Senator Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) says if reporting about North Carolina GOP candidate Mark Robinson’s alleged comments on a porn site is false, Robinson should take legal action. But if the reporting is true, he should drop out of the gubernatorial race against state attorney general Josh Stein, the Tar Heel State senator says.
“If the reporting on Mark Robinson is a total media fabrication, he needs to take immediate legal action,” Tillis wrote in a post on X. “If the reporting is true, he owes it to President Trump and every Republican to take accountability for his actions and put the future of NC & our party before himself.”
Tillis’s statement on Friday came in response to a bombshell CNN report one day earlier that alleged Robinson made inappropriate comments on a porn site called Nude Africa between 2008 and 2012 in which he said, among other things, that he is a “black NAZI” and he believes slavery should be brought back.
“Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they would bring it [slavery] back. I would certainly buy a few,” he said, according to the report.
The report comes more than a year after North Carolina GOP officials and operatives began privately warning about damning opposition research on the lieutenant governor, Audrey Fahlberg reports.
Robinson, for his part, has dismissed the reporting as false and said he plans to stay in the race.
Roughly 30 minutes before CNN published its report, the Robinson campaign shared an exclusive video statement with National Review denying the forthcoming accusations and reassuring his supporters he is staying in the race no matter what.
“You know my words, you know my character, and you know that I have been completely transparent in this race and before. Folks this race, right now, our opponents are desperate to shift the focus here from the substantive issues and focus on what you are concerned with,” Robinson said in the video, shared exclusively with NR. “We are staying in this race. We are in to win it.”
After the story was published on Thursday, Tillis acknowledged that it was a “tough day” but encouraged Republicans to “stay focused on the races we can win.”
“We have to make sure President Trump wins NC and support the outstanding GOP candidates running for key NCGA and judicial races. If Harris takes NC, she takes the White House. We can’t let that happen,” he added.
Trump is returning to North Carolina on Saturday for a rally in Wilmington, but Robinson is not expected to be in attendance, according to reports, despite the Trump-backed candidate having previously been one of the former president’s top surrogates in the state.
Even before the allegations were published, Robinson was running behind Democratic candidate Josh Stein in most polling. A RealClearPolitics polling average finds Stein up 9.4 points.