Mark Robinson breaks silence on scandal, personal failures in new interview

Mark Robinson sat down with After the Call host Josh Hall to discuss his scandals and personal failures. (Image from After the Call YouTube page.)

Former North Carolina lieutenant governor and Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson broke his silence in a wide-ranging interview on After the Call, a faith-focused video program, released March 19.

Robinson — whose rapid rise from unknown Greensboro factory worker in 2018 to statewide elected office two years later made him a national figure — opened up publicly for the first time about the CNN exposé that consumed the final weeks of his 2024 campaign, the personal failings he says helped make him a target, and what he believes comes next for his life.

In the interview, Robinson reflected on the months following his lopsided loss to Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein in the 2024 governor’s race, describing the time as the lowest and darkest period of his life.

“I felt like I had let so many people down,” Robinson said. “I felt like I disappointed an entire state and in some ways almost disappointed an entire nation.”

Robinson said the period following his election loss was more difficult than the night the scandal first broke, describing it as a time of deep personal reflection and regret. During the campaign, he said, the fight kept him focused. But once it ended, he said the full weight of what had happened set in.

“I had thoughts at that moment I never had in my life before,” he said. “I literally felt like — what are you going to do now? You’re never going to be the same.”

Robinson said spending time with his grandchildren helped pull him through, noting they were unaware of the political turmoil surrounding him. He also said he enrolled at Liberty University to pursue a master’s degree after leaving office, but acknowledged struggling to concentrate in the aftermath of the campaign.

A viral moment in 2018

Robinson recounted in the interview how his public profile began with a 2018 Greensboro City Council meeting called to address potential restrictions on the city’s gun show in the wake of the Parkland school shooting. Robinson, then a factory worker with no political experience, said he attended the meeting as an observer but decided to speak after growing frustrated with what he heard from other attendees.

“The American Revolution didn’t start with a shot heard around the world,” Robinson said. “It started with murmuring. It started with craftsmen and farmers meeting in taverns talking about ideas like independence. That’s where it started.”

The video of his speech spread widely on social media, eventually surpassing 150 million views, Robinson said, drawing national media attention and invitations to speak at political events across the country and abroad.

Robinson added that he decided to seek elected office following the speech’s viral spread. After consulting with senior Republicans, he entered the 2020 race for lieutenant governor.

He won the nine-candidate primary with 33% of the vote, avoiding a runoff, and went on to win the general election, becoming North Carolina’s first black lieutenant governor.

As lieutenant governor, Robinson served as president of the Senate and was a vocal advocate for parental rights in education and Second Amendment issues. He announced his campaign for governor in 2023, secured the Republican nomination, and received the endorsement of President Donald Trump.

The CNN report and a night alone in a hotel room

Then came September 2024. CNN published a report alleging Robinson had made sexually and racially charged posts on an adult website, including some posts that critics described as supportive of slavery.

Robinson said he was alone in a hotel room when his campaign consultant texted him the details.

“I was very afraid,” he said. “I remember crying for a moment and quickly catching myself. For a moment I went back to being a child again.”

Robinson acknowledged in the interview that some of what was reported had a basis in truth — particularly around a lifelong struggle with pornography, which he said he was admitting openly for the first time — while maintaining that other elements were fabricated or distorted from out-of-context conversations.

He said he chose not to mount a full public defense in the final eight weeks of the campaign because doing so, he believed, would have drawn fire onto Trump and other candidates on the ballot.

“I knew there would be time afterwards to really treat the wound,” Robinson said. “It wasn’t about me.”

Down-ballot damage

Robinson lost the governor’s race to Stein by roughly 14 percentage points.

Top state Republicans pointed to the fallout from Robinson’s candidacy as a drag on down-ballot races. Senate Leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, said the CNN story “had a significant impact in that race, and probably had some slight impact in some of the other races, particularly statewide races,” while then-incoming House Speaker Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, noted that Democrats redirected over $4 million from the governor’s race to down-ballot contests in the final weeks after concluding Stein no longer needed the money.

Robinson also acknowledged in the interview that he ignored advice in the summer of 2024 to overhaul his campaign team — a decision he now calls one of his biggest mistakes.

“I let my loyalty override my good sense,” he said. “I believe even with the CNN scandal, I still would have won that race” had he made the change, Robinson said.

What’s next

Robinson said in the interview that he has no interest in running for elected office again. Instead, he said he wants to use his story to reach men who are fighting the same battles he did. He is also considering working with a Christian therapist to better understand the roots of his struggles, he said.

“I believe there are an inordinate amount of young men and old men who deal with that issue,” Robinson said, referring to an unhealthy relationship with pornography and sexuality. “The only shame in it is staying in it.”

Robinson said he hopes his experience can serve as a cautionary tale for younger men facing similar struggles, and that he intends to speak openly about those issues going forward.

“When that invisible finger is tapping you on the shoulder, that is not your imagination,” he said. “That is truth speaking to you in your ear. And you need to heed it.”

“Mark Robinson breaks silence on scandal, personal failures in new interview” was originally published on www.carolinajournal.com.