Senior Senate Republican Lindsey Graham is livid that Democrats are associating former President Donald Trump with the self-proclaimed “Black Nazi” Mark Robinson, whom Trump praised as “Martin Luther King on Steroids.”

Robinson, the North Carolina lieutenant governor contesting the state’s gubernatorial race this year, has been hit by a series of damaging reports in recent days revealing that, in online posts on adult websites, he called himself a “Black Nazi,” praised Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, longed for the days of slavery, boasted of peeping on showering women, and used antisemitic slurs.

At a rally in March this year, Trump called Robinson “Martin Luther King on steroids” and “Martin Luther King times two.”

Less than a day after CNN's sensational report on Thursday that revealed the first wave of allegations against Robinson, the Democratic National Committee launched a digital ad campaign linking him to Trump. The DNC also put in place plans to roll out billboards highlighting Trump’s past praise of Robinson.

“This is really a hit job, it is unconscionable and if we did this to them it would be blowing up the entire mainstream media,” Graham, the long-serving South Carolina senator, told Fox News show Hannity on Monday evening. “The point is when somebody says something and I have a relationship with them, I don't own all of that… Donald Trump knew nothing about this, I knew nothing about it, they’re trying to guilt by association: If you’re a Republican, you own this.”

What Graham did not mention is that, even before the latest round of scandal, Robinson had a deeply concerning track record of making antisemitic remarks.

In 2017 posts on Facebook, he called the Holocaust “hogwash” and cast doubt on the fact that six million Jews were killed by the Nazis. He also agreed with the idea that Jewish bankers are one of the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” (the others being Muslims, China, and the CIA) during a 2019 podcast appearance.

Graham said if the recent reports about Robinson are true it would make him “unfit” for office, but that he didn’t know if they were true.

“This is literally guilt by association, it needs to stop,” added Graham, going on to baseless imply that CNN timed the release of its report for political reasons. “The guy’s the lieutenant governor for three years and this CNN came out the day before you could replace somebody—about five o’clock in the afternoon.”

Perhaps Graham ought to take a look at Robinson’s Facebook page.