Why MAGA Candidate’s Latest Scandal Finally Scares Team Trump
The Trump-endorsed candidate in North Carolina’s gubernatorial race could soon lose his spot on the ticket due to an in-house ouster.
North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson is a Hitler-quoting, gay-bashing, conspiracy-touting antisemite, and has drawn immediate comparisons to Donald Trump for his bombastic orations and loyal GOP following, along with his own laundry list of controversies.
On Thursday, a bombshell CNN report revealed that Robinson had written on a pornography website’s message board about his desire to own slaves, his peeping in women’s locker rooms, and his enjoyment of transgender porn.
The comments were made long before Robinson entered electoral politics. CNN connected the account to Robinson via a “litany” of common biographical details and a shared email address. He also used his full name on his site account.
“I like watching tranny on girl porn! That’s f*cking hot! It takes the man out while leaving the man in!” Robinson wrote in one comment on the site, Nude Africa. “And yeah I’m a ‘perv’ too!”
Robinson repeatedly denied any connection to the account, instead telling CNN in an interview that the story amounted to “salacious tabloid lies.”
The story was initially leaked to CNN, as well as local Raleigh news outlet WRAL, by Robinson’s opponent, Attorney General Josh Stein, the Carolina Journal reported.
In light of the story, the Trump campaign reportedly told Robinson that he was no longer welcome to attend rallies for either candidate on the Republican presidential ticket, according to an anonymous source that spoke with the Journal. Robinson had been scheduled to appear at a rally for J.D. Vance on Wednesday but backed out after his office announced Robinson had fallen ill.
But despite growing pressure to back out—which included calls from local Republican strategists for Robinson to exit in order to save Trump’s chances in the battleground state—Robinson released a video statement ahead of the CNN report announcing his intention to stay in the critical race.
“Let me reassure you the things that you will see in that story are not the words of Mark Robinson,” Robinson said. “You know my words, you know my character, and you know that I have been completely transparent in this race and before.”
That butts Robinson up against the deadline to withdraw from the race: Thursday evening. If he does exit, the North Carolina Republican Party Executive Committee would be required to choose a replacement candidate—less than 50 days before the election.
The scandal is an unusual test of mettle for the exceedingly controversial politico. Robinson has shared a host of his disturbing positions online, including posts in which he minimized the horrors of the Holocaust, claimed a “satanic marxist” had made the movie Black Panther to pull “shekels” out of Black audiences, likened women getting abortions to murderers, and derided gay people as “filth” and “maggots.” Robinson has also expressed archaic views about women’s role in society, telling a Charlotte-area church in 2022 that Christians are “called to be led by men.”
Robinson has also suggested that “schools wouldn’t be getting shot up” if Christian teachings were forced into the classroom, and told a congregation at Asbury Baptist Church that public schools had taken a “nosedive” since mandatory prayer had been excised from curriculums.