RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson will not speak or appear at former President Donald Trump 's rally on Saturday in the eastern part of his state following a CNN report about his alleged posts on a pornography website's message board, two people familiar with the matter said Friday.
Robinson is not expected to attend the event in Wilmington, according to a person on the Trump campaign and a second person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning.
Robinson has been a frequent presence at Trump's North Carolina campaign stops. The Republican nominee has referred to Robinson, who is Black, as “Martin Luther King on steroids" and long praised him. But in the wake of Thursday's CNN report, the Trump campaign issued a statement that didn't mention Robinson and instead spoke generally about how North Carolina was key to the campaign's efforts.
With the deadline now passed for him to withdraw, Robinson remained the Republican candidate for governor on Friday. His decision to keep campaigning could threaten GOP prospects in other key races, including Trump's efforts in a battleground state he twice won.
Robinson has denied writing the posts, which include racial and sexual comments. He said wouldn't be forced out of the race by “salacious tabloid lies.” While Robinson won his GOP gubernatorial primary in March, he's been trailing in several recent polls to Democratic nominee Josh Stein, the state's attorney general.
“Let me reassure you the things that you will see in that story — those are not the words of Mark Robinson,” he told supporters in a video released by his campaign. “You know my words. You know my character.”
State law says a gubernatorial nominee had until Thursday night to withdraw as a candidate, the day before the first absentee ballots requested by military and overseas voters are distributed. The State Board of Elections is unaware of any such withdrawal notice, spokesperson Pat Gannon said. State Republican leaders could have picked a replacement had a withdrawal occurred.
“We are staying in this race," Robinson said in the video. "We are in it to win it."
Robinson has a history of inflammatory comments that Stein has said made him too extreme to lead North Carolina. They already have contributed to the prospect that campaign struggles for Robinson could help Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris win the state’s 16 electoral votes.
“The fallout is going to be huge,” Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University, said Friday.
Losing swing district races for a congressional seat and the General Assembly would endanger the GOP's control of the U.S. House and retaining veto-proof majorities at the legislature.
CNN, which describes a series of comments that it said Robinson posted on the message board more than a decade ago, sent tremors through the state’s political class. While the state Republican Party came to Robinson’s defense, individual GOP leaders raised concerns and suggested Robinson needed to address the allegations more fully.
CNN reported that Robinson, who would be North Carolina’s first Black governor, attacked civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in searing terms and once referred to himself as a “black NAZI.” CNN also reported that Robinson wrote of being aroused by a memory of “peeping” women in gym showers when he was 14 along with an appreciation of transgender pornography. Robinson at one point referred to himself as a “perv,” according to CNN.
The Associated Press has not independently confirmed that Robinson wrote and posted the messages. CNN said it matched details of the account on the pornographic website forum to other online accounts held by Robinson by comparing usernames, a known email address and his full name.
CNN reported that details discussed by the account holder matched Robinson’s age, length of marriage and other biographical information. It also compared figures of speech that came up frequently in his public Twitter profile that appeared in discussions by the account on the pornographic website.
The state GOP said in a statement late Thursday that while Robinson has “categorically denied the allegations" it wouldn’t “stop the Left from trying to demonize him via personal attacks.”
But U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who endorsed a Robinson rival in the primary — citing Robinson's lack of legislative and business experience — said on X that Thursday “was a tough day, but we must stay focused on the races we can win."
“If Harris takes NC, she takes the White House," he added. "We can't let that happen.”
Democrats jumped on Robinson and other Republicans after the report aired, using every opportunity to show on social media photos of Robinson with Trump or with other GOP candidates attempting to tarnish them by association.
Stein and his allies have highlighted past comments by Robinson, such as a Facebook post from 2019 in which Robinson said abortion in America was about “killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.” And there's a 2021 speech by Robinson in a church in which he used the word “filth” when discussing gay and transgender people.
Robinson, 56, was elected lieutenant governor in his first bid for public office in 2020. He tells a life story of childhood poverty, jobs that he blames the North American Free Trade Agreement for ending, and personal bankruptcy.
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, a top surrogate for Harris, said late Thursday on X that Trump and state GOP leaders “embraced Mark Robinson for years knowing who he was and what he stood for ... They reap what they sow.”
Price reported from New York.
Robinson will not appear at Trump's North Carolina rally after report on alleged online comments
Robinson will not appear at Trump's North Carolina rally after report on alleged online comments
FILE - North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson speaks before Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump at a campaign rally in Asheville, N.C., Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
An Israeli airstrike in Beirut killed at least 12 people and wounded dozens more, Lebanese health officials said. It was the first such Israeli attack on Lebanon’s capital in months and came shortly after Hezbollah pounded northern Israel with 140 rockets.
The Israeli military said its airstrike killed Ibrahim Akil, a senior Hezbollah military official. There was no immediate confirmation of his death from Hezbollah.
Hezbollah said that its attacks had targeted several Israeli military sites along the border with Katyusha rockets, including multiple air defense bases as well as the headquarters of an Israeli armored brigade they said they’d struck for the first time.
In Gaza, Palestinian authorities said 15 people were killed overnight in Israeli attacks.
Israel maintains it targets only militants and accuses Hamas and other armed groups of endangering civilians by operating in residential areas. The military had no immediate comment.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that sparked the Israel-Hamas war. The ministry does not differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count but says a little over half of those killed were women and children.
Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
Here's the latest:
BEIRUT — Lebanon’s Health Ministry has raised the death toll from Friday's Israeli airstrike on Beirut to 12. It says 66 more people were wounded, nine of them with serious injuries.
The Israeli strike in the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital flattened two apartment buildings.
The Israeli military said the strike killed Ibrahim Akil, a senior Hezbollah military official. There was no immediate confirmation of his death from Hezbollah.
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Friday said that his administration must keep working at trying to win a cease-fire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas as tensions rise along the Israel-Lebanon border.
The president’s comments came hours after Israel carried out what it called targeted strikes near Beirut. The action is raising concerns that the nearly yearlong Gaza war could spread into a larger regional war.
“We are continuing to try to do what we tried in the beginning to make sure that both the people of northern Israel as well as southern Lebanon are able to get back to their homes and go back safely,” Biden said in an exchange with reporters at the start of a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
Asked if getting an agreement may be slipping out of reach in the final months of his presidency, Biden said he still had hope and that his national security team continues to work.
“If I ever said it wasn’t realistic, we might as well leave,” Biden said. “A lot of things don’t look realistic until we get them done. We have to keep at it.”
JERUSALEM — The Israeli military announced that its airstrike Friday on a neighborhood of Beirut killed Ibrahim Akil, a senior Hezbollah military official. There was no immediate confirmation of his death from Hezbollah.
The Israeli strike in the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital killed at least nine people and wounded nearly 60 others, according to Lebanese health officials, and flattened two apartment buildings. The Israeli military also claimed that its strike killed other “top operatives” of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, without elaborating.
A Hezbollah official has confirmed that Akil was supposed to be in the building in the Dahiya district that was hit.
Akil has served on Hezbollah’s highest military body, the Jihad Council, and has been sanctioned by the United States for being involved in two terrorist attacks in 1983 that killed more than 300 people at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the U.S. Marine Corps barracks.
JERUSALEM — Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shortened a planned trip to the U.S. because of rising tensions with Hezbollah, according to an Israeli official.
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media on the matter. Netanyahu is supposed to travel to the U.S. ahead of a planned speech at the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday.
The decision to shorten the trip comes as tensions with Hezbollah threaten to spiral into an all-out war, following an Israeli strike targeting a senior Hezbollah leader in a southern suburb of Beirut.
— By Julia Frankel
BERUIT — An Israeli airstrike hit Beirut on Friday, killing at least eight people and wounding nearly 60 others in the first such Israeli attack on Lebanon’s capital in months.
The Israeli strike on Beirut’s crowded southern suburbs hit during rush hour, as people headed home from work and children left school. Local networks broadcast footage that showed at least two buildings completely flattened and the main street ravaged in Dahiyeh, just kilometers from downtown Beirut where Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group holds sway.
The strike came after Hezbollah pounded Israel with 140 rockets earlier Friday and tensions threaten to spill into all-out war.
WASHINGTON — The White House says a video showing Israeli soldiers pushing three apparently lifeless bodies from rooftops during a raid in the northern part of the occupied West Bank “deeply disturbing.”
An AP journalist in the town of Qabatiya witnessed three soldiers push the bodies off the roofs of adjacent multi-story buildings, sending them falling out of view.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters Friday that “it clearly would depict abhorrent and egregious behavior by professional soldiers” if the video is found to be authentic.
"We reached out immediately to our Israeli counterparts about it, and we pressed them for more details,” he said. “They have assured us that they’re going to investigate this, and that there will be proper accountability if it’s warranted. And we’re going to be very eager to see what the IDF investigation finds.”
The Israeli military in a statement called it “a serious incident that does not coincide with IDF values and the expectations from IDF soldiers,” using the acronym the military goes by.
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration continues to hold on to hope that surging tensions between Israel and Hezbollah won’t escalate into all-out war following Israel Defense Forces air strike Friday near Beirut.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said he was unaware of Israel providing the U.S. any forewarning ahead of the operation.
“We still believe that there is time and space for a diplomatic solution,” Kirby said. “We think that that is the best way forward. War is not inevitable up there at the Blue Line. And we’re going to continue to do everything we can to prevent it.”
The Israeli strikes near Beirut followed two waves of deadly attacks earlier this week of hundreds of hand-held pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah militants exploding. The sophisticated sabotage operations are widely believed to be carried out by Israel.
The White House has declined to publicly comment on the electronic device attacks beyond saying the U.S. was not involved.
Palestinian authorities say 15 people were killed overnight in the Gaza Strip in multiple Israeli attacks.
An airstrike early Friday morning in Gaza City hit a family home, killing six people including an unknown number of children, Gaza’s Civil Defense said. Another person was killed in Gaza City when a strike hit a group of people on a street.
In Beit Hanoun, north of Gaza City, another person was killed and several others injured when a vehicle was hit by an Israeli strike, the Civil Defense said.
Late Thursday, six more people were killed in a strike that hit a home in the center of Gaza City, while another was killed in Beit Lahya, north of Gaza City.
Israel maintains it only targets militants and accuses Hamas and other armed groups of endangering civilians by operating in residential areas. The military, which rarely comments on individual strikes, had no immediate comment.
The war has caused vast destruction and displaced about 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million.
Israel's foreign ministry said Friday it submitted two legal briefs in response to the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s request for arrest warrants against the country's leaders.
The court’s prosecutor is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as top Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and other Hamas leaders. One of them was since assassinated in what was believed to be an Israeli strike.
The foreign ministry said it has submitted two legal briefs challenging the court’s jurisdiction to arrest Israeli leaders and claiming the court did not provide Israel the opportunity to investigate itself before requesting the warrants.
“No other democracy with an independent and respected legal system like that which exists in Israel has been treated in this prejudicial manner by the Prosecutor,” wrote Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein on the social media platform X. He said Israel remained “steadfast in its commitment to the rule of law and justice” and would continue to protect its citizens against militancy.
Israel is not a party to the court. Rights groups say the country has struggled to investigate itself in the past. Netanyahu has brushed off calls for a state investigation into the failings that led to the Oct. 7 attack.
BAGHDAD — A leader of an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia was killed Friday in a strike in Syria, a war monitor and a militia official said.
Iraq’s Kataeb Hezbollah group — which is different from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah — said in a statement that Abu Haidar al-Khafaji was killed “while performing his duties as a security advisor in Damascus.”
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had earlier reported that a leader in Iraq’s Kataeb Hezbollah group was killed and another person injured in a drone strike on the car they were traveling in on the road to the Damascus airport.
An official with an Iraqi militia confirmed that a car carrying a group of militia members was struck in Damascus, killing one person and injuring three others. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
There was no comment from Israeli officials on the strike. Israel frequently strikes Iranian and Iran-linked groups in Syria but rarely acknowledges the strikes.
Tensions have heightened in the region following a wave of apparently remotely detonated explosions in Lebanon targeting pagers and walkie talkies belonging to the Lebanese Hezbollah. The attacks, widely blamed on Israel, which has not commented on them, killed at least 37 people - including two children - and wounded about 3,000.
— By Qassim Abdul-Zahra
BEIRUT — Israel’s military killed two Hezbollah members who were planting explosives along the border over the weekend, Israel’s military and an official with a Lebanese group said.
The official with a Lebanese group said the two members of the militant group were killed Sunday and their bodies were taken by Israeli troops because they were too close to the fence along the tense frontier. The official spoke Friday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
On Thursday, Israel’s military released a video it said was taken by one of the fighters showing the militants coming under fire. The military said that the two fighters were killed by Israeli troops as they tried to plant an improvised explosive device near a military post.
In the days following the tense border interaction, thousands of devices exploded in different parts of Lebanon and Syria, killing 37 people and wounding around 3,000 others. The attack was blamed on Israel, and many of those killed or injured were members of Hezbollah.
Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue contributed to this report.
A woman grieves during the funeral for three Palestinian militants killed in an Israeli military operation in the West Bank town of Qabatiya, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Mourners march during the funeral for three Palestinian militants killed in an Israeli military operation in the West Bank town of Qabatiya, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Mourners gather around the flag-draped casket of Israeli reservist Major Nael Fwarsy, one of two soldiers killed by a Lebanese drone attack on northern Israel, during his funeral in Maghar, Israel, Friday, Sept 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)
Israeli Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept a rocket fired from Lebanon, in northern Israel, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Ambulances arrive at the scene of an Israeli missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
People stand on top of a damaged car at the scene of a missile strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Hezbollah members carry the coffin of their comrade who was killed when a handheld device exploded, during a funeral procession in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Right-wing Israelis with relatives held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and their supporters, rally against a hostage deal, in Jerusalem, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. The placard in Hebrew reads: " To bathe in his blood." (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)
Houses are engulfed in fire as the Israeli army raided the northern West Bank town of Qabatiya on Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
Palestinians duck for cover as the Israeli army raided the northern West Bank town of Qabatiya on Thursday, Sept.19, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
FILE - Hezbollah fighters carry one of the coffins of four fallen comrades who were killed Tuesday after their handheld pagers exploded, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein, File)
