Robinson Implodes

The most recent revelations about the North Carolina gubernatorial candidate threaten to swamp the Trump campaign and the GOP.

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If you’ve been a regular reader of this column lately, you understand that North Carolina is pretty much a must-win for Trump. If Harris takes the state and its 16 Electoral College votes, her chances of winning the White House grow from “somewhat likely” to “very likely.”

That’s why the Trump campaign is having a very bad few days as the fallout from the Mark Robinson porn site scandal begins in earnest.

I wrote on Friday about Robinson’s nearly unbelievable statements on an adult entertainment user bulletin board back in the early 2010s. The evidence that he actually made these statements is so strong, and the statements themselves so bad, that his campaign is in freefall and the GOP is running for cover. 

In today’s piece, I’ll helicopter over the wasteland that is now Robinson’s candidacy, including his ineffectual denials and how some MAGA supporters are trying to cope. Then I’ll look at the big shake-up in Robinson’s staff that has election watchers already ringing funeral bells for his campaign. Finally, I’ll review how the Trump campaign and GOP leaders are dealing with this radioactive blast site. Spoiler alert: Pretending it’s not corroding their party’s chances isn’t going well.

The AI did it, not me!

For much of this election cycle, we worried about how AI might disrupt things and poison an already fragile information ecosystem. What we didn’t expect was for Trump to point to AI and falsely claim that the crowds at Harris’s rallies were computer-generated, nor for a scandal-ridden candidate like Robinson to play the “AI-did-it” card. AI has become the new bogeyman for inconvenient or damning truths.

On CNN, reporter Andrew Kaczynski asked Robinson how he could deny—with all the matching details about his email and username “minisoldr” across multiple platforms from way back in the 2010s—that he was in fact the one who wrote the vile, racist and pornographic material appearing on the Nude Africa site. Robinson responded,

“Look, I’m not going to get into the minutiae of how somebody manufactured all these salacious tabloid lies. But I can tell you this: There’s been over $1 million spent on me through AI by a billionaire’s son who’s bound and determined to destroy me. The things that people can do with the internet are incredible.”

As Mike Nellis from the Harris Campaign correctly noted, “AI is powerful, but it can’t rewrite history from 15 years ago.” 

It’s important to recognize that Robinson’s porn site statements are in keeping with what he has said and posted publicly. They include calling homosexuality and transgenderism “filth” and arguing that abortion “isn’t about protecting the lives of mothers” but about “killing the child because you weren't responsible enough to keep your skirt down or your pants up and not get pregnant by your own choice because you felt like getting your groove thing on.” The porn bulletin comments only confirmed how extreme and unfit for office Robinson truly is.

Democratic candidate for North Carolina governor and current state Attorney General Josh Stein said it best in his interview over the weekend on CNN with Jake Tapper:

“Mark Robinson is absolutely unfit to be the governor of North Carolina. And that was true before your story broke last Thursday. The story has only served to underline and put an exclamation on that fact.”

MAGA cope

Polls show that around 40 percent of the electorate continued to support Robinson for governor despite his long history of extremism and vitriolic hate. No doubt to the frustration of many, we should understand that even these recent revelations may not put much of a dent into that number.

Like their unwavering support for Donald Trump, nothing seems to faze MAGA voters about Robinson. As Raw Story summarized, several MAGA supporters of Robinson interviewed by CNN are standing by their man. Here is a smattering of what Trump-rally goers said when asked about them:

70-year-old Bob Judson explained, “I didn’t put much credence in it. We’ve all done things in our past that we’re sorry for. Some of the things are crazy,” before adding, “I mean if we just went on that, we wouldn’t be here for Trump, would we?”

Connie Wittmer, after having some of Robinson's comments on the porn site described to her, admitted, “That disturbs me,” but was noncommittal over whether it will change her vote.

Kirk Giles, 50, asserted that it is kind of a guy thing. “There’s not a man alive that’s never looked at porn or did something stupid on porn because we’re men. That’s what men do," he admitted.

But it’s not die-hard Trumpers that the GOP should be worried about losing. There remains a gettable five or six percent of “undecideds” who will likely determine the outcome of the election. If some of the more Republican-leaning ones don’t show up out of disgust, or if this causes more of the fence-sitters to vote Democratic at the last minute, it could easily tip the entire state in the presidential race. 

Indeed, in an increasingly purple state where election outcomes are largely defined by enthusiasm, an embarrassing, gaping hole at the top of the state ticket spells potential doom for Republicans, including those hoping to hold on to their state legislative supermajority.

Rats off a ship

On Sunday, Robinson announced the departure of top campaign officials, including his campaign manager, deputy campaign manager and finance chair. In fact, so many have fled that there are reportedly only three people still working on his campaign.

That now leaves open a huge question: Who will be in charge? With just six weeks to go until Election Day and early voting starting very soon, there isn’t much time to course correct. And there are even fewer experienced campaign managers who would be willing to tie themselves to this sinking boat.

Enter convicted felon Jack Burkman, who announced on Twitter last night that he will be the new campaign manager for Robinson. (The Robinson campaign has not independently confirmed this.) Burkman’s tweet was met with widespread derision. After all, as Mediaite reports, Burkman “is most famous for pushing conspiracy theories about the Democratic National Convention hack during the 2016 presidential election, as well as pushing smears against Democratic lawmaker Pete Buttigieg during his 2020 presidential campaign and Dr. Anthony Fauci.” 

Burkman also created a completely fabricated story about Elizabeth Warren alleging, in part, that the Massachusetts senator (checks notes) had an extramarital affair with a body-building ex-Marine in his mid-20s that also involved heavy BDSM play.

On a more serious note, Burkman was also part of a multistate fraud scheme using robocalls to spread election misinformation to 5,500 Black voters in 2020. He and his co-conspirator Jacob Wohl were found liable and eventually settled with New York Attorney General Letitia James by paying $1.25 million in fines.

Today, Burkman still regularly posts ridiculous and false political claims on social media:

This response was just too good not to share:

If Burkman really is the new guy, it is a match made in hell between two miscreants who deserve each other. In Burkman’s hands, Robinson will likely wind up with criminal charges on top of his current electoral woes. That’s the kind of vibe Burkman brings to nearly everything he touches.

Cringey GOP moments

Over the weekend, there were some awkward interview moments as GOP politicians responded to reporters’ questions about Robinson. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas dodged direct questions, telling CNN’s Jake Tapper only that the allegations were “concerning” and that Robinson owes the people of North Carolina “more answers.”

 Vice Presidential nominee JD Vance similarly squirmed around Robinson-related questions, saying, “I don’t not believe him” before leaving the question to the “court of public opinion.”

It seems when they’re not dodging questions about race-baiting immigrants, they’re dodging questions about the man at the top of the ticket in a critical battleground state.

Over the weekend, Donald Trump, who once praised Robinson as “Martin Luther King on steroids,” appeared at a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina with Robinson nowhere in sight. Trump’s team did not respond to questions about whether the ex-president stands by Robinson. Yet there is trouble brewing around Trump’s public endorsement of the disgraced candidate. As NBC News reported,

There are pockets of advisers within the Trump campaign who have quietly been urging him to withdraw his endorsement of Robinson, but so far those requests have fallen on deaf ears, according to a campaign official who, like others in this piece, was granted anonymity to speak about the matter freely.

Additionally, Republican members of the North Carolina congressional delegation, including Sens. Ted Budd and Thom Tillis, and Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley, who is from North Carolina, planned to privately urge Trump to pull his endorsement of Robinson, according to a person familiar with the conversations. 

It’s hard to discount the fact that Trump feels the need to play defense in North Carolina, or that reverse coattails from Robinson’s failing candidacy could swamp his own electoral chances. As Politico reported, GOP officials in North Carolina believe Robinson’s actual chances of winning the seat are now nearly “nonexistent.” Money has also dried up: While Stein’s campaign plans to spend $13 million in TV ads, a super PAC affiliated with the Republican Governors Association has only $397,000 booked for Robinson, according to AdImpact. 

One fact is inescapable for Republicans: Robinson is a full-out MAGA creation, a right-wing troll with a highly questionable past who rode to power by garnering attention through his outrageous statements and actions. The GOP lavished praise upon Robinson because it pleased their base to witness his rise. But now the troll is out of the cave and in the harsh glare of sunlight, his skin smoking badly from exposure, and all of America can see him for what he is. 

Trump and the GOP now have to pretend they aren’t somehow standing right next to that troll, their earlier accolades still ringing in voters’ ears. With just six weeks to go and the race still balanced on a knife’s edge across the battleground states, this is the last place the Trump campaign wants to be: right beside a monster, back on its heels, and stuck in some pretty nasty political tar.