Donald Trump’s advisers knew they had a problem in North Carolina. What they were frantically trying to learn was how big it would be.

Word had reached the former president’s high command on Thursday that a “bad” story was coming about Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the Republican running for governor in the must-win state of North Carolina.

Trump’s inner circle was not in possession of the full details before the story was published on CNN’s website, but they knew the bar for what would qualify as a “bad” story for Robinson was high. The candidate had already quoted a statement attributed to Adolf Hitler and mocked the teen survivors of the Parkland school shooting, and Trump’s advisers had recently started seeking distance from Robinson.

The Trump team had heard the CNN story had something to do with pornographic websites and the phrase “Black Nazi,” according to two people with direct knowledge of the internal discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

It didn’t help that at the same time they were waiting on the self-identifying Nazi story to come out, Trump was attending events in Washington, D.C., designed to promote his support for the state of Israel and the Jewish people. It also didn’t help that just months ago the former president had praised Robinson, who is Black, as “Martin Luther King on steroids.”

After CNN published its report, Trump’s first reaction was that he wanted nothing to do with the scandal and didn’t see why he should get involved, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. His impulse was to ignore the controversy and power through. People close to the former president are holding out hope that Robinson will still decide to quit the race, despite his early defiant statement of his intention to continue his run for governor. But with Trump preparing to visit North Carolina for a rally Saturday, he’s expected to talk about the controversy in passing, either on his Truth Social platform or once he’s in the state. People close to him anticipate that he will deliver a version of a comment he has made about countless supporters or former aides: that he hardly knows the guy.

The CNN article that was finally published Thursday — which said Robinson had defended slavery, posted about enjoying watching transgender pornography, recounted how he had gone “peeping” on women in public gym showers as a teenager and called himself a “black NAZI” on a pornographic site’s message board — has scrambled Republican plans for winning North Carolina.

How state Republican leaders and Trump campaign officials expect to repair the damage remained unclear on Friday. One statewide North Carolina Republican sought to separate Trump from Robinson hours after the story had broken.

“It was a tough day, but we must stay focused on the races we can win,” Sen. Thom Tillis wrote on X, adding, with a reference to the North Carolina General Assembly: “We have to make sure President Trump wins NC and support the outstanding GOP candidates running for key NCGA and judicial races.”

Earlier Thursday before the CNN story had broken, the chair of the Republican National Committee, Michael Whatley, a fellow North Carolinian, sounded out Robinson about rumors of the impending story. Robinson insisted that anything that was coming was false.