Prominent Republicans — Senators J.D. Vance, Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton have all refused to disavow North Carolina Gov. Mark Robinson following a CNN report that revealed comments he made online in which he described himself as a “black Nazi” and supported the restoration of slavery before entering politics.
When asked about Robinson's controversial posts, Vance, the Republican vice presidential candidate, said: “I don't believe him, I don't believe him. I just think you have to let these things play out sometimes in the court of public opinion.”
Cotton also refused to deny Robinson's allegations, telling CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday: “They are troubling allegations. He owes the people of North Carolina more answers on this matter… I'll leave that to the people of North Carolina.”
On NBC Press conferenceGraham said Robinson “deserves a chance to defend himself.”
“The allegations against him are incredibly disturbing,” Graham added. “If they are true, he is unfit to hold office. If they are not true, he faces the best lawsuit in the history of the country, for defamation.”
Robinson, a Republican candidate for governor of New York who was endorsed by Trump, made the comments on a message board on the porn site Naked Africa between 2008 and 2012. He has praised Hitler's book online. My struggle He said Hitler would be better than Barack Obama.
As a candidate, Robinson attacked the transgender community, but on a message board, he admitted to enjoying “trans porn with girls” and spying on women's locker rooms as a teenager. In February, Robinson said transgender people who needed a bathroom should “find a corner outside to go to.”
Robinson denied making the comments on the message board. “Those are not our words. Those are not my words. Those are not my character,” he told CNN, adding, “I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty details of how someone came up with these outrageous tabloid lies.”
If you’ve been paying attention to Robinson, his fondness for the Nazis may not come as a surprise. He has repeatedly denied the Holocaust, and quoted Hitler in a Facebook post saying, “Pride in one’s race…is also a natural and healthy feeling.”
“I’m tired of seeing and hearing people still talk about Nazis and Hitler and how evil and manipulative they were,” Robinson wrote on Facebook in 2017. “Tell people the Nazis (National Socialists) are gone! We got rid of them.”