President Donald Trump gets heckled while campaigning in swing state as Democrat Roy Cooper edges out Republican Michael Whatley in competitive race for North Carolina Senate seat
President Donald Trump was heckled during his speech at a North Carolina rally in support of Republican Senate nominee Michael Whatley’s campaign on Wednesday, September 16. Trump was interrupted by the heckler five minutes into his speech, right as he was praising SpaceX CEO Elon Musk for providing North Carolina with parts of the Starlink satellite network following the devastation of Hurricane Helene in 2024.
Donald Trump gets heckled during North Carolina speech
It is unclear what the heckler said or which part of Trump’s speech triggered her reaction, but the commotion that was caused while removing her from the event prompted a response from Trump. “What do you have, a bad guy or a good guy over there?” Trump asked as the heckler was being removed from the crowd. “Where is he? Who is he? Show it to me. Show him. Let me see his face. Oh, it’s a she. Hello. She’s going home to mama.” Trump further said of the heckler, “Her mother is watching right now on television, furious at the daughter. She’s going to walk, and she’s gonna get the hell … spoken out of her. I won’t say.”
Donald Trump’s go-to response to hecklers
The “going home to mama” comment seems to be Trump’s go-to response when handling hecklers. During an August rally in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Trump similarly said that a heckler was “going home to mom, gonna get scolded because mom is voting for us.” He also offered a similar response during a 2024 rally in Coachella, Calif., where he told a female protester that she would “go back home to mommy” and “get the hell knocked out of her.”
Donald Trump claims conditions are dismal in North Carolina, blames Roy Cooper
Following the heckling episode, Trump returned to his campaign speech — most of which involved a rather poor representation of North Carolina. Trump claimed that the state has become “one of the most violent and one of the worst in the whole nation,” blaming it all on Democratic former Gov. Roy Cooper, who is set to face Whatley in the upcoming midterm contest for North Carolina’s Senate seat. The president described North Carolina as a state riddled with crime, accusing Cooper of flooding “communities with migrant criminals. He also said Cooper “destroyed your schools with gangs and drugs and filled your streets with lawlessness, filth and squalor” and turned the state’s cities into “blood-soaked killing fields.”
A spokesperson for Cooper’s campaign denied Trump’s claims, saying in a statement to Newsweek, “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.”
In a recent Elon University poll of likely voters, Cooper led Whatley by 11 percentage points — a significant lead in a swing state that could very well determine who controls the Senate after November.
Donald Trump once again waves his $5,000 promise
During his speech, Trump once again made the “Trump dividend” vow, promising that he will give every American adult a $5,000 dividend if Republicans manage to retain both chambers of Congress in the upcoming midterms. “Remember, if the Republicans win the House and Senate, I will issue what we will all call from now on the ‘Trump dividend.’ Every adult in America will get $5,000,” Trump said during the Wednesday rally. “You’ll get it because we’re taking in so much money. And we can do it, and the Democrats can’t say that because they don’t do the tariffs. Tariffs have made us rich.”
Despite Trump’s claims, the nonpartisan Tax Foundation has reported that tariff revenues would not come close to covering the approximately $1.35 trillion cost of fulfilling Trump’s promise.
Furthermore, House Speaker Mike Johnson has stopped short of guaranteeing Trump’s promised payout, saying that Congress would have to work to approve it, given the proposal’s cost and questions regarding its funding.
Marc Goldwein of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget told the Associated Press that Trump cannot send the money without congressional approval, especially at a time when the U.S. is running roughly $2 trillion in annual deficits and has about $40 trillion in debt. “We don’t have surpluses to give away,” he said.