Senate Republican leader Lindsey Graham said reports that North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson posted on the porn forum Nude Africa a decade ago calling himself a “black Nazi!” were “more than disturbing” and should put an end to his political career if true.
“If that’s true, he’s unfit to hold public office,” the longtime South Carolina senator said Sunday. “If it’s not true, he’s going to be facing the largest defamation lawsuit in the history of our country.”
But Graham refrained from calling on Robinson, who denies CNN’s allegations that he wrote inflammatory posts on the forum, to drop out of the gubernatorial race, or for Donald Trump, who called Robinson “Martin Luther King on steroids,” to withdraw his endorsement.
“I think what’s happening here is he should be given a chance to defend himself,” Graham said. “He’s arguing that they were man-made.”
Graham advised Robinson, who has a history of controversial racist comments, to “hire the best lawyer I can find and I’m going to sue CNN to the core, because you just can’t believe the things they’re saying about him.”
But Graham said Robinson “needs to do more. He has a right to defend himself. He has a duty to defend himself. This is casting a shadow over his campaign.” But he said he didn’t think Trump’s successor’s comments “hurt Trump.”
“But with regards to Mr Robinson, if he cannot provide a credible defence for this then he is a political zombie,” Graham added.
The day before President Trump held a rally with 10,000 supporters in North Carolina, Robinson’s comments about the porn site were featured on U.S. Sunday talk shows, without any mention of Robinson or the candidate appearing on stage there.
“Those are not my words, those are not who I am,” Robinson, North Carolina’s first Black lieutenant governor, said of the post. He has said he plans to continue campaigning.
Robinson’s opponent, former state Attorney General Josh Stein, told CNN that his opponent’s “vile insults” made him “totally unfit to be governor.”
“His posts are consistent with what he has said publicly on Facebook,” Stein said. “He worships Hitler, he praises Hitler, he says Hitler was a Nazi, he buys little SS soldier toys, he claims he wants to bring back slavery… it’s hard to understand.”
One of Robinson’s alleged comments on the site was written around the time Barack Obama was in the White House and included comments such as “I’d choose Hitler over any of the motherfuckers in Washington right now!” and “Slavery wasn’t bad. Some people had to be slaves. I wish we’d bring slavery back. I’d definitely buy some.”
The controversy over Robinson’s comments comes as North Carolina, a typically Republican state, is a must-win for Trump to secure the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.
Polls show Stein leading Robinson by an average of about 10 points, but other Democratic candidates in the state, including presidential candidate Kamala Harris, are in closer races.
It’s unclear how much Robinson’s comments will affect Trump’s support, but Democrats hope to tie them to Republican campaigning locally and nationally.
Anderson Clayton, chairman of the North Carolina Democratic Party, said Robinson was a “standard bearer” amid signs that local Republicans are backing the candidate. “He represents the party. The other Republican candidates are just lending their endorsement to his policies,” he said.
On Sunday, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told ABC This Week that the controversy surrounding Robinson was “predictable” because Robinson has “had a history of erratic and at times very offensive statements” since he began serving in public office.
But Christie acknowledged it’s a problem for Republicans: “We’re going to continue to lose because Donald Trump is the recruiting agent in the battleground states.”
Christie said it was unlikely other Republicans would be affected — a political concept known as “reverse coattails” — but Robinson said he was “starting to get a sense of what it’s like to be a former friend of Donald Trump.”
He added: “Political wise, Donald Trump can smell rotten meat better than anyone. I’ll bet you, George, that by November 5th he’ll claim he doesn’t even know who Mark Robinson is.”
