North Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson slams CNN report about messages he left on porn site as ‘sensational trash’

North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Republican candidate for governor of that state, denied accusations in a CNN report published Thursday that he left numerous explicit comments on a porn website’s message board.

“Let me reassure you,” Robinson said in a video posted on social media Before the CNN article was published, “the things you’ll see in this article are not Mark Robinson’s words.”

The words in question were posted on the forum of the pornographic website Nude Africa between 2008 and 2012, before Robinson’s foray into elected office, under the username “minisoldr,” which Robinson allegedly used on various other websites instead of their own, CNN reported.

Under this pseudonym, Robinson, according to CNN, described himself as a “black NAZI!”

Robinson has been outspoken in her opposition to transgender rights. But one of the many comments CNN uncovered showed that one of the comments left by minisoldr was about getting turned on by watching transgender porn.

“I love watching porn movies with girls and transsexuals! It’s really hot! It brings the man out while keeping him in!” Robinson wrote, according to CNN. “And yes, I’m also a ‘pervert’!”

In his statement Thursday, Robinson dismissed the story as politically motivated and compared the allegations to those made against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

“My friends, in this race, our opponents are desperate to distract from the substantive issues and focus on what you care about and focus on salacious tabloid stories,” Robinson said, adding: “And my friends, we’ve seen this before. Clarence Thomas once said he was the victim of a high-tech lynching. Well, it looks like Mark Robinson was, too.”

But Robinson may not be able to escape the accusations against him the way Thomas did when he was confirmed to the Supreme Court in 1991.

In an article published by The Assembly earlier this month, former employees and customers of porn shops in Greensboro, North Carolina, described how Robinson frequently frequented the establishments. Robinson campaign spokesman Mike Lonergan called their accounts “bullshit.”

Robinson, who is leading Democratic opponent Josh Stein in polls, has previously been in the spotlight for his inflammatory rhetoric. In 2021, Robinson gave a speech in which he criticized affirmative action programs, saying that Black people were actually the ones who owed the debt.

“If you want to tell the truth, YOU have to do it!” he told his audience.

He has questioned the Holocaust that killed more than 6 million Jews in Europe, calling it “bullshit,” and he has decried the LGBTQ+ community as “filth.”

In 2020, he advocated for a total ban on abortion, with no exception for the life of the mother, but in 2022 he expressed regret for paying his own wife to have an abortion in the 1980s.

An email address belonging to Robinson was also registered on Ashley Madison, a website for adults seeking extramarital affairs, Politico reported Thursday. One of Robinson’s advisers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the email address belonged to the lieutenant governor.

While former President Donald Trump has endorsed Robinson’s bid for governor, other Republicans fear he will almost certainly lose in November and that his presence on the ballot could tip the scales in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Thursday is also the deadline for a candidate to withdraw from the election.