North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, who is the presumptive GOP gubernatorial nominee, went off on an incendiary and hateful diatribe while delivering a campaign speech inside a church, declaring that "some folks need killing."
Robinson, a conspiracy theorist, homophobe, transphobe, and Holocaust denier, was endorsed by former Republican President Donald Trump.
In a resurfaced June 30 video shared from The New Republic on Friday, the self-described "MAGA Republican" appeared to promote political violence, telling the congregants of Lake Church in the small town of White Lake that:
“It’s time for somebody to say it. It’s not a matter of vengeance. It’s not a matter of being mean or spiteful. It’s a matter of necessity."
You can watch a clip of his speech in part, here.
Lt. Governor Mark Robinson addresses congregation at Lake Church on June 30, 2024youtu.be
Robinson continued spewing his violent rhetoric, saying:
“When you have wicked people doing wicked things, torturing and murdering and raping, it’s time to call out those guys in green and go have them handled."
"Or those boys in blue and have them go handle it."
According to New Republic, Robinson's rant targeted a wide range of unnamed enemies, including “people who have evil intent,” “wicked people,” people doing things like “torturing and murdering and raping,” socialists, and Communists.
Robinson's inflammatory remarks and fear arousal are tactics straight out of Trump's playbook warranting the inciting of right-wing political violence against an imagined leftist threat that has allegedly been targeting and attacking conservatives.
Leading up to his hateful rant, Robinson said to churchgoers:
"We now find ourselves struggling with people who have evil intent. You know, there’s a time when we used to meet evil on the battlefield, and guess what we did to it? We killed it!"
"When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, what did we do? We flew to Japan! And we killed the Japanese Army and Navy!"
"We didn’t argue and capitulate and talk about, well, maybe we shouldn’t fight the Nazis that hard. No, they’re bad. Kill them."
"Some liberal somewhere is going to say that sounds awful. Too bad. Get mad at me if you want to. Some folks need killing!"
Some of the congregants were seen clapping, seemingly in approval of his violent remarks.
He later proclaimed, “We need to start handling our business again," saying:
“The further away we get from the concept of 1776 and why we declared our independence and how we declared our independence, the further we start sliding into making 1776 a distant memory and the tenets of socialism and communism start coming into clearer focus."
Robinson continued instilling fear in congregants, telling them:
“They’re watching us. They’re listening to us. They’re tracking us. They get mad at you. They cancel you. They dox you. They kick you off social media. They come in and close down your business."
"Folks, it’s happening ... because we have forgotten who we are.”
Social media users were horrified after listening to his unhinged speech.
The campaign for Robinson’s Democratic opponent in November's gubernatorial election, Attorney General Josh Stein, wrote in a statement to NC Newsline that Robinson's comments "fall into a long history of Robinson endorsing violence, including political violence.”
Morgan Hopkins, a spokesperson for Stein's campaign, added:
“Mark Robinson’s repeated and repulsively violent rhetoric fits into his pattern of spewing division and hate rather than serving North Carolina families."
“We cannot have a Governor who calls for extrajudicial killings. Mark Robinson is divisive and dangerous.”
Robinson has drummed up controversy in speeches before.
In a resurfaced video taken at a March 2020 event hosted by the Republican Women of Pitt County, Robinson said he “absolutely" wanted to go back to a time in America "where women couldn’t vote."
The presumptive GOP candidate for Governor also berated the "spoiled, angry, know it all CHILDREN" who survived the deadly mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018 who became advocates for tighter U.S. gun legislation.
In the Facebook rant posted on February 27, 2018, he also referred to the teen mass shooting survivors as “silly little immature media prosti-tots."
He also disparaged "homosexuality and transgenderism" in a June 2021 speech at a church in Seagrove, saying:
"There's no reason anybody anywhere in America should be telling any child about transgenderism, homosexuality, any of that filth. And yes I called it filth."
The Reverend Cameron McGill, the pastor of Lake Church, told The New Republic that both he and Robinson had anticipated the “killing” comments would be “scrutinized.”
“Without a doubt, those he deemed worthy of death [were] those seeking to kill us,” said Cameron, adding that the GOP nominee “certainly did not imply the taking of any innocent lives.”
Michael Lonergan, a spokesperson for Robinson’s gubernatorial campaign, defended his comments and told the news outlet that Robinson's comments specifically were directed at historical references to the Japanese and Nazis in World War II.
