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

The former Republican North Carolina lieutenant governor Mark Robinson has admitted he misled voters during his unsuccessful 2024 gubernatorial campaign when he denied posting racist and offensive comments on a pornography website – suggesting he did so to protect Donald Trump’s successful presidential run.Robinson, who worked in furniture manufacturing before entering politics in 2020, told the After the Call podcast on Thursday: “I won’t say that I completely lied. Some of the things about the whole story – some of it — there’s some truth to it.”The spectacular undoing of Robinson’s political career came after CNN reported in September 2024 that he had been posting under a pseudonym on Nude Africa, an online porn forum.Robinson, CNN reported, expressed support for slavery in forum posts. CNN also reported that Robinson, who is Black, labelled Martin Luther King a “commie bastard” and said that if he, Robinson, belonged to the Ku Klux Klan he would refer to King by a racist name.Robinson also used homophobic and antisemitic slurs, according to CNN’s 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 that he was the author of the comments posted more than a decade earlier. He vowed to continue his campaign as he was thrust into an unflattering national spotlight.“Let me reassure you: the things that you will see in that story, those are not the words of Mark Robinson,” Robinson said in a video posted to X.The race for North Carolina governor was won by the Democrat Josh Stein by 14 points in November 2024.During the podcast with Florida-based pastor Josh Hall released last week, Robinson acknowledged that he had an “obsession” with pornography and sex and had denied the reports of his online commentary to protect those around him, including Trump, because it was “the most expedient thing to do”.“If I had to ignore the truth at that moment for their expediency, I felt like it was the right thing to do,” Robinson said.“I certainly don’t want to be the person that costs the president of the United States the election – didn’t want to cost anyone else their election. I guess there may be some people that feel like that I did.”Trump clinched a second presidency during that same electoral cycle by defeating Kamala Harris.Discrepancies between Robinson’s campaign positioning and his online persona caused top campaign staff to flee. Trump, who had previously described Robinson as “one of the great stars of the [Republican] party, one of the great stars in politics”, distanced himself too.In his comments, Robinson said: “Allegations that I watched pornography and was involved with people that watched pornography … that was absolutely true.”He added that he believes people like him, who struggled and came back from a porn “obsession”, are the best messengers to help others in the same situation.“The only shame in it is staying in it,” he said on the podcast.Asked if he would make the same decision again to deny authorship of the comments in furtherance of the larger political cause, he confirmed he would.“It wasn’t about me,” Robinson said. “They knew that they could use me to destroy, the people around me, up to and including the president, they would do it. And so I’d make the exact same decision.”