Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Monday that the deadly stabbing of a Ukrainian woman on a Charlotte, N.C., light-rail train last month illustrates the “epidemic of violence and homelessness” on the nation’s public transit systems.

“The problem is a lot of people, unlike the rich liberals, they can’t ride Uber, they don’t have a vehicle, they have to take public transportation, and public transportation has become an epidemic of violence and homelessness across the country,” Duffy told Fox News’s Sean Hannity in an interview.

“What frustrates me is liberals want you to ride public transportation, they hate cars, they hate airplanes, they want us all to ride public transportation,” Duffy said.

“Wouldn’t it make sense that they would want to make it beautiful, clean and safe?” he added.

Iryna Zarutska, 23, who fled Ukraine in 2022, was killed on the Charlotte train Aug. 22. Her death has sparked discussions about safety on public transportation and the effectiveness of the criminal justice system after security footage of the stabbing was released over the weekend.

The suspect, 34-year-old DeCarlos Brown, who has been charged with first-degree murder, has a long criminal history.

President Trump said Monday he had seen the video of Zarutska’s killing.

“Just viciously stabbed. She’s just sitting there,” he said. “So, they’re evil people. We have to be able to handle that, if we don’t handle that we don’t have a country.”

Duffy, in his Fox News interview, lauded Trump’s federal takeover of law enforcement operations in the District of Columbia as making strides in addressing safety concerns.

“When you put cops on the street, cops on the subway, cops everywhere in a community, guess what, you protect your people,” Duffy said.

He said he was launching an investigation specifically into the Charlotte Area Transit System over Zarutska’s death.

“Your tax dollars go to fund a lot of these transit systems across the country, and we have to look at them and say, maybe it’s appropriate we start pulling some of that money back. Because I don’t think the American taxpayer wants to pay for the homelessness and criminal element,” Duffy said. “I guarantee that if I find what I think I’m going to find, they are not going to have your federal tax dollars going to their public transportation system. Zero. None. Nada.”

A spokesperson for the Charlotte Area Transit System didn’t immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment.