WASHINGTON — For no clear reason, North Carolina Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson filmed himself in December 2018 saying that children who are raped will grow up to become “monsters” and will go on to do “unspeakable things.”
He posted this video on Facebook, and it’s still there as of now — one week before North Carolina voters will decide if they want this guy to be their next governor.
Robinson, who is currently the state’s lieutenant governor, made his comments during a meandering 20-minute tirade about people needing to choose to either follow Jesus Christ or a “homosexual lifestyle,” which he tied to pedophilia.
“As long as this nation continues to sew these seeds of perversion, we’re going to reap a whirlwind and a harvest of pure horror. You better believe it,” he says in the video. “We keep twisting these children’s minds up, allowing these children to be raped, both undercover and in our faces.
“And those children are going to grow up to be absolute monsters,” he continues. “They are going to be monsters that are going to do unspeakable things.”
The full video from Robinson’s Facebook page is below. His comments about children being raped begin around the 11:40 mark.
Robinson’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on why he filmed himself saying something as offensive as this at all, and why this video is still posted.
The North Carolina Republican lost virtually all of his party’s support after a CNN story last month revealed disturbing comments he made on a porn forum. Robinson referred to himself as a “black Nazi” and described being sexually aroused by spying on women in public showers. He also gushed about pornography featuring transgender people, a sharp contrast to the ugly, transphobic rhetoric he uses as a gubernatorial candidate.
Even Donald Trump, who has long been an ally to Robinson, wants nothing to do with him now. Despite previously endorsing Robinson and hailing him as “Martin Luther King on steroids,” when he was asked last week if he’d still urge North Carolina voters to vote for him for governor, Trump said only, “I’m not familiar with the state of the race right now.”
Prior to the CNN report, Robinson was already lagging in his race against Democrat Josh Stein, who is currently the state’s attorney general. But his support has since plummeted to new lows, and virtually all of the staff on his campaign and in his office resigned.
Robinson had a yearslong record of making vile statements in public, long before the CNN report dropped. The state GOP would have already known about his long record of making sexist, racist, Islamophobic, anti-LGBTQ+ and otherwise gross comments well before he launched his run for governor. But weeks before the presidential election, here in this key swing state, Republicans like Trump now don’t want to be associated with him.
North Carolina’s current governor, Democrat Roy Cooper, is term-limited out this year. Stein is currently leading Robinson by at least 13 points, per the polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight. The Cook Political Report rates this race as “likely Democrat.”
Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris are intensely focused on North Carolina in the final days of the campaign. Trump is holding an event in Rocky Mount on Wednesday, while Harris will be in Raleigh. Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will be in Charlotte and in Asheville that same day.
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.