Mark Robinson’s Campaign Is Collapsing as His Staffers Ditch Him

In the wake of his porn website scandal, North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson’s campaign is quickly falling apart.

Almost all of his staff members resigned Sunday night, including four senior staffers: his campaign manager Chris Rodriguez, finance director Heather Whillier, deputy campaign manager Jason Rizk, and campaign consultant Conrad Pogorzelski III, according to a statement from the campaign.

Robinson has ignored calls from his fellow Republicans to drop out of the race, and the deadline for withdrawing was Thursday. While Donald Trump is still endorsing him, neither the former president nor his running mate, J.D. Vance, will be appearing at any future rallies with Robinson.

In a statement, Robinson, who is also North Carolina’s lieutenant governor, tried to downplay the staff departures.

“I appreciate the efforts of these team members who have made the difficult choice to step away from the campaign, and I wish them well in their future endeavors,” Robinson said. “I look forward to announcing new staff roles in the coming days.”

But who is going to work for Robinson’s staff after hearing about his latest scandal? On Thursday, CNN revealed that he commented on a pornography website’s message board about wanting to own slaves, enjoying transgender porn, and peeping in women’s locker rooms. He even called himself a “Black Nazi” in a comment on the Nude Africa website.

It seems to be the last straw for many Republicans, as Robinson’s previous scandals, while heinous in their own light, didn’t prompt so many calls for him to drop out of the race. Previously, he has minimized the horrors of the Holocaust, said the movie Black Panther was a plot by a “satanic marxist” to pull “shekels” out of Black audiences, likened women getting abortions to murderers, and called gay people “filth” and “maggots.”

Perhaps now Republicans are not only worried about losing the North Carolina governorship, but also the state’s electoral votes in the presidential election. The latest polls show Trump and Kamala Harris nearly deadlocked in a state that voted for the Republican in 2020. With Robinson staying in the race, Democrats might have a shot at a state that was once thought out of reach.

This story has been updated.

With about a month and a half before November’s elections, a sizable fundraising gap is opening up between the two parties, as they vie to claim congressional majorities. The Democratic Party is relatively flush, raking in money for their congressional candidates. Their totals ended up dwarfing the Republicans’ effort last month.

In August, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised $22.3 million, eclipsing the National Republican Congressional Committee’s total of $9.7 million. The NRCC has a total of $70.75 million of cash on hand, more than $16 million less than the DCCC.  

It’s more bad news for the GOP, which also had poor fundraising to report for July, when it spent more money than it took in. The party has been reeling ever since Kamala Harris entered the presidential race in July and set fundraising records. Earlier this month, leading Republicans in Congress panicked about a huge money gap between them and the Democrats, and were begging donors to send more cash their way. 

Their pleas don’t appear to have helped much, if at all. The party lost its key fundraiser when former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted last year, leaving his replacement, Mike Johnson, with big shoes to fill. The party’s shortfall is particularly perilous to the sixteen House Republicans who represent districts that Joe Biden won in 2020. All of their races are considered to be close contests, and any gap in funding gives Democrats an extra advantage.  

The Republicans in these vulnerable swing district can’t expect much, if any help from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, either. His campaign and associated political groups have been funneling profits to his businesses to the tune of $28 million since he first ran for office in 2015.  

Now that his daughter-in-law Lara Trump is a co-chair of the Republican National Committee, Trump also wields considerable influence, if not outright control, over the party’s funds. Considering how high his personal debts and legal expenses are, it’s not hard to imagine the former president and convicted felon diverting the party’s cashflow to his own needful coffers. It seems that the GOP will have to rely on whatever its billionaire friends can pony up.   

Donald Trump has chosen to stand by his man, even though that man allegedly self-described as a “Black Nazi!” in a comment on a porn-site message board.

North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, who is currently running for governor, was the subject of a bombshell report Thursday that revealed the Trump ally had allegedly written on a pornography website’s message board about wanting to own slaves, peeping in women’s locker rooms, and enjoying transgender porn.

Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told NBC News Friday morning that rumors that Trump was planning to pull his endorsement of Robinson were “false.”

“President Trump’s campaign is focused on winning the White House and saving the country,” said Leavitt, without addressing the allegations about Robinson at all.

“North Carolina is a vital part of that plan. We are confident that as voters compare the Trump record of a strong economy, low inflation, a secure border, and safe streets, with the failure of Biden-Harris, then President Trump will win the Tarheel State once again.”

Some within the Trump campaign have been pushing for the former president to withdraw his endorsement. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley and Republican lawmakers in North Carolina planned to speak with Trump privately about dropping Robinson, one person familiar with the conversations told NBC. But it seems unlikely that the Republican presidential nominee will go back on his word—as unreliable as it is—for fear of alienating his fans.

“The problem with it is, while he may feel like that might be a smart move—and I don’t know that he does—there’s no way in hell he’s going to risk the base, which will go furious,” one former senior Trump official told NBC.

Trump Media & Technology Group stock dropped to its lowest price yet Friday, the first day Donald Trump is allowed to sell his shares in the social media venture. 

Shares dropped more than 7 percent to $13.68 per share, putting the value of the company at $2.74 billion. It’s a far cry from when the stock price peaked at nearly $80 per share in March after its initial public offering.

Trump owns 115 million shares of TMTG, about 57 percent of the company, and the stock seems to fluctuate based on public sentiment toward the former president and convicted felon. His poor debate performance against Kamala Harris last week caused a steep drop in the stock price, and the stock also took a hit last month when Trump posted on X (formerly Twitter) after a long hiatus.  

Until Friday, the Republican presidential nominee wasn’t allowed to sell any of his shares unless he had permission from the company’s board of directors. Last week, he promised that he wouldn’t immediately sell his shares, giving the stock a slight bump. But that was quickly erased after the debate and with Friday’s arrival. 

Now what was once a sure cash cow for Trump has lost most of its value, and the former president must be tempted to squeeze whatever profit he can out of it. He has unpaid bills, legal fees, and a massive fraud judgment against him in New York, where the state might seize his assets. He has resorted to absurd moneymaking schemes such as selling NFT trading cards, his own branded Bibles, his own cryptocurrency scam, and assassination-themed sneakers. 

The moment he decides to sell his stock, though, investors’ confidence will plummet and the stock will hit the floor, and that might be the end of Truth Social. The question is what Trump loves more: a quick and easy profit, or his own branded social network. 

Republican Representative James Comer attacked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s family Friday, while defending his blatantly political investigation into the Democratic vice presidential nominee.

During an appearance on Fox Business’s Mornings With Maria, Comer tried to defend the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into Walz, which was announced last month, alleging that the Democratic governor has a “long-standing cozy relationship with China.”

“Yeah, that’s a scary family there,” Comer said of Walz’s family. “It looks like the type of family that’s been indoctrinated.”

As Comer spoke, host Maria Bartiromo looked horrified, and the producers cut away from her.

“They believe that there is a better way to do business,” Comer said. “Some of the things that the Walzes have said about China, their affection for China. That’s very concerning for me because we don’t want to set our business model like China.”

It’s clear, however, that Comer’s investigation is a political ploy to help out Donald Trump. The same week Comer announced his probe into Walz’s ties with China, the House Oversight Committee chair also announced that he would investigate Kamala Harris’s work on the southern border. He previously attempted a similar gambit by spearheading an investigation into the Biden family—which crumbled, having not produced any evidence of the president’s, or his family’s, supposed wrongdoings.

Representative Maxwell Frost, a Democrat from Florida, eviscerated Comer Thursday for going after Walz, as well as his other obvious steps to help Trump.

Frost accused Comer of violating House rules to hold a blatantly political hearing on the alleged failures of the Biden-Harris administration. “How can we allow this hearing to continue, when we are in direct violation of the House rules?” Frost asked.

“This committee functions as an extension of the Trump campaign,” Frost said. “First, we went after President Biden with a nonsense impeachment hearing. Then we went after his son. Now we’re going after the vice president because she’s the nominee. And my question is, Mr. Chairman, are we going after Tim Walz next, next week?

“I hear from my staff that you’re planning a hearing on Governor Tim Walz, even though he’s been governor for five years and his name hasn’t been uttered in this room, or in this committee, until something happened recently—oh yes, he became the vice presidential nominee. Is he next?”

During Frost’s takedown, Representative Jamie Raskin could be seen grinning.

Comer was completely unable to defend his blatant politicking. “His son is going to jail,” Comer said, speaking about Hunter Biden. Frost clarified he was asking about Walz, and Comer sighed, “Ohhh, I’ll have to check.”

Frost said anyone involved in the “blatant use of official resources for a political campaign” should be “ashamed of themselves.”

Clearly, Comer is shameless, and so bent on helping Trump he’ll say anything, no matter how egregious.