CNN
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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.
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.
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.”
Robinson is currently in a competitive race against Democrat Josh Stein to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.
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. 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, Aaron Pellish, Dianne Gallagher, Annie Grayer, Morgan Rimmer, Kate Sullivan and Omar Jimenez contributed to this report.
