Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee campaigning for governor of North Carolina, says he’s staying in the race despite a scathing report from CNN that he referred to himself as a “black NAZI” and wrote about “peeping” on girls in showers on a pornography website’s message board.
Robinson denies making the graphic comments, calling them “tabloid trash.”
“Let me reassure you: The things that you will see in that story, those are not the words of Mark Robinson. You know my words, you know my character, and you know that I have been completely transparent in this race and before,” Robinson said in a video posted to X, formerly Twitter.
As a close ally of Donald Trump, Robinson’s scandal threatens to harm the former president’s campaign for the Oval Office. His Democratic opponent, Vice-President Kamala Harris, is reportedly seizing on the moment by launching a new TV ad that includes Trump’s public praise for Robinson.
Robinson has a history of making inflammatory comments, including expressing support for a total ban on abortions and stating that transgender women should be arrested for using women’s bathrooms. However, the comments that CNN reports he made years ago on a pornography website paint a very different picture. (In 2022, Robinson expressed regret for paying for his now-wife to have an abortion.)
(Note: Global News has not independently confirmed that Robinson wrote and posted the messages. CNN says it verified that the porn site account belonged to Robinson by comparing usernames, a known email address and his full name. The comments were allegedly posted from 2008 to 2012, before Robinson entered politics in 2020 when he was elected as North Carolina’s lieutenant governor.)
What the posts said
The alleged comments were under the username minisoldr on a porn site called Nude Africa. Robinson has used the minisoldr moniker on multiple other online sites, CNN reports.
Despite his recent anti-transgender rhetoric, Robinson allegedly wrote that he likes watching transgender pornography.
“I like watching tr-nny on girl porn! That’s f–king hot! It takes the man out while leaving the man in!” Robinson allegedly wrote. “And yeah I’m a ‘perv’ too!”
On top of that, despite Robinson’s concern about the safety of women’s bathrooms, he allegedly admitted to peeping on girls in the shower at his high school when he was 14.
“I came to a spot that was a dead end but had two big vent covers over it! It just so happened it overlooked the showers! I sat there for about an hour and watched as several girls came in and showered,” Robinson reportedly wrote on Nude Africa.
“I went peeping again the next morning,” the post continues. “But after that I went back the ladder was locked! So those two times where (sic) the only times I got to do it! Ahhhhh memories!!!!”
CNN writes it only published a small portion of Robinson’s alleged comments, given the graphic nature of the posts.
On the topic of abortion, Robinson allegedly wrote that he doesn’t care if celebrities get abortions: “I don’t care. I just wanna see the sex tape!”
Robinson also allegedly called Martin Luther King Jr. a “f–king commie bastard.” Notably, Trump has praised Robinson by comparing him to the civil rights leader, calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids.”
Furthermore, Robinson allegedly expressed his support for the return of slavery in his online comments, and wrote “I’m a black NAZI!”
“Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it (slavery) back. I would certainly buy a few,” he wrote, adding that he would prefer Adolf Hitler as a leader over former U.S. president Barack Obama.
Fallout of the scandal
Recent polls of North Carolina voters show Trump and Harris locked in a close race. The same polls show the Democratic nominee for North Carolina governor, Josh Stein, with a roughly 10-point lead over Robinson.
Stein and his allies have repeatedly cited a Facebook post from 2019 in which Robinson said abortion in America was about “killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.”
The Stein campaign said in a statement after the report that “North Carolinians already know Mark Robinson is completely unfit to be Governor.”
The North Carolina Republican Party defended Robinson in a statement on X, saying that despite his denial of CNN’s report, it wouldn’t “stop the Left from trying to demonize him via personal attacks.” The party referred to economic and immigration policies as the predominant election issues North Carolinians will care more about instead.
“The Left needs this election to be a personality contest, not a policy contest because if voters focused on policy, Republicans win on Election Day,” the party said.
However, not all Republicans are on the same page about Robinson.
Scott Lassiter, a Republican state Senate candidate in a Raleigh-area swing district, called on Robinson to “suspend his campaign to allow a quality candidate to finish this race.”
On Capitol Hill, U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, chair of the House GOP’s campaign committee, told reporters the report’s findings were “concerning.” Robinson, he said, has some reassuring to do in the state.
— With files from The Associated Press