Harris campaign highlights Trump’s past praise for Mark Robinson as CNN report roils battleground North Carolina
CNN
Donald Trump’s campaign declined to comment Thursday on whether North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, whom the former president once described as “Martin Luther King on steroids,” should drop out of the battleground state’s race for governor.
Donald Trump’s campaign declined to say Thursday whether North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, whom the former president once described as “Martin Luther King on steroids,” should drop out of the battleground state’s race for governor. Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign, meanwhile, highlighted Trump’s history of praise for Robinson, in the wake of a CNN report Thursday about Robinson’s history of disturbing comments on a pornographic website’s message board. Robinson, a Trump ally who won the Republican nomination for governor in March, faces mounting pressure to exit the race following the revelations that he’d made comments more than a decade ago in which he referred to himself as a “black NAZI!” and expressed support for reinstating slavery. Robinson denied having made those comments. The report immediately rippled through the 2024 presidential race, where North Carolina is a target for both Trump and Harris. The deadline under state law for a candidate to drop out is 11:59 p.m. ET Thursday, with the state’s first absentee ballots set to be mailed out Friday. Harris’ campaign responded to the report by sharing photos on social media of Trump and Robinson together, including one of them posing with a thumbs-up. In another social media post, the Harris campaign shared video of Trump praising Robinson, calling him “one of the great leaders in our country” and labeling him “better than Martin Luther King.” The campaign superimposed the CNN report’s headline in the video.
Vice President Kamala Harris directed her team this week to immediately schedule a visit to Georgia following a media report that revealed two deaths linked to the battleground state’s abortion restrictions, according to two sources familiar with the planning – a callback to the rapid response travel she’s done over the past year.
Attempts by conservatives to purge state voter rolls ahead of the November election, including from Donald Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee, are ramping up, prompting concern from the Justice Department that those efforts might violate federal rules governing how states can manage their lists of registered voters.