.
The killing of Zarutska has attracted substantial attention from MAGA firebrands such as Charlie Kirk and Laura Loomer on social media since the city’s transit system released surveillance footage of the fatal stabbing on Friday.
