Senator Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) said Sunday that Republican gubernatorial candidate and North Carolina lieutenant governor Mark Robinson is “the antithesis of everything Dr. (Martin Luther) King stood for,” describing him as “white supremacy with blackface.”
In an interview on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki,” Warnock attacked Robinson, who was the subject of a CNN report last week that said Robinson made several offensive comments on a pornographic website, including expressing support for slavery, calling himself a “black NAZI,” describing Martin Luther King Jr. as “worse than a maggot” and saying that if he had “been in the Ku Klux Klan,” he would have called the late civil rights leader “Martin Luther Koon.” Robinson has denied the report.
“(Robinson) talks about wanting to bring back slavery. I mean, that talk is completely outrageous. Calling himself a black Nazi. Those are his words,” Warnock told Psaki.
Warnock reflected on Robinson’s words, pointing out that he is the current pastor of the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church in Georgia, where King served as co-pastor from 1960 until his assassination in 1968.
The senator also compared Robinson to former President Donald Trump, saying, “The people of North Carolina need to understand that this is Donald Trump’s candidate.”
Warnock accused Trump of supporting Robinson for the same reasons that Trump supported Warnock’s 2022 opponent, former professional football player Herschel Walker.
“(Trump) tried that in my campaign. It’s not the first time he’s put forward a black candidate who is unsuitable and unqualified, with the cynical notion that the electorate will somehow be confused about who that person represents,” Warnock said.
Trump has not spoken about Robinson since the CNN report was published, but has praised him several times before. Robinson was conspicuously absent from Trump’s rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, on Saturday.
At a rally last month in Asheboro, North Carolina, Trump wished Robinson good luck, telling attendees: “Mark has to win. He has to win. He has to win. He’s a good man.”
In March, Trump called Robinson “Martin Luther King on steroids” at a rally ahead of Super Tuesday in Greensboro, North Carolina.
“That’s what I told Mark. I said, ‘I think you’re better than Martin Luther King. I think you’re Martin Luther King times two,'” the former president said at the time.
NBC News reported last week that despite pressure from allies and his own campaign team, the former president has no plans to officially withdraw his support for Robinson.
