North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson speaks on stage during the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 15, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images
North Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson called himself a “black NAZI” and said “slavery is not bad” in years-old comments on an online porn forum. CNN reported Thursday.
Robinson, the controversial lieutenant governor of the key presidential battleground state, also posted sexually suggestive messages in dozens of posts on that forum through an account linked to him, according to CNN’s “KFile.”
The candidate, who has been praised by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as recently as last month, referred to himself in that forum as a “walker” with an affinity for transgender porn, according to CNN.
Asked for comment, Robinson campaign spokesman Michael Lonergan showed CNBC a video in which the Republican denies the report and accuses his Democratic opponent, state Attorney General Josh Stein, of leaking the story to CNN.
“Let me reassure you, the things you will see in this story are not the words of Mark Robinson,” the candidate said in the direct-to-camera statement. shared with X less than an hour before the publication of the report.
Before the CNN bombshell, Robinson was under pressure from Trump staff and campaign members to drop out of the race. Carolina Journal he said, citing sources with knowledge of the matter.
Trump’s campaign denied it was pushing Robinson to retire. “This is completely inaccurate,” spokesman Brian Hughes told NBC News.
Robinson signaled in Thursday’s video that he would not drop out of the race in North Carolina, where the first absentee ballots are due Friday.
Recent polls in the race for North Carolina’s top spot show Stein leading Robinson, sometimes by wide margins. The Democrat on Thursday launched a new “Republicans for Stein” initiative.
Robinson, who won his home state’s GOP primary in March, is already at the center of a series of controversies and scandals.
Among the most recent: a Sept. 3 report by the North Carolina investigative agency The Assembly that Robinson frequented 24 hour porn shopsPrivate video booths up to five nights a week in the 1990s and early 2000s.
His campaign spokesman denied the report and attacked the journalists, accusing them of being “degenerates”.
Robinson has also previously been accused of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, in part due to his 2018 Facebook post which read: “This nonsense about Hitler disarming MILLIONS of Jews and then marching them off to concentration camps is a bunch of piggy”.
He has refused being anti-Semitic.
Robinson, a vocal opponent of abortion, also said during the 2024 campaign that his wife she had an abortion 30 years earlier, calling it “a very difficult decision.”
The statement followed reports of Robinson commenting in 2019 that abortion “isn’t about protecting the lives of mothers… It’s about killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.”
Despite these and more divisive remarksRobinson has repeatedly drawn praise from Trump.
In March, Trump compared Robinson to the civil rights legend Martin Luther King Jr. “on steroids.” At a campaign rally on August 21 in Asheboro, North Carolina, Trump called Robinson a “good man” and said he “has to win.”
Robinson spoke at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in mid-July.
Trump is set to return to the Tar Heel State on Saturday for a rally focused on jobs, inflation and the economy.
This is a developing story, check back for updates.
