(NewsNation) — North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson was treated for second-degree burns on a hand Friday night after suffering the injury at a campaign event in Mt. Airy. His campaign tells NewsNation that Robinson was discharged and will return to the campaign trail Saturday.
Robinson was burned when he put his hand on a truck at the event, according to a Washington Post journalist posting on X.
Robinson has been under intense pressure to quit his campaign for governor, and even to resign his current post, since reports surfaced of old online posts in which Robinson referred to himself as a ‘black NAZI;” said he enjoyed transgender pornography; said in 2012 he preferred Hitler to then-President Barack Obama; and slammed the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as “worse than a maggot.”
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Brian LiVecchi, Robinson’s chief of staff and general counsel, will resign effective next Tuesday, according to a friend. Over the weekend, Robinson announced that four key staff members on his gubernatorial campaign staff had left their jobs.
Robinson denied writing the messages that CNN says were from more than a decade ago. He said Tuesday that his campaign has hired a law firm to help investigate how what Robinson calls “false smears” originated. But that hasn’t stopped top Republicans from distancing themselves from the lieutenant governor.
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Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump endorsed Robinson before the March primary and has let Robinson speak at the former president’s in-state rallies. But he was not involved in Trump rallies Wednesday in suburban Charlotte or last weekend in Wilmington.
Robinson was attending the Mayberry Truck Show in Mt. Airy, the small town that was the hometown of actor Andy Griffith, and the inspiration for the fictional town of Mayberry, the setting of the beloved 1960s comedy The Andy Griffith Show.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.