Former President Donald Trump appears to be burying the hatchet with Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp as the two former foes are slated to appear together for the first time since 2020 on Friday.
Trump and Kemp, who’ve sporadically been at loggerheads since President Biden’s 2020 Peach State election victory, will visit Evans, Ga., to receive a briefing on the devastation of Hurricane Helene and deliver remarks to the press, according to the former president’s campaign.
The visit will mark Trump’s second trip to storm-ravaged Georgia this week.
The 45th president surveyed storm damage and spoke with local officials and first responders in Valdosta, Ga., on Monday.
The state is one of seven battleground states in the 2024 presidential election cycle.
The tiff between Trump and Kemp started shortly after the 2020 election, when the governor refused to call a special legislative session to overturn the election results in the state.
Trump declared in a post-election interview with Fox News that he was “ashamed” to have endorsed Kemp in his 2018 GOP gubernatorial primary race.
“I understand why he’s frustrated,” Kemp told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution at the time, shrugging off the former president’s anger. “He’s a fighter.”
Trump would later call Kemp a “fool” and a “clown.”
The former president went on to endorse ex-Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) in an attempt to primary Kemp out of office in 2022.
“Brian Kemp is a turncoat, a coward, and a complete and total disaster,” Trump said at a March 2022 rally for Perdue.
“Before we can defeat the Democrats, socialists and communists … we first have to defeat the RINO sellouts and the losers in the primaries this spring,” he added, referring to Kemp as a “Republican in name only.”
Trump’s political action committee spent more than $3 million in a failed attempt to unseat Kemp from the Governor’s Mansion. Perdue lost to Kemp by 52 percentage points.
In 2023, with Trump’s third White House campaign underway, Kemp argued that “not a single swing voter will vote for our nominee if they choose to talk about the 2020 election being stolen,” in an apparent swipe at the former president during a Republican National Committee retreat in Nashville.
In September of that year, when Trump refused to attend the first GOP presidential primary debate, Kemp called the former president the “loser of the night.”
“I just think, like, If you’re as good as you say you are, get your a– on there, answer the questions, fight it out and let’s get it done,” the governor said at the time. “Look, I’m not saying that just because I’ve battled with President Trump. He’s been mad at me. I haven’t been mad at him, but that’s just the way I think.”
Start and end your day informed with our newsletters
Morning Report and Evening Update: Your source for today’s top stories
Thanks for signing up!
Just prior to the debate, Kemp dismissed the idea of state lawmakers holding a special session to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from office after a grand jury, just weeks earlier, indicted the former president.
In early 2024, Kemp refused to say whether he voted for Trump in Georgia’s presidential primary, but he voiced support for the former president if he were to become the GOP nominee.
“I think he’d be better than Joe Biden. It’s as simple as that,” Kemp told reporters.
In August, Trump once again lashed out at Kemp during an Atlanta rally.
“He’s a bad guy. He’s a disloyal guy. And he’s a very average governor,” Trump said.
“Little Brian, little Brian Kemp. Bad guy,” he added, raising eyebrows from observers due to the importance of Georgia to winning the presidency.
That same month, Trump also took to Truth Social to go after Kemp – and the governor’s wife.
“He and his wife didn’t think he could win,” Trump wrote, referring to the 2018 gubernatorial race. “I said, ‘I’m telling you you’re going to win.’ Then he won, he was happy, and his wife said, ‘Thank you Sir, we’ll never be able to make it up to you!’ Now she says she won’t Endorse me, and is going to ‘write in Brian Kemp’s name.’ Well, I don’t want her Endorsement, and I don’t want his. They’re the ones who got Fani Willis and her boyfriend all ‘jazzed up’ and ready to go. He could have ended that travesty with a phone call, but he doesn’t want to end it because he’s a bad guy….”
Kemp responded, “Leave my family out of it,” in a post on X, arguing that Trump should focus on “winning this November” and not engage in “petty personal insults, attacking fellow Republicans.”
Tensions eased later that month after the Republican governor heaped praise on Trump during an interview with Sean Hannity.
“We need to send Donald Trump back to the White House,” Kemp said.
The former president called Kemp’s words “very nice” and he told Fox News that he thinks “we’re going to have a very good relationship with Brian Kemp.”
In a Truth Social post, Trump later wrote, “Thank you to #BrianKempGA for all of your help and support in Georgia, where a win is so important to the success of our Party and, most importantly, our Country.”
“I look forward to working with you, your team, and all of my friends in Georgia to help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” he added.
