Ohio Senator JD Vance‘s response to a reporter’s question on Saturday about North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson‘s recent scandal has gained traction on social media.
Robinson, the GOP lieutenant governor of North Carolina, and his campaign were rocked by a CNN report on Thursday that alleged he made racist and sexist posts on a pornography website over a decade ago. Robinson, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump, has repeatedly denied writing the posts and has said he’ll stay in the race.
Vance, Trump’s running mate, was in Leesport, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, where he told an NBC News reporter that the allegations against Robinson are “pretty far out there” and that “allegations aren’t necessarily reality.”
The reporter asked Vance if he was “comfortable with Mark Robinson as the Republican nominee for governor in North Carolina?”
Vance responded: “It’s ultimately up to Mark Robinson and North Carolina whether he’s going to be their governor and whether he wants to stay in the race.”
When Vance was asked if he believes that those were not Robinson’s post, he said, “I don’t not believe him, I don’t believe him—I just think that you have to let these things sometimes play out in the court of public opinion,” Vance said.
This segment of his answer has been circulating on X, formerly Twitter, with many users sharing the video with incredulous and critical commentary. A short clip posted by journalist Aaron Rupar has been viewed over 1.3 million times and reposted 1,300 times, as of Sunday afternoon.
Former tennis professional Andy Roddick called Vance’s response “word salad.”
X user Poli Alert wrote, “This is incredible.”
Civil attorney Daniel Aguilar reshared the video and wrote on X “beyond parody,” which has now been viewed over 64,500 times.
Aaron Fritschner, a Democratic communications coordinator currently working on Vice President Kamala Harris‘ Virginia campaign, wrote in an X post, “Is there a worse way to do this? Possibly not!”
Newsweek reached out to Vance’s communications team for comment via email Sunday.
Republican vice presidential nominee Senator JD Vance, an Ohio Republican, is seen in Leesport, Pennsylvania on September 21. Vance’s response to a reporter’s question on Saturday about North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson’s recent scandal has gained traction on social media.
Sean Simmers/The Patriot-News via AP
In its report, CNN said that Robinson allegedly called himself a “Black NAZI,” defended slavery, repeated homophobic slurs and fondly recalled “peeping” on women. CNN did not include many of the posts given their graphic nature.
The following day, The Washington Post reported that “minisoldr,” the username believed to be affiliated with Robinson on the Nude Africa pornography website, also expressed an affinity for Nazi literature.
“Mein Kampf is a good read,” the user reportedly wrote in a thread on book recommendations. “It’s very informative and not at all what I thought it would be. It’s a real eye opener.”
Robinson denied that he was behind those posts to CNN and in a video message posted to his social media accounts. “The things you see in that story are not my words. You know my words, my character, and I’ve been completely transparent in this campaign,” he said in the video.
Later in the interview, Vance said about Robinson, “He’s going to make whatever arguments he wants to make. I’m sure the news media and others are going to investigate these comments further.” He later said that Trump and him “don’t have any plans to campaign with him [Robinson].”
On Saturday afternoon, Trump held a rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, a heavily contested battleground state. Robinson did not speak at the rally.
