Georgia governor says he’d ‘absolutely’ support Trump in 2024
Trump called Brian Kemp a ‘fool’ and a ‘clown’ after the governor failed to help him overturn the election results.
Governor Brian Kemp remains a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump, despite the twice-impeached ex-commander-in-chief’s consistent criticism of the Republican Georgia state leader following the 2020 election.
In an interview on Wednesday with Fox News, Kemp said he would “absolutely” support Trump if he was the Republican nominee for president in 2024.
“As I said, again, I worked very hard for the president. I think his ideas … will be part of our party for a long time in the future,” Kemp told anchor Neil Cavuto. “And Republicans, we need to have a big tent. I mean, there’s a lot of great ideas out there.”
“We’re not always going to get along, but I think the president deserves a lot of credit,” Kemp continued. “And he’s not going away.”
Trump called Kemp a “fool” and a “clown” in December after the governor failed to call a special session of the Georgia legislature and overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, which saw the formerly solid-red state flip to blue.
Trump said he was “ashamed” of endorsing Kemp in his bid for the governor’s seat in 2018, when he narrowly won over Democrat Stacey Abrams.
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Just this weekend at the CPAC conference, Trump described his decision to publicly support Kemp as “an endorsement that hurt us.”
“I endorsed him,” Trump said. “He ended up winning the election, and he certainly was not very effective for the Republican Party, to put it nicely.”
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Trump has also pushed for Georgia representative Doug Collins, who ran for Senate in 2020, to run against Kemp for governor in 2022.
The New York Times said in January that Kemp is one of Trump’s biggest targets for revenge, reporting his new political action committee, Save America, will advocate for Collins to run as a challenger to Kemp.
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Despite the president’s opposition, Kemp remains loyal to him and said that he feels “great” about his chances of winning reelection.
After devastating losses that saw the state flip blue in the presidential election and runoff Senate races, Kemp said, Republicans have to “do a better job of doing two things: We’ve got to get more like-minded people registered and participating in the process and getting the vote out and making sure we’re not leaving anybody at home.”
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