{"id":607,"date":"2024-11-11T11:12:41","date_gmt":"2024-11-11T11:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/on-north-carolinas-mark-robinson-did-vance-miss-the-memo\/"},"modified":"2024-11-11T11:12:41","modified_gmt":"2024-11-11T11:12:41","slug":"on-north-carolinas-mark-robinson-did-vance-miss-the-memo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/on-north-carolinas-mark-robinson-did-vance-miss-the-memo\/","title":{"rendered":"On North Carolina\u2019s Mark Robinson, did Vance miss the memo?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/picture><\/a><\/div>\n
\n

About a month ago, as North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson was mired in scandal and losing GOP support, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether he\u2019d pull his endorsement from his party\u2019s gubernatorial nominee in the Tar Heel State.<\/p>\n

\u201cUh, I don\u2019t know the situation,\u201d the former president replied<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Last week, while campaigning in North Carolina, Trump was asked again about whether he continued to support Robinson\u2019s statewide candidacy. \u201cI\u2019m not familiar with the race,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cI haven\u2019t seen it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The answers were unsatisfying, but they were at least rational. Trump is certainly a highly provocative and unpopular figure in his own right, but Robinson has become politically radioactive. It didn\u2019t surprise anyone to see the former president \u2014 who\u2019d previously championed the lieutenant governor\u2019s bid \u2014 keep the gubernatorial hopeful at arm\u2019s length.<\/p>\n

What was surprising was when Trump\u2019s running mate, just days later, did the opposite.<\/p>\n

Campaigning in North Carolina, Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance \u2014 unprompted \u2014 said at an event<\/a>, \u201cI want to give a shoutout to \u2014 you guys have a great lieutenant governor.\u201d<\/p>\n

A moment later, looking down at his notes, the Ohio senator added, \u201cSorry, um, we got \u2014 sorry. Mark isn\u2019t here.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was, to be sure, a rather awkward moment, with Vance apparently expecting Robinson to be on hand for the event, only to learn otherwise in real time. But putting the clumsiness aside, there was a larger question hanging overhead:<\/p>\n

Since when does the Trump campaign tout Robinson as \u201ca great lieutenant governor\u201d?<\/p>\n

We are, after all, talking about a right-wing candidate who reportedly posted to a porn forum, described himself<\/a> as a \u201cNazi,\u201d argued that slavery wasn\u2019t necessarily a \u201cbad\u201d thing<\/a> and had positive things to say about Adolf Hitler\u2019s book<\/a>, among other things.<\/p>\n

While the GOP candidate has said the reporting is wrong, Blue Light News also reported<\/a> that user data showed \u201cthat the person using the \u2018Nude Africa\u2019 account that reportedly belonged to Robinson had accessed the porn website from a location not far from Robinson\u2019s home.\u201d<\/p>\n

A great many Republicans have found the meticulously reported allegations credible. Indeed, much of Robinson\u2019s campaign staff \u2014 who were apparently unbothered by all of the earlier revelations<\/a> about the radical candidate \u2014 resigned en masse<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n

They weren\u2019t the only ones who jumped ship. Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, the senior senator from Robinson\u2019s home state, indicated that he\u2019s not going to vote for<\/a> his party\u2019s gubernatorial nominee. Around the same time, two Republican governors \u2014 Georgia\u2019s Brian Kemp<\/a> and Tennessee\u2019s Bill Lee<\/a> \u2014 withdrew their Robinson endorsements.<\/p>\n

So, why is it exactly, that Vance still thinks he\u2019s \u201cgreat,\u201d even as his running mate avoids saying Robinson\u2019s name out loud?<\/p>\n

This post updates our <\/em>related earlier coverage<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
<\/picture><\/a><\/div>\n

Steve Benen<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of\u00a0MaddowBlog\u00a0and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About a month ago, as North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson was mired in scandal and losing GOP support, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether he\u2019d pull his endorsement from his party\u2019s gubernatorial nominee in the Tar Heel State. \u201cUh, I don\u2019t know the situation,\u201d the former president replied. Last week, while campaigning in North […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}