Trump and Kemp play nice in visit to hurricane-damaged east Georgia

Maya T. Prabhu, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Oct 4, 2024

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EVANS, Ga. — It was as if the past four years of trading barbs never happened as former President Donald Trump and Gov. Brian Kemp praised each other on Friday during an update on storm recovery in east Georgia.

It’s the first time the two have appeared together since before the 2020 election. It’s also the second time Trump visited Georgia after Helene hit the state last week.

“Your governor is doing a fantastic job, I will tell you that,” Trump said. “We’re all with him and with everybody.”

When asked how his relationship was with the governor, he only had good things to say.

“It’s great, it’s great,” he said. “We work together — we’ve always worked together really well.”

It was an amicable reunion and a far cry from the former president’s 10-minute tirade in August where he attacked Kemp and his wife, Marty Kemp, and called the governor “ a bad guy” and a “very average governor.”

On Friday, Kemp returned Trump’s compliments.

“I want to thank President Trump for coming back to our state again for the second time to tour storm damage and keep a national focus on the state as we recover,” Kemp said.

The duo received an update from Columbia County officials on storm recovery efforts. Last week, Hurricane Helene ripped through Georgia, bringing 100-plus-mph winds and catastrophic flooding to the region and killing at least 33 people.

“We’re here in Evans, Georgia, to express our support, our love and our prayers (to) all of the communities, the suffering — it’s not even believable when you look and you see the kind of suffering that’s going on right now,” Trump said.

While Trump was in east Georgia, his running mate, U.S. Sen. JD Vance, was in northwest Georgia at a textile mill in Lindale where he vowed that Trump would protect American workers.

Trump said the Georgians and residents of other affected states who are unaccounted for since the storm are “one of the biggest question marks.”

“I’ve never seen anything where so many — the numbers are so large — of those that are missing,” he said. “It’s something that, hopefully, that they are found healthy and that are found very healthy. But it never looks great. Never looks great.”

Friday’s press event was the first meeting of the two former foes since Trump attacked Kemp for his unwillingness to call a special legislative session in the weeks after the 2020 presidential election, in which Trump was narrowly defeated by now-President Joe Biden.

The two Republicans have an up-and-down relationship beginning with Trump’s surprise endorsement of Kemp’s campaign for governor in the 2018 GOP primary runoff election against then-Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle. Shortly after Kemp’s refusal to call a special legislative session in 2020, Trump recruited former U.S. Sen. David Perdue to challenge Kemp in the 2022 primary race for governor.

Kemp recently said he left his ballot blank in this year’s Georgia presidential primary, but he has always said he would support Trump if he became the Republican nominee. Marty Kemp said she wrote in her husband’s name for the primary election.

After what appeared to be a quiet period, Trump surprised many Georgia Republicans with his August attack against Kemp and his wife at a rally in Atlanta with remarks so brutal that some Republicans at the time predicted it could cost Trump the state in November.

Kemp initially told Trump he had crossed a line, but the governor later reversed course during several media appearances where he said he would back the former president despite their past differences.

Three weeks later, Trump did an about-face, thanking Kemp for his “help and support.” Just like that, it seemed, the on-again-off-again feud was off again.

Notably absent Friday was Kemp’s wife, who has been at the governor’s side as he traveled to Valdosta and Augusta and a two-day trip through rural south and east Georgia visiting hurricane-ravaged communities.

The Trump-Kemp truce is not unexpected, as it benefits both sides. Kemp regularly rates as the state’s most popular Republican in Atlanta Journal-Constitution polls, and Trump’s campaign is desperate to win split-ticket pro-Kemp voters in one of the few true battlegrounds in this election.

The term-limited Kemp could also benefit from again being in Trump’s good graces as he considers his political future. Those close to him say he’s more likely to run for president in 2028 than the U.S. Senate in 2026. No matter what he decides, being branded a GOP traitor wouldn’t help him on the campaign trail.