Trump Condemns ‘Madman’ Behind Charlotte Train Murder After Watching ‘Horrible’ Attack Footage

President Donald Trump on Monday condemned the “madman” who savagely murdered Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska aboard a North Carolina train recently, with the commander-in-chief weighing in on the brutal attack for the first time since viewing the viral surveillance footage.

The president addressed the killing while speaking at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., saying:

“There are evil people. We’re all people of religion, but there are evil people and we have to confront that. I just give my love and hope to the family of the young woman who was stabbed this morning, or last night, in Charlotte, by a madman, a lunatic. [He] just got up and started — it’s right on the tape, not really watchable because it’s so horrible — but just viciously stabbed. She’s just sitting there. So there are evil people, we have to be able to handle that. If we don’t handle that, we don’t have a country.”

This was Trump’s first time commenting on the attack since hearing about it initially on Sunday evening, when he was boarding Air Force One.

In the surveillance footage of the Aug. 22 attack, which was made public last Friday, 23-year-old Zarutska was seen riding home from work on a train in Charlotte when she was fatally stabbed multiple times. The video shows a man, identified by authorities as 34-year-old Decarlos Brown Jr., sitting behind her. The attack was unprovoked. Zarutska sat in front of her attacker and looked at her phone while wearing headphones.

The murder has led to questions about why the suspect was not already in jail to begin with. Brown Jr., who has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, has a long list of violent and non-violent crimes on his record, including robbery with a dangerous weapon, felony larceny, and breaking and entering.

It also led to questions from many conservatives, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), about why there was not more mainstream media coverage of the murder. Elon Musk also shared his disgust with the lack of reporting on the slaying, which was a much-discussed topic on X, the platform he owns, over the weekend.

You can watch Trump’s comments above, via Fox News.