(upbeat music) - This is a production of PBS Charlotte.

- This week on "Unspun," the politics of scandal.

Mark Robinson calls it tabloid trash, but will a CNN story about Robinson's old messages online rub off on other Republicans, including the Trump campaign?

Political pros in both parties talk about the shakeup in the race for governor, plus the top five ways that politicians handle scandal.

"Unspun" is next on PBS Charlotte.

(earnest music) In today's America, welcome to the spin game.

Believe me, I know.

I'm Pat McCrory.

When I was governor and mayor, I played the spin game.

I was played by the spin game.

But aren't we all done being spun?

Let's take the spin out of the world we're in.

Here on "Unspun."

(dramatic music) Good evening.

I'm Pat McCrory and welcome to "Unspun," the show that tells you what politicians are thinking, but not saying.

They say that the internet never forgets.

So how do you explain today what you did or didn't say before you got into politics, what you did or didn't post online back then, when it's all right there on CNN?

- My colleague, Em and I found a series of highly disturbing posts more than a decade ago on the message board of a pornographic website, and we traced them directly to Mark Robinson.

In one post, Robinson called himself a quote, "Black Nazi."

Another disturbing post Robinson defended slavery writing, quote, "Slavery is not that bad.

And I wish they would bring back slavery.

I would certainly buy a few."

- If what CNN is claiming about Mark Robinson, the racist and anti-gay comments on porn websites.

If it's all true, what do you do?

Well, Robinson himself says that CNN is lying.

The Republican candidate for governor is denying the story and tying the story to his opponent, Democrat, Josh Stein.

- Well, guys, the news media is at it again, my opponent is at it again.

You all have seen the half truths and outright lies of Josh Stein on these ads over and over again.

And now a story leaked by him to CNN is appearing now.

Let me reassure you the things that you will see in that story, those are not the words of Mark Robinson.

- Yep, like Robinson says, and maybe it's all just a democratic dirty trick.

Or maybe Republicans simply made the wrong pick when they chose Robinson to be their candidate for governor.

Either way, what happens next all depends on how diehard Republicans react to Robinson's denial, and whether Robinson's controversy hurts the chances of candidates in other races.

Joining us on "Unspun" this week are two veteran political consultants who know how scandals can shake up an election.

Paul Shumaker is the founder of Capital Communications helping North Carolina Republicans win five US Senate races in the past 25 years, including the Tom Tillis campaign in 2020.

And Brad Crone is president of Campaign Connections in Raleigh, a political consulting firm with over three decades of experience managing democratic campaigns all over the Southeast.

It's great having you both here.

First, Paul, if you were the campaign manager for Robinson or Lieutenant Governor, what would you tell him right now?

- Well, actually, what I would've told him at the very beginning is that the way you handle issues like this is that when the media outlet gives you that information, they gave you 48 hours, 24, 48 hours to respond.

You go in with all guns blazing on that response.

You have your legal teams in place, you have your legal responses in place.

Instead of going on the media outlet and trying to debunk it yourself, you put your lawyers on there and you challenge the media.

I've experienced this firsthand.

Tom Tillis's first US Senate race in 2014 during the primary, we had the media outlet's gonna run a story.

We put the reporter, the editor, and the news organization on notice that we would file personal liability lawsuits against every one of them.

The story actually never ran because it was a completely false story.

Get out front, hit it hard, hit it hard up front.

- Brad, if you were the Democrat consultants right now, they're piling on right now.

The Harris campaign has ads right now with Mark Robinson in every ad against Donald Trump.

Is this what you would do and is there a fear of piling on?

- Yeah, totally, and I agree with what Paul said in the sense that you need to be forthright and you need to be prepared to respond.

And those are discussions that really start at the genesis of your campaign because Paul, so many times myself have sat down with our candidates and said, "What is the absolute worst thing that your opponent can say about you?"

And you're totally prepared.

And I don't think that the Robinson staff, when they resigned en mass on Sunday we're prepared.

And that may be the fact that Conrad is in his late 20s.

This is his second statewide campaign.

- This is Conrad is- - And that he may- - Conrad, who is his campaign manager.

- Conrad Pogorzelski.

Correct, and I just don't think that they were ready for this ticking time bomb.

The Democrats are playing fair, I think from the standpoint that the allegations are out there, the assertations are out there and they're making hay out of it.

And the the problem that Robinson has right now is that he is already behind the eight ball.

He's being outspent, he's been down anywhere from 18, eight to 10, 12, 14 points behind.

And so this will be a piling on effect.

The real big critical questions going to be, Pat, is what impact will this have on Trump at the national level and what impact will it have on the council of state races?

In particular, your Attorney General's race, your state auditor's race, your state insurance commissioner's race, secretary of state race, and the superintendent of public instruction.

All critical races that the Republicans want to compete in going into November.

- Okay, so for both of you, Paul, how long did the Republicans know this information was out there or a lot of negative information about Robinson?

And after you answer, I'm gonna ask Brad the same question.

How long did the Democrats know and hold onto this information?

- I have no way of knowing that information.

There was a lot of information that was already out in the marketplace, so to speak, on his own social media posts.

You've had numerous news organizations already carry those in the Bill Graham campaign, which I worked on as primary for governor, we actually ran TV ads exposing some of that.

The Stein campaign has done a very good job of using Mark Robinson against Mark Robinson.

The CNN story I think was used to just about everybody.

And when it broke, usually when you have someone who has had such a prolific habit of being on social media sites and posting a lot of things over a long story shell, you have operatives that go in, they do deep dive, they do the research.

Obviously somebody fed this to CNN, it could have come from within the campaign or it could have come from outside the campaign on the Democratic side.

But they did the research, they buttoned it up, and also they vetted everything through their legal counsel before they ran with the story.

That's one thing that major media outlets do.

I have had major media outlets not run stories.

I like to see them run because they wouldn't pass the smell test with their legal counsel.

This one passed the smell test with this, with their legal counsel.

- So Brad, how long do you think they held onto this information and what about the timing of the release, the day before the Republicans could find another candidate if he decided to resign?

- So, correct.

I think they've been working on it for a pretty good period of time, Pat, the timing was kind of interesting in the sense that it forced the lieutenant governor to make a really critical decision as to whether or not he was going to stay in the race.

But Paul is absolutely correct in this.

I'm convinced that CNN totally vetted the story and that the smoking gun, if there's litigation, is going to be his ISP address, his mobile fingerprint.

And if they can tie that back to his devices or to routers within his house, then it's Katie, bar the door.

I don't think you'll have that situation completed by the end of the election.

So he's going to be damaged goods for the next four weeks, five weeks, next 42 days, 41 days going into the election day.

The critical thing I think that has been most effective for the Stein campaign has been the ability to paint him as a hypocrite, a hypocrite on abortion, a hypocrite now in particular on the transgendered issue where he has beat up on people who are vulnerable in the LGBTQ community and then made comments on a porn site that he was sexually gratified by.

So the hypocrisy that you've seen on that has really been an undercutting element to his campaign and his ability to communicate and connect with voters here in North Carolina.

- Wow, Paul, the Democrats aren't exempt from this type of controversy.

Cal Cunningham in a previous senate race got caught with some stuff near the end of the campaign that was released near the end of the campaign.

What happened to opposition research by your own party?

And are we doing enough of that before these candidates are selected?

- Well, that's a whole different discussion and a whole different show.

Number one on the Robinson's front, the opposition research was there.

There were, you know, the Bill Graham campaign had it.

We provided with the RGA, we showed them polling that showed Mark Robinson was not electable against Josh Stein just with the information that we already knew.

In the Cal Cunningham case.

Cal Cunningham, quite frankly, that broke.

It was not about part of opposition research.

If they had not been some folks having a conversations around a Wake County Republican precinct chair, it would never have been known.

That was a different narrative there.

The fact of the matter is, in the Robinson case, there's been a long litany that's out there, and quite frankly what makes it more powerful in this case and helps the Josh Stein campaign is that Mark Robinson is the chief voice being used in the attack ads being paid for by Josh Stein.

It's not an actor, it's not a paid person, it's not a portrayal.

It's actually him in his own words.

In the latest ad he's there for 30 seconds.

It's like they, it was like he showed up and did the shoot for them.

- Wow, Brad, in the remaining 15 seconds, do you think there's more coming out that's being held and they're planning to release even more?

- No, I don't, I think the dynamite has blown up.

But here to get to your previous question with Paul, Pat, we've gotta worry about party purity and willingness of party operatives and party leaders putting party before their state and before their country.

And it is a real big issue in both parties on the extreme sides of both parties.

And the people in the middle have got to stand up and say, enough is enough.

And that the moderate Democrats and the moderate Republicans take back their parties.

- Hey, both of you were great today.

Thanks for being on "Unspun."

- Thank you.

- Thank you, Governor.

- Next up, PBS Charlotte's Jeff Sonier takes "Unspun" on the street to do this week's campaign stop by vice presidential candidate, JD Vance, to find out if Mark Robinson's Republican support will survive this scandal.

- Yes, Senator Vance and former President Trump himself both making campaign stops here in the Charlotte area this week.

But what about the Republican candidate for Governor, Mark Robinson, who says he's, quote, "Still in it to win it," despite the accusations against him.

- Here to make that decision.

Now look, I've seen some of the statements.

I haven't seen 'em all.

Some of them are pretty gross.

I think it's up to Mark Robinson to make his case to the people of North Carolina that those weren't his statements.

And I'm gonna let him make that case.

(audience cheering) - These are rumors being spread, but I if they are true, it is a deplorable act.

And I don't, I think he should have dropped out.

- I think Republican voters are still gonna stand behind him.

I think that no candidate's perfect, but I think Mark will have the support of North Carolina.

- Some of what's happening to him is a smear campaign because I feel like we're living in a time of good versus evil.

We're not really living anymore in a time of just Democrat versus Republican.

- There's been too much that's been laid out for him to declare that he's a black Nazi, that is over the top.

- And I really hope that it doesn't hurt Trump, 'cause I don't think Trump stands for that.

- You know, everybody has things in their past possibly that they're not proud of or whether it happened or not happened.

But why did this not happen years ago?

Why are we hearing about this now?

I feel like they're trying to fabricate things.

- [Jeff] So you haven't heard the story on the news about Mark Robinson?

- No, I have not.

- [Jeff] So it won't affect how you vote at all when it comes to Donald Trump.

- No.

My decision was already made.

It's been made for a while.

- The voters in North Carolina are focused on the right issues, and that's what our campaign is gonna focus on too.

(audience cheering) (dramatic music) - Mark Robinson, obviously on the minds of Trump supporters, but Robinson himself, nowhere to be found.

In fact, on the same day of this JD Vance rally here in Charlotte, Robinson was campaigning too, up in Wilkesboro in Boone, but not here, Pat.

- Thanks, Jeff, And what do you think about this issue?

Email us your comments on the Robinson scandal to unspun@wtvi.org.

Or even better, send us a video and we might want to use it on the air.

(dramatic music) Okay, tonight on our "Unspun" countdown, we've got our top five ways that politicians handle a scandal.

Let's start with number five.

Number five, go ahead and admit it.

Apologize to the voters.

Say, "I've made some mistakes in the past, I've learned from them, and it's time to move on."

That's the best thing to do, especially if you did it.

Number four, ignore it.

You know, a lot of consultants will tell the candidate, "Just ignore it and hope it's just a 24 hour story and it'll be forgotten."

And another controversial will come for your opponent down the road.

Just ignore it and hope it just goes away.

A lot of times that doesn't work when it's a really big scandal.

Number three, ah, threaten to sue the media that brought out this information.

Sue the media, the media is very unpopular.

Say, "It's the media is lying to you."

In fact, the best thing to say is the story is false.

Even if it's only 10% of the story, you can say the whole story is false.

Number two, fight fire with fire.

In other words, if you're attacked, attack back, attack the media, attack your opponent, attack the other party, attack anyone you can to change the subject.

And if you have mud on the other candidate, now's the time to throw that mud.

But it better be good.

And number two or number one, say, "It ain't so," it's just deny, deny, deny.

But I'll tell you, if you deny it, you better be telling the truth.

(dramatic music) PBS Charlotte's Jeff Sonier joins me now for "Unspun One-On-One."

Well, there's really not much to talk about.

- Yeah.

It's just been such a slow week.

Yeah, but we do have some questions and they're based on this week's headlines, this week's show.

I ask 'em, you answer 'em, that's why we call it one-on-one.

And the first one is kind of an obvious one.

You've been a candidate, you've been vetted in several races, and you've been involved in vetting other candidates with no labels.

Isn't vetting supposed to stop this sort of thing before it ever gets off the ground?

- Yeah, but the question now is, who's actually doing the vetting?

And we're learning that the Republican party establishment, the party itself did no vetting on Mark Robinson.

Even though there were rumors out there long before this bombshell came out from CNN.

And the dilemma is the party is supposed to be neutral.

But I think most people assume that in a primary, the party has done their homework on the candidates on the ballot.

And right now we're learning that's a wrong assumption.

And it's probably true among the Democrats too.

I think the parties need to do much better vetting.

I do even vetting on candidates that want my support.

And by the way, I ask 'em too, "Do you have any skeletons that would embarrass the state or the party or the city that we need to need to know about now?"

- Well, what's the motivation of not vetting?

I mean, it seems like it's an obvious advantage to doing it, why would you not do it?

- Because the candidate's doing real well in the polls and the base likes their speeches and they generate big crowds.

They get big bucks and you go, "You know what?

We might wanna bypass that step because we're getting all this new enthusiasm in our party and the polls look good."

But it'll catch you in the long run.

It might help you by not vetting in the short term or the long run, it'll bite you.

- You touched on this in the interview with the two political consultants.

How do you run a campaign, a campaign for governor, you've been in several, without a campaign staff?

They for the most part, resigned hours after the allegations came out.

How do you keep going?

- Well, first of all, the resignations weren't as magnanimous as you think.

They had already made all their money.

And frankly, the top person in the Robinson campaign and the finance person had made over seven figures in running these campaigns.

- Wow.

- And they also knew the money's running out.

The Republican Governor's Association has already cut off all future funds.

So it's tough.

It's tough when they all pull out on you because you're on your own even driving your own car or trying to find some young kid to drive the car for you.

And I don't know how he's gonna make it.

- Was there pressure, you think, for him to quit?

I mean, did he feel pressure from his campaign advisors, from the party, from anybody before he made that decision?

- I don't know about his campaign advisors.

'cause in some ways I think the campaign advisors enabled some of this activity and ignored some of this activity that they knew.

I knew some of it, not this bombshell report, but all the other things regarding his business activity and some of the investigations there.

They just seem to think people will forget it.

But it's gonna be tough in the future.

- So- - Maybe some lessons learned.

By the way, the Democrats have had some similar problems with Cal Cunningham as I mentioned earlier, where they found out a lot of things about Cal and some personal indiscretions.

And you wondered, did they know it all along or were they just ignorant?

- Yeah, Cunningham, the candidate that ran against and lost against Tom Tillis back in 2020.

- Right.

Right.

And that was another bombshell report or as you say, an October, surprise in September.

(both chuckling) - Well, well let me ask you this.

The fingerprints that are on this particular set of accusations, CNN gets the credit for breaking it.

But this doesn't just, I mean this falls into CNN's lap at some point, doesn't it?

- Yeah, but someone fed 'em the initial information.

The reporter might have done some follow up work, but in fact, just the other day, the Southern Poverty Law Firm or law organization, a nonprofit verified some of the information.

So a lot of times you have some nonprofits who are supposed to be nonpolitical that might be a part of some of this information gathering.

That will be interesting down the road after this campaign is long gone.

What was the story in getting information and what was the story in the timing of its release, which happened to be the day the deadline was for replacing the candidate who may should have resigned.

- Yeah, they had hours to make that decision.

- Yeah, and the decision.

- Yeah, it wasn't gonna happen.

- Yeah.

What the Democrats have done since then has been interesting.

I wanna take a look at an ad from the Kamala Harris campaign and I'll ask you about this.

- Okay.

- Let's take a look.

- And he's been an unbelievable lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson.

I think you're better than Martin Luther King.

I've been with him a lot, I've gotten to know him and he's outstanding.

- Donald Trump and Mark Robinson, they're both wrong for North Carolina.

- I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message.

- Not a tough ad to put together, but amazingly how quickly it got on the air after the CNN story got on the air.

Kind of feels like they were waiting for this.

- They set themselves up for failure in not doing the opposition research on themselves.

But they have to be careful not to pile on.

- Yeah.

- There could be some resentment for doing too much of this.

And also it's gonna be interesting to see how this impacts the Attorney General's race.

The Treasurer's race, the other council of state races, 'cause I think they're gonna be doing similar commercials.

Anywhere they shook hands with Mark Robinson, that's gonna be used against those Republican candidates.

- Who's that aimed at?

Is it aimed at Trump supporters?

Is it aimed at undecided voters?

- I think undecided voters and maybe some Republican voters too who will just go, "I can't put up with this anymore."

- Now, the candidate for the Attorney General's post on the Republican side, Dan Bishop, talked to the Republicans at the JD Vance rally this week.

He talked about this as character assassination that is aimed at smearing all Republican candidates by association.

Could it really be that well planned?

Is that plausible that this thing is bigger than just the target that's on Mark Robinson right now?

- It's more than coincidental, but it's self-inflicted.

- Yeah.

- And again, anyone within Republican circles know that this fast rising star who is made on social media, in fact it's our first in North Carolina social media star.

He didn't gain his fame from being on the city council or being a mayor or being the state legislature.

He gained his fame on a YouTube presentation to the Greensboro City Council.

And that got him to Lieutenant Governor.

- Wow.

- And he was a diverse candidate.

He was bombastic, he was entertaining.

People came to hear him speak.

They, you know, sometimes when that happens in both parties, you kind of turn your head and go, "Let's move on with this guy, regardless of what might happen in the future."

- Yeah, you know, a lot of folks were surprised that JD Vance, the VP candidate for the Republicans, addressed the Robinson situation directly in front of the media, in front of the audience that was at Central Piedmont Campus for his rally this week.

What's the conversation going on in the background that where they decide, yeah, let's deal with this?

- Well, I can tell you over a month ago, the Trump campaign was ignoring Robinson, was not allowing Robinson on the stage.

In fact, the only time he got on the stage in the past two months is when Robinson kind of bullied himself up there with some other sheriffs who were invited to come on stage with former President Trump.

Robinson followed them up on the stage.

But before that, they were already hearing this guy could be trouble.

So, you know, in politics there is no loyalty.

- But were you surprised that he answered the questions that he referenced?

- You know, JD Vance is probably being one of the most transparent candidates, but comes, with that comes controversy too.

But the media often wants you to be transparent, but the more transparent you are, the more the media might take advantage of the answers that you're giving.

We've talked about in other shows where sometimes as Harris is being accused of avoiding answering the tough questions, JD Vance is doing the opposite.

And there are pros and cons of both those decisions.

- Very quickly as we wrapped up, what's the lesson to be learned with all this?

- Think long term and do your opposition research and it's fair, it's only fair to do that to the party, to the citizens and voters and also to the people donating.

Can you imagine if you had donated a lot of money to Mark Robinson because you were impressed with the one-on-one meeting and now you're finding out all these things that he possibly didn't tell you?

- Yeah.

Politics is a dirty business I suppose.

- It can be just like any other business.

But this is on live TV and it's reality TV at its worst.

- Thank you Governor, and that's this week's one-on-one.

(dramatic music) - For Lieutenant Governor, Mark Robinson, the October surprise came a little early this year.

The October surprise is what politicians and pundits call that one big bombshell story dropping just as voters are ready to cast their ballots.

It's almost always something personal, something private.

The problem is nothing's private anymore.

Not with social media and the internet, and especially not when there's an entire industry devoted to digging up dirt on political candidates.

Welcome to the world of opposition research where campaigns spend big money to find out their opponents dirty little secrets.

Then they leak those secrets to the press.

Sometimes it's real, sometimes it's just a rumor.

But think about it, how else do you explain things that may have happened years and years ago that just happened to come out right now, right before early voting, or right before the primaries, or right before a nominee goes before Congress?

In fact, some candidates even do opposition research on themselves to find out what their opponent might use against them, whether it's true or not.

When it is true, well, some candidates lie and deny, other candidates quit and admit.

But here's my advice, own up.

Own up to your potential indiscretions before the campaign.

Warn your family, your friends, and your supporters.

Don't wait until you're caught.

And if something does come out and it's not true, then fight.

But also, don't be afraid to admit your mistakes.

Tell the people what you've learned from your mistakes and show some regret.

Voters may not forget, but they do forgive.

That's the reality as I see it.

I hope you'll come back next week as we explore the politics of voting, ballots by mail, early voting, voter IDs.

They're not just affecting when we vote, they're also affecting how we vote and they're changing how candidates campaign.

That's on our next "Unspun," where we'll tell you what politicians are thinking, but not saying.

Goodnight, folks.

(dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) - [Announcer] A production of PBS Charlotte.