Trump Says He’s ‘Not Familiar’ With Mark Robinson’s Race After Once Calling Him ‘MLK on Steroids’

Robinson won the GOP nomination for governor in North Carolina with aplomb despite his long history of racist, sexist, and insane comments. But, in September, CNN reporters unearthed his unhinged digital footprint on a porn forum called "Nude Africa."

Politics 2024 Election
Trump Says He’s ‘Not Familiar’ With Mark Robinson’s Race After Once Calling Him ‘MLK on Steroids’

Just how fast the night changes… In March, Donald Trump introduced Mark Robinson, the GOP nominee for governor in North Carolina, at a rally by calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids,” and saying, “I think you’re better than Martin Luther King. I think you are Martin Luther King times two.” But, on Monday, while stumping for himself and himself alone in the make-or-break swing state, Trump didn’t revoke his endorsement of Robinson, instead, opting for something even more insulting (read: hilarious): He pretended to have no idea what’s been going on with his race.

Asked by a Politico reporter whether he’s still calling on his supporters to vote for Robinson, Trump told the outlet, “I’m not familiar with the state of the race right now. I haven’t seen it.” He then hopped into his black SUV and vanished into the night. This would be hard to believe from any presidential candidate caught in a tight race, and even harder to believe coming from our terminally online former president.

The telling interaction comes about one month after a, err, probing CNN report unearthed Robinson’s unhinged digital footprint on a porn forum called “Nude Africa.” In posts spanning from 2008 to 2012, Robinson called himself a “black Nazi,” advocated for the return of slavery, and bragged about enjoying transgender porn and “peeping” on women. He posted graphic, sprawling accounts about having sex with his sister-in-law, described enjoying golden showers, said he wished he could buy slaves, and… somehow, that’s just the tip of the iceberg of his posts. Around the same time the CNN report dropped, a North Carolina outlet reported that the Trump campaign banned Robinson from future events, though the campaign later denied this. That said, Trump hasn’t campaigned alongside Robinson—the GOP gubernatorial nominee in a critical swing state—since August. So take from that what you will!

CNN linked the account to Robinson through a trove of evidence, from email tracing and biographical details to Robinson’s weird, highly specific catchphrases that no one else in the English-speaking world has ever uttered. (For example, the phrase “I don’t give a frog’s fat ass,” and other inexplicable terms like “gag a maggot” and “dunder head.”) Nevertheless, Robinson spuriously denied that the account was his… even though it conspicuously vanished only after CNN’s report came out.

Last week, Robinson filed a defamation lawsuit against CNN, accusing them of performing a “high-tech lynching.” Robinson initially sought $50 million in damages but, as of Tuesday, that figure has changed to “in excess of $25,000.” I have to laugh at the lawsuit and whichever “dunder head” advised Robinson to pursue it—the political news cycle moves so quickly that we’d all mostly forgotten or moved forward from Robinson detailing “golden showers” with his sister-in-law until he reminded us all by very publicly filing the legal complaint. There’s also a little something called “discovery process,” which really makes you think about how much more we might learn about Robinson and, err, his proclivities.

One has to wonder or perhaps just laugh that it took a bombshell report in which Robinson self-identified as a “perv” to make Trump catch a selective case of amnesia. For years, Robinson openly questioned the Holocaust and, while running as an anti-abortion Republican, shared that he paid for his wife’s abortion. A couple weeks before CNN’s report in September, a different, lengthy report detailed that, in the 1990s, Robinson frequented a local porn shop and masturbated in a private booth almost every night.

The latest polling aggregated by FiveThirtyEight this week puts Robinson’s Democratic opponent, Josh Stein, eight points ahead of Robinson, though the outlet put Stein 22 points ahead of Robinson just two weeks ago. Meanwhile, Trump has consistently polled anywhere from one to four points ahead of Kamala Harris in the state.

 
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