Violent crime in cities run by “woke liberal mayors and city councils” will continue to drive voter priorities, making public safety the nation’s most pressing concern, Rep. Addison McDowell, R-N.C., told Newsmax on Thursday.
While discussing North Carolina’s vote to approve “Iryna’s Law,” a comprehensive criminal justice bill named after Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian refugee who was fatally stabbed on a Charlotte light rail train in August, McDowell told “Wake Up America,” “People want to feel safe.”
“To the people that are glorifying this violence, to the people that are committing this violence, and to the people that are not calling out this violence — you need to look in the mirror because you are the problem.”
McDowell pointed to a Rasmussen poll showing that 26% of respondents said the assassination of Charlie Kirk was “justified or understandable.”
“What was the murder of Iryna?” he said. “Was that understandable? Was the shooting yesterday at the ICE facility? Was that understandable? No, it wasn’t. And we need to call it out. And there’s a certain political group that doesn’t, and they need to.”
McDowell praised Vice President JD Vance’s remarks in North Carolina when he spoke out about crime in the nation’s cities and personally about protecting his own daughter.
“I’m a father of two young daughters, and I agree with everything that he said,” added McDowell. “I would hope that, God forbid, my daughters are ever in that situation, there’s somebody that would protect them from this evil in the world.”
He continued, “We’ve got a generation of men that are passive, and we need to look in the mirror.”
McDowell also stressed the importance of supporting law enforcement.
“There’s been way too much of vilifying law enforcement at every level. And they’re there to keep us safe,” he said. “We’re the free because of the brave — the men in uniform — and we need to thank them, not vilify them.”
Responding to a Democratic National Committee statement criticizing Vance’s visit, McDowell dismissed the attack as hypocritical.
“That’s very rich coming from the DNC,” he said. “They said ‘you’ in that statement … Well, I think that they’ve got it misunderstood because the ‘you’ that they’re trying to talk to are illegals, are criminals. And that is absurd.”
He said Republicans acted to block tax increases and remove noncitizens from taxpayer-funded programs.
“We made sure that we didn’t let Democrats raise your taxes by 40%. We made sure that we got illegals off of our programs like Medicaid,” he said.
“We did not let the American people experience the largest tax increase in the history of our country. That’s what we were doing with the Working Families Tax Cut that we passed.”
“The DNC, you know, I think that there’s a reason the RNC dominates them in cash on hand,” McDowell added. “Because why would you want to give money to a bunch of people that lie?”
GET TODAY :
is the fastest-growing cable news channel in America with more than 30 million people watching!
Reuters Institute reports is one of the top news brands in the U.S.
You need to watch today.
Get it with great shows from Rob Schmitt, Greta Van Susteren, Greg Kelly, Carl Higbie, Rob Finnerty – and many more!
Find the channel on your cable system –
Sign up for and get , our streaming channel and our military channel World at War.
Find hundreds of shows, movies and specials.
Even get Jon Voight’s special series and President Trump’s comedy programs and much more!
Watch on your smartphone or home TV app.
Watch anytime, anywhere!
Start your now:
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
