J.D. Vance, Other Republicans, Refuse to Disavow Self-Proclaimed ‘Black Nazi’ Mark Robinson

Prominent Republicans — Sens. J.D. Vance, Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton — all refused to disavow North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson following reporting by CNN that uncovered comments he made online calling himself a “black NAZI” and supporting reinstating slavery before entering politics.

When asked about Robinson’s inflammatory posts, GOP vice presidential nominee Vance equivocated. “I don’t not believe him, I don’t believe him. I just think that you have to let these things sometimes play out in the court of public opinion,” he said Saturday.

Cotton also declined to disavow Robinson, telling CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday, “They’re concerning allegations. He owes the people of North Carolina more answers about it… I’ll leave it to the people of North Carolina.”

On NBC’s Meet the Press, Graham said that Robinson “deserves a chance to defend himself.”

“The charges are beyond unnerving. If they’re true, he’s unfit to serve for office,” Graham continued. “If they’re not true, he has the best lawsuit in the history of the country, for libel.”

Robinson, the Trump-endorsed Republican nominee for governor in his state, made the comments on a message board on pornography site “Nude Africa” between 2008-2012. Online, he praised Hitler’s book Mein Kampf and said that Hitler would have been better than Barrack Obama.

As a candidate, Robinson has attacked the transgender community, but in the message board, he admitted to enjoying “tranny on girl porn” and peeping into a women’s locker room as a teenager. In February, Robinson said that trans people needing a bathroom should “find a corner outside somewhere to go.”

Robinson denied making the comments on the message board. “This is not us. These are not our words. And this is not anything that is characteristic of me,” Robinson told CNN, adding, “I’m not going to get into the minutia of how somebody manufactured this, these salacious tabloid lies.”

If you’ve been paying attention to Robinson, his fondness for Nazis might not be all that surprising. He has frequently denied the Holocaust, and he quoted Hitler in a Facebook post that said “pride in one’s own race… is also a normal and healthy sentiment.”

“I am so sick of seeing and hearing people STILL talk about Nazis and Hitler and how evil and manipulative they were,” Robinson wrote on Facebook in 2017. “ NEWS FLASH PEOPLE, THE NAZIS (National Socialist) ARE GONE! We did away with them.”

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