A Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina has insisted he will not exit the race amid a report that he made controversial comments on a porn website more than a decade ago.
Mark Robinson characterised the CNN report, which alleged that he had referred to himself as a "black Nazi" on an adult forum, as "salacious tabloid lies".
He has been under pressure from state Republicans and members of Donald Trump's campaign team to quit the race, according to anonymous sources quoted by the Carolina Journal newspaper.
Robinson, 56, is a former furniture manufacturer who was elected to be the state's first black lieutenant governor in 2020. He won the gubernatorial nomination in March this year after receiving an endorsement from Trump, who called him "Martin Luther King on steroids".
According to the CNN report on Thursday, Robinson used to visit a porn website from 2008-12 called Nude Africa, with the username "minisoldr".
According to CNN, minisoldr posted about enjoying watching "tranny" porn, adding:
"Yeah I’m a 'perv' too!"
The BBC has not verified the CNN report.
In 2021, Robinson refused to apologise after he was criticised for saying that children in schools should not be learning about "transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth".
In a video posted to X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday, as the CNN story was being published, he denied wrongdoing.
"Let me reassure you, the things you will see in that story, those are not the words of Mark Robinson," he said.
"We are staying in this race. We are in it to win it."
He said he was the victim of a "high-tech lynching" by his white Democratic opponent, Josh Stein.
Stein's campaign said in a statement that "North Carolinians already know Mark Robinson is completely unfit to be governor".
Opinion polls already suggest Stein, a Harvard-educated lawyer who is currently North Carolina's attorney general, has a firm lead in the race.
The North Carolina Republican Party defended Robinson in a statement, saying "the Left" was "trying to demonize him via personal attacks".
The Harris campaign posted a video on social media reminding voters of Trump's past praise for Robinson.
The deadline for withdrawing from the gubernatorial contest was on Thursday evening as postal ballots go into the mail on Friday. Early voting in the state begins in less than a month.
Recent polling in North Carolina shows Harris and Trump effectively tied among likely voters.
The Tar Heel State has been a Republican stronghold, with only one Democratic presidential nominee winning there in the last 20-plus years.
Trump narrowly beat Joe Biden in North Carolina four years ago by less than 2%.
Democrats have campaigned heavily in the state this election season.
The vice-president joined the television icon in one of the seven crucial battleground states.
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The Thursday afternoon report linked the Republican nominee for governor to an account under the handle “minisoldr” on Nude Africa — a pornographic website that includes a message board feature — where his full name and email were mentioned alongside several identifying biographical details. Robinson also allegedly managed accounts with the same username across multiple social media platforms, where CNN found similarly inflammatory comments.
Robinson has maintained that he will not end his candidacy.
Robinson appeared on CNN Thursday evening, where he unequivocally denied the allegations.
“I have no idea how this was done,” he said. “I have five weeks left in this campaign to focus on the substantive issues North Carolinians face. I do not have time for tabloid trash.”
The comments, many of which were sexually graphic, were made between 2008 and 2012. The account tied to Robinson reminisced on memories of secretly looking at women in public gym showers when he was 14 years old.
“I went peeping again the next morning,” the post read. “But after that I went back [and] the ladder was locked! So those two times where [sic] the only times I got to do it! Ahhhhh memories!!!!”
In one forum, Robinson reportedly declared himself a “black NAZI!” and said he supported the return of slavery in another.
“Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it (slavery) back. I would certainly buy a few,” minisoldr wrote.
Other remarks included racist, antisemitic, homophobic and Islamophobic slurs, including one comment where he allegedly said he’d “take Hitler over any of the sht that’s in Washington right now” during the Obama administration and another where he referred to civil rights leader Martin Luther King as a “commie bstard.”
Robinson also allegedly wrote about liking transgender pornography via the minisoldr account. The gubernatorial candidate has a long history of espousing public rhetoric hostile to the LGBTQ+ community, saying in February that transgender women who use women’s public restrooms “will be arrested.”
In a December 2010 thread, Robinson reportedly said he did not care that a celebrity had an abortion and that he just wanted to “see the sex tape.” Robinson currently says he supports North Carolina’s existing 12-week abortion ban, though he previously advocated for a complete ban without exceptions while running for lieutenant governor. He faced accusations of hypocrisy for his stance on abortion in 2022 after it came out that he paid for his wife’s abortion in 1989.
Robinson claimed that the story was leaked to CNN by the campaign of N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein, the Democratic nominee for governor.
“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 his X account Thursday afternoon before the CNN report was released.
Robinson referenced remarks by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas during his 1991 confirmation hearings where he was accused of sexual harassment by Anita Hill, his former adviser at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
“We’ve seen this type of stuff in the past as well,” Robinson said in the video. “Clarence Thomas famously once said he was the victim of a ‘high-tech lynching.’ Well, it looks like Mark Robinson is too.”
The revelations come weeks after The Assembly reported that Robinson frequented video-porn shops in Greensboro in the 1990s and 2000s.
Robinson is reportedly facing pressure from within his own party to drop out of the race, and his campaign canceled multiple Thursday events. He did not appear at a Wednesday rally in Raleigh featuring Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance.
However, the N.C. GOP stood by Robinson in a Thursday evening statement on X accusing “the Left” of “demoniz[ing] him via personal attacks.”
“The Left needs this election to be a personality contest, not a policy contest because if voters are focused on policy, Republicans win on Election Day,” the post read.
The Washington Post reported that officials working with the Trump campaign were among those asking Robinson to withdraw, though another official said the campaign is not reaching out to Robinson directly.
Trump has long been a strong ally of Robinson, referring to him as “Martin Luther King on steroids” at a Greensboro campaign rally in March where he endorsed his gubernatorial campaign.
The deadline for N.C. candidates to withdraw is at 11:59 p.m. Thursday. Absentee ballots for military and overseas voters registered in the state are scheduled to be sent out Friday, after the initial Sept. 6 roll-out was delayed by former independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ending his campaign. Any further delay would put the state in violation of federal law, which mandates that ballots be sent out no later than Sept. 21.
If Robinson does drop out, state law stipulates that the N.C. Republican Party’s executive committee would be able to name a replacement, which is allowed when the current candidate “dies, resigns or for any reason becomes ineligible or disqualified” before Election Day. Any votes for Robinson — should his name remain on absentee ballots — would be reallocated to the GOP’s new candidate.
Recent polls have shown Stein leading Robinson by five to 13 points in the gubernatorial race.
Donald Trump’s campaign declined to say Thursday whether North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, whom the former president once described as “Martin Luther King on steroids,” should drop out of the battleground state’s race for governor.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, meanwhile, highlighted Trump’s history of praise for Robinson, in the wake of a CNN report Thursday about Robinson’s history of disturbing comments on a pornographic website’s message board.
Robinson, a Trump ally who won the Republican nomination for governor in March, faces mounting pressure to exit the race following the revelations that he’d made comments more than a decade ago in which he referred to himself as a “black NAZI!” and expressed support for reinstating slavery. Robinson denied having made those comments.
The report immediately rippled through the 2024 presidential race, where North Carolina is a target for both Trump and Harris. The deadline under state law for a candidate to drop out is 11:59 p.m. ET Thursday, with the state’s first absentee ballots set to be mailed out Friday.
Related article ‘I’m a black NAZI!’: NC GOP nominee for governor made dozens of disturbing comments on porn forum
Harris’ campaign responded to the report by sharing photos on social media of Trump and Robinson together, including one of them posing with a thumbs-up.
In another social media post, the Harris campaign shared video of Trump praising Robinson, calling him “one of the great leaders in our country” and labeling him “better than Martin Luther King.” The campaign superimposed the CNN report’s headline in the video.
In a statement Thursday afternoon, the Trump campaign did not directly address the reporting, or whether the former president wants Robinson to drop out of the governor’s race.
“President Trump’s campaign is focused on winning the White House and saving this country. North Carolina is an vital part of that plan. We are confident that as voters compare the Trump record of a strong economy, low inflation, a secure border, and safe streets, with the failures of Biden-Harris, then President Trump will win the Tarheel State once again. We will not take our eye off the ball,” Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told CNN.
Trump has a long history of praising Robinson. At a campaign rally in Greensboro, North Carolina, in March, Trump said he was listening to Robinson speak while he was on his plane and called him “Martin Luther King on steroids.”
“I said, ‘I think you’re better than Martin Luther King. I think you are Martin Luther King times two,’” Trump said at the time.
Some people in Trump’s orbit heard rumblings this week that a potentially damaging story on Robinson was in the works, according to two sources familiar with the situation.
Even before the CNN report was published, the Trump campaign had not invited Robinson to the former president’s upcoming Saturday rally in the state, with sources saying that the decision was likely to hold. Robinson has been to most, if not all, of Trump’s recent North Carolina events. Last month, he spoke at Trump’s economy-themed rally in Asheville, and the former president brought him onstage in Asheboro.
Many people close to Trump have long held concerns about Robinson and his gubernatorial candidacy, given his previous inflammatory comments, including disparaging the civil rights movement and mocking the victims of a school shooting. Privately, some on Trump’s team had hoped Robinson would drop out as more of his contentious past comments were revealed. However, that didn’t stop Trump from giving the lieutenant governor his endorsement at a rally earlier this year.
Despite efforts to distance the former president from Robinson, three senior Trump campaign advisers told CNN that there have been no efforts to pressure Robinson to withdraw from the governor’s race, and there were no plans at this time to call for him drop out.
The NAACP called on Robinson to drop out of the race, writing on social media Thursday that the organization is “nonpartisan, but we’re not blind. And we speak out against what is wrong. Mark Robinson: drop out.”
“Donald Trump and NC GOP leaders embraced Mark Robinson for years knowing who he was and what he stood for including disrespect for women and inciting violence. They reap what they sow,” Cooper said on social media Thursday.
Stein, the state attorney general, has been leading Robinson in recent polling. His campaign said in a statement Thursday: “North Carolinians already know Mark Robinson is completely unfit to be Governor. Josh remains focused on winning this campaign so that together we can build a safer, stronger North Carolina for everyone.”
The Democratic Governors Association also pounced on the CNN report, with spokeswoman Izzi Levy calling it “just the latest proof that Mark Robinson is unhinged, dangerous, and completely unfit to be governor.”
“Now, as many Republicans warn against the damage Robinson would do as governor, it’s clear that the stakes have never been higher and we must keep our foot on the gas to defeat him in November,” Levy said.
The Republican Governors Association did not respond to a request for comment on the report and whether Robinson should drop out of the race.
North Carolina Rep. Jeff Jackson, the Democratic nominee to succeed Stein as attorney general, said it made him “sick” to read the CNN report about Robinson.
He added that the lieutenant governor “has no business serving in any elected capacity whatsoever. And I’d like to hear from all the Republicans in North Carolina, where they stand on this, because it really should not be a difficult question.”
North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson, who leads the House Republican campaign arm, told reporters Thursday that “the allegations were very concerning.”
But Hudson stopped short of calling Robinson to step aside.
“My hope is that the lieutenant governor can reassure the people of North Carolina that the allegations aren’t true,” he said.
Another North Carolina Republican, Rep. Greg Murphy, who’s a member of the hard-line conservative House Freedom Caucus, also called the allegations “very concerning” but raised doubt about their authenticity.
“What I read was very concerning, but given the degree of electronic manipulation that can happen these days with AI, with everything else, who the hell knows what’s true and what’s not,” he said.
South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman, also a Freedom Caucus member, told CNN the report was “pretty sad.”
“To go this far along, and then to the people who supported him, all the money that he’s raised, and I think he needs to drop out today, so they get another candidate,” he said.
Norman also said Robinson should have known that past message board comments would become public.
“I think he’s a different man now – evidently, a lot of this happened in the past – but in politics, they’re going to find out everything, as rightfully they should,” Norman said.
GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said she wanted to read the allegations, but “if that all turns out to be true, that would be certainly something that I definitely couldn’t support.”
CNN’s Alayna Treene, Kristen Holmes, Aaron Pellish, Dianne Gallagher, Annie Grayer, Morgan Rimmer, Kate Sullivan and Omar Jimenez contributed to this report.
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