Republican says he lied about racist posts on porn site to protect Trump | Republicans

Former North Carolina Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson admitted to misleading voters during his unsuccessful 2024 gubernatorial campaign when he denied posting racist and offensive comments on a pornographic website — suggesting he did so to protect Donald Trump’s successful presidential campaign.

Robinson, who worked in furniture manufacturing before entering politics in 2020, told the After the Call podcast on Thursday: “I won’t say I completely lied. Some things in the whole story – some – there’s some truth to it.”

The spectacular defeat of Robinson’s political career came after CNN reported in September 2024 that he had posted under a pseudonym on Nude Africa, an online pornographic forum.

Robinson, CNN reported, expressed support for slavery in forum posts. CNN also reported that Robinson, who is black, called Martin Luther King a “bastard communist” and said that if he, Robinson, belonged to the Ku Klux Klan, he would call King a racist name.

Robinson also used homophobic and anti-Semitic slurs, according to CNN reporting, including exclaiming, “I’m a black NAZI!”

The Washington Post later reported that on the same forum, Robinson had praised Mein Kampf, writing that it was a “good read” as well as “very informative and not at all what I thought it would be.”

“It’s a real eye-opener.”

Robinson initially denied being the author of the comments published more than a decade earlier. He vowed to continue his campaign despite finding himself in the country’s unflattering spotlight.

“Let me reassure you: The things you will see in this story are not the words of Mark Robinson,” Robinson said in a video posted on X.

The North Carolina gubernatorial race was won by Democrat Josh Stein by 14 points in November 2024.

During last week’s podcast with Florida-based pastor Josh Hall, Robinson admitted he had an “obsession” with pornography and sex and denied reports he made online comments to protect those around him, including Trump, because it was “the most appropriate thing to do.”

“If I had to ignore the truth at that time for the sake of expediency, I felt like it was the right thing to do,” Robinson said.

“I certainly don’t want to be the person who costs the President of the United States the election – I don’t want to cost anyone else their election. I guess maybe there are some people who think the same way as I do.”

Trump clinched a second presidency in this same election cycle by defeating Kamala Harris.

Discrepancies between Robinson’s campaign positioning and his online persona caused senior campaign officials to flee. Trump, who previously described Robinson as “one of the great stars of [Republican] party, one of the great stars of politics”, also distanced himself.

In his comments, Robinson was obviously still seeking to leave open the possibility that someone had commandeered his forum account and impersonated him for at least some of the posts.

“There was enough meat in the conversations I had with people, long before I became lieutenant governor, to make these things possible,” Robinson said on the podcast. “I certainly view them as things that people may have falsely attributed to me, but I don’t deny the fact that at one point I said things that were salacious enough that they could certainly make them believe that.”

Robinson continued: “The allegations that I watched pornography and that I was involved with people who watched pornography…that was absolutely true. »

He added that he believes people like him, who have struggled and come back from a porn “obsession”, are the best messengers to help others in the same situation.

“The only shame is staying there,” he said on the podcast.

When asked if he would make the same decision again, denying authorship of these comments to promote a broader political cause, he confirmed that he would do so.

“It wasn’t about me,” Robinson said. “They knew they could use me to destroy the people around me, up to and including the president, they would. And so I would make the exact same decision.”