As Donald Trump campaigns in North Carolina today, DNC Chair Jaime Harrison released the following statement: 

“Donald Trump and his MAGA ally Mark Robinson are peddling a dangerous and divisive agenda to North Carolinians, but the voters aren’t buying it. Trump and Robinson are both MAGA extremists who are running on the same unpopular platform of outlawing abortion, threatening our democracy, and attacking public schools and teachers. Voters in North Carolina understand what’s at stake up and down the ballot, and they know both Trump and Robinson are too extreme for the Tar Heel State.”

Trump has teamed up with anti-abortion extremist Mark Robinson, who has said a pregnant woman’s body isn’t hers anymore, likened abortion to murder, railed against exceptions for rape or incest, and threw his support behind a six-week abortion ban. 

Cardinal & Pine: “Robinson is on the record calling abortion ‘murder,’ and has asserted that once a woman is pregnant ‘it’s not [her] body anymore.’ When the Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade last year, Robinson said in a statement that he was ‘overjoyed’ by the decision and that he had been ‘praying’ for such a thing to happen.”

Fox 8: “[Robinson said] that if he had the authority, abortion would be completely illegal in the state … ‘If I had all the power right now, say I was the governor and had a willing legislature, we could pass a bill right now that says you can’t get an abortion in North Carolina for any reason. … I’d love to pass a law. I’d love to see a heartbeat bill proposed in our legislature.’”

CBS 17: “Robinson: ‘Next goal’ is to restrict abortion at six weeks in NC”

WRAL: “At one point during Friday’s speech, a precursor to the main address former President Donald Trump would give the convention Saturday, the lieutenant governor explained why he rejects all abortion, including in cases of rape and incest. ‘What about in cases of rape or incest?’ Robinson said, changing his voice to impersonate an abortion rights advocate. ‘It reminds me of the argument about seatbelts,’ Robinson said.”

Robinson has peddled Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. 

The News & Observer: “‘Yeah, I said that.’ Mark Robinson embraced Trump’s false claims on 2020 election”

“[Trump] continues to push false claims about the election, and an audio recording obtained by The News & Observer shows Robinson has embraced those claims. Robinson, who has endorsed Trump, said in a speech at a church in 2021 that Biden ‘stole the election,’ the recording shows.”

While Trump continues his pursuit of repealing the Affordable Care Act, Mark Robinson has railed against giving hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians access to health care by expanding Medicaid. 

The News & Observer: “Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the presumed frontrunner for the GOP nomination for governor in 2024, has said he doesn’t think the state should expand Medicaid. In September 2022, Robinson told Business NC that he wasn’t in favor of expansion and hoped the effort to expand Medicaid failed, because he didn’t want health care in the state ‘to be turned over to the federal government.’”

Robinson has attacked North Carolina’s public schools and teachers and is calling to strip science and social studies classes from elementary schools.

Robinson: “The way to do this is to demand proficiency in reading, writing, and math in grades one through five. In those grades, we don’t need to be teaching social studies. We don’t need to be teaching science. We surely don’t need to be talking about equity and social justice. I’ll say it again: we need to be teaching kids how to read, how to write, and how to do mathematics. If I were totally in charge of education, that’s the course I would set in North Carolina.””

Robinson has called public school teachers “wicked people” and “so-called people” who are “wrong headed” and urged parents not to send their children to North Carolina’s public schools.

Robinson continues to put the gun lobby over the safety of our children and even publicly berated mass shooting survivors. 

The Charlotte Observer Editorial Board: “As mass shootings continue unabated, NC Lt. Gov. Robinson cozies up to gun lobby”

CNN: “North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the current Republican favorite to be the party’s nominee for governor in 2024, has a long history of remarks viciously mocking and attacking teenage survivors of the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, for their advocacy for gun control measures. In posts after the shooting, Robinson called the students ‘spoiled, angry, know it all CHILDREN,’ ‘spoiled little bastards,’ and ‘media prosti-tots.’ Robinson, whose political rise as a conservative Internet personality started when a clip of him speaking at a city council meeting in April 2018 went viral, as he was speaking against a proposal to cancel a local gun show after the Parkland shooting. He also began attacking the Parkland survivors after they launched the ‘March for Our Lives’ movement that called for new gun control measures, comparing the students to communists.”

The News & Observer: “North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson delivered a fiery defense of gun ownership at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in Houston, vowing to continue fighting against supporters of stricter gun laws who he said want to disarm all Americans… The NRA’s decision to move ahead with the three-day annual gathering as planned has come under intense scrutiny this week after a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday left 19 children and two teachers dead.”

Like Trump, Robinson also has a long and shameful history of spewing hate. 

WRAL: “Robinson said this Sunday during a church service outside Charlotte that God created him specifically to fight against the push for LGBTQ rights and visibility, which he says is turning America into a ‘hellhole.’ ‘I was not crafted to be Mr. Nicey-Nice,’ Robinson said. ‘… God formed me because he knew there was going to be a time when God’s learning was going to be intolerable to the wicked. When children were going to be dragged down to go see the drag show. When pornography was going to be presented to our children in schools.’  Later on, he also slammed Christian churches that are accepting toward gay and lesbian people.  ‘Makes me sick every time I see it — a church that flies that Rainbow flag, which is a direct spit in the face of God almighty,’ he said.”

Talking Points Memo: “In particular, the Black community has been a major target for Robinson. In various posts over the years he referred to Black people as ‘muddle headed negroes,’ ‘apes,’ and ‘a monkey.’ ‘February is Black History Month. I guess the shortest month of the year is all we need to learn about the separate but equal history of a people who have achieved so little,’ Robinson wrote in 2014.”

Jewish Insider: “Last fall, Raleigh’s News & Observer unearthed an interview in which Robinson spoke with a fringe pastor, Sean Moon, who claimed that the modern incarnation of the four horsemen of the apocalypse includes China, the CIA, Islam and the Rothschild family of ‘international bankers that rule every single national or federal reserve-type style of central bank in every single country.’ Rather than objecting to the blatantly antisemitic conspiracy theory, Robinson grunted along in agreement. ‘That’s exactly right,’ he said.”

HuffPost: “Top GOP Candidate For N.C. Governor Has A History Of Demeaning Successful Women.”