Former President Donald Trump endorsed North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson in the state’s gubernatorial race, comparing the Black Republican candidate to “Martin Luther King on steroids,” despite Robinson’s history of controversial statements concerning gender, race and sexuality.
Robinson, who won the gubernatorial primary election on Tuesday, March 5, is now slated to face North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein.
“This is Martin Luther King on steroids,” Trump said Saturday during a rally speech at a pre-Super Tuesday event in Greensboro, North Carolina. “I told that to Mark. I said, I think you’re better than Martin Luther King. I think you are Martin Luther King times two,” Trump told the crowd ahead of Tuesday’s primary.
Trump reiterated his comparison of Robinson to the late civil rights leader, which he initially mentioned during a gathering at his Mar-a-Lago resort back in December, according to video from the event.
“First, it was the voice,” Trump said of Robinson at the time. “And then, I said, ‘You know what, I swear, I think you’re better than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’”
Robinson, who is also a pastor, endorsed Trump for re-election in June at the Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference in Washington, D.C.
The GOP front-runner to become the next governor of North Carolina, Robinson previously faced criticism for a series of hurtful comments about women, Muslims, Jews, homosexuality, and sexual abuse victims. He also fought against teaching critical race theory in state schools and said children should be taught about Adolf Hitler and other dictators.
Robinson has mocked school shooting survivors who advocate for gun control. He also once proclaimed that African-Americans owed reparations for being emancipated from slavery.
“There were some people talking about reparations in this country,” Robinson said during a speech at the 2021 North Carolina Republican State Convention. “And I remember I made this particular liberal so angry at me because I told them — right to their face — nobody owes you anything for slavery
Critics also cite his use of anti-Semitic stereotypes and his promotion of Holocaust denialism, but late last year, Robinson sought to distance himself from the self-inflicted controversies.
“There have been some Facebook posts that were poorly worded on my part,” he told the state Legislature in October. “There is no anti-Semitism standing here in front of you.”
The Trump campaign issued a statement calling Robinson “a great American who is well respected by the people of North Carolina,” according to NBC News.
“The mainstream media’s attacks on African Americans who support President Trump is old and exhausting,” the statement said, “but we expect them to increase as polling proves more and more Black Americans are choosing to support Trump over Biden.”
Trump’s latest comments raised questions of whether the former president is deliberately incorporating racial references into his speeches, as Trump has been known to use innuendo and dog whistles as a political tool to rile up his MAGA base.
Previously, Trump gave a speech at a campaign rally in Waterford Township, Michigan, where he slipped the “N-word” into bluster about political enemies and his ongoing legal troubles.
Days later, Trump gave a controversial speech before the annual Black Conservative Federation gala in South Carolina, which Democrats later criticized as pandering to the Black community.
During the speech, Trump called President Joe Biden “a very nasty and vicious racist” and then set off a bigger firestorm by suggesting that the mugshot from his arrest in Fulton County, Georgia, last summer had boosted his popularity among Black voters.
“I got indicted for nothing, for something that is nothing,” Trump told the audience of Black conservatives. “I got indicted a second time and a third time and a fourth time, and a lot of people said that’s why the Black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they actually viewed me as I’m being discriminated against.”
Trump claimed that Black people embraced the mug shot more than any other racial group in America due to his shared experiences of discrimination.
“My mug shot, we’ve all seen the mug shot, and you know who embraced it more than anybody else? The Black population. You see Black people walking around with my mug shot, you know. They do shirts, and they sell them for $19 apiece. It’s pretty amazing—millions by the way.”
In recent weeks, Trump has also ramped up his attacks on Biden in an effort to make progress with Black voters as Biden faced challenges reestablishing himself with constituents who had grown apathetic since his election in 2020.
Since then, Biden has faced increasing criticism from progressives who claimed the incumbent was losing considerable support among Black voters.
Republicans anticipate that Trump will perform better with Black voters in November than he did in the 2020 election, pointing to Biden’s declining poll numbers.
Ahead of the state’s Democratic primary earlier this month, polls showed voters turning increasingly sour on Biden’s policies, with the president’s lead slipping with people under the age of 30 and among Hispanic voters, while 22 percent of Black voters said they planned to support the Republican nominee in the next election.
Trump believes he holds an advantage on issues such as the economy and the record number of migrants flooding into the U.S. from Mexico, many of whom are being transferred to cities with significant Black populations.
Black voters have, in recent years, witnessed a shift, particularly among Black men, who are increasingly placing trust in the GOP to address concerns related to the ability to build generational wealth, while a growing number of Black Americans harbor a growing sense of disappointment with Democrats, who had fallen short of addressing persistent issues affecting the Black community.
