Weeks after blistering Georgia’s GOP governor, Donald Trump warms to Brian Kemp

ATLANTA — ATLANTA (AP) — Donald Trump is changing his tune on Georgia’s Republican governor after delivering a series of blistering attacks at a rally just weeks ago.

In a social media post, Trump thanked Gov. Brian Kemp “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 wrote.

Trump’s words marked a major departure from his comments at a rally earlier this month, where Trump tore into the governor in an Atlanta arena that is only blocks from the Georgia Capitol, blaming him for his narrow 2020 loss in the state.

In a roughly 10-minute tirade on Aug. 3, Trump railed against Kemp for not giving into his false theories of election fraud. He also blamed the governor for not stopping a local district attorney from prosecuting him and others for their efforts to overturn the results.

“He’s a bad guy. He’s a disloyal guy. And he’s a very average governor,” Trump said then. “Little Brian, little Brian Kemp. Bad guy.”

Trump’s Thursday statement came moments after Kemp appeared on Fox News and told host Sean Hannity that he continues to support Trump and will help him win Georgia’s 16 electoral votes.

“We need to send Donald Trump back to the White House,” Kemp said.

That could include Kemp using his own well-funded political organization to turn out Republican voters statewide, even as some GOP operatives continue to fear that Trump’s own field brigade could be ineffective. Thus far, Kemp has said his organization is only working in a handful of state legislative districts.

Kemp’s support could also be a helpful signal to moderate and conservative voters who have backed Kemp but have misgivings about Trump.

Both could be crucial as Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has put Georgia back on a path to another extremely close election.

Trump, calling into Fox News after Harris’ Democratic National Convention speech, was asked if he is making a specific effort to make up with Kemp.

“Well I just saw Brian on a very good man — did you ever hear of a man named Sean Hannity? And he was interviewed by Sean Hannity and he was very nice and he said he wants Trump to win and he’s going to work with me 100% and I think we’re going to have a very good relationship with Brian Kemp,” Trump said.

A spokesperson for Kemp declined to comment.

Republican vice presidential nominee and Ohio Sen. JD Vance, who campaigned in the south Georgia city of Valdosta on Thursday, said he had earlier spoken “very briefly” to Kemp.

“I read the headlines,” Vance told reporters. “Brian Kemp and Donald Trump have had some disagreements. I 100% guarantee you that Brian Kemp is behind this ticket.”

Kemp had recoiled against Trump singling out his wife by name after Marty Kemp told an interviewer Trump had not earned her vote. On X, Kemp told Trump to “leave my family out of it” and urged him to stop “engaging in petty personal insults, attacking fellow Republicans, or dwelling on the past.”

But Kemp never wavered in his support for the Republican ticket and kept up steady attacks against Harris.

“We’ve got to win from the top of the ticket on down,” Kemp said Thursday on Fox. “I’ve been saying consistently for a long time, we cannot afford another four years of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. And I think Kamala Harris and Tim Walz would be even worse.”

That’s in part because it’s clear that Kemp, who has raised his national profile as vice chair of the Republican Governors Association, is still eyeing political possibilities that could include a 2026 run for the Senate against Democrat Jon Ossoff, or maybe even his own 2028 bid for president. Abandoning Trump could complicate Kemp’s chances of winning a Senate bid and obliterate his chance of becoming the nominee of what is now firmly Trump’s Republican Party.

But Kemp has also been unwilling to abase himself before Trump. The two have a long history of differences dating back to when Kemp appointed Kelly Loeffler to the U.S. Senate in 2019 over Trump’s preferred pick of then-Rep. Doug Collins. It continued through Trump’s criticism of Kemp’s handling of the pandemic. Trump has repeatedly argued that Kemp owed his initial election as governor in 2018 to Trump’s endorsement during the Republican primary runoff, although Kemp was already surging at the time.

But the relationship disintegrated when Kemp repeatedly rebuffed Trump’s push for him to intervene after Democrat Joe Biden narrowly won Georgia in 2020. Kemp, for example spurned Trump’s request for Kemp to call Georgia lawmakers into special session to replace Biden’s electors with those pledged to Trump.

Trump retaliated by recruiting former U.S. Sen. David Perdue to try to sink Kemp’s reelection bid in 2022’s GOP primary. But Kemp embarrassed Perdue, and Trump by extension, winning nearly 75% of the primary vote. After going on to defeat Democrat Stacey Abrams by a comfortable margin, Kemp has spent the last two years pushing Republicans and Trump to stop litigating their grievances over the 2020 election and instead look ahead by appealing to voters on economic issues.

Some Republicans had been trying to patch up the feud.

“Kemp made it very clear he was 100% for Trump,” said Georgia Republican Party Chairman Josh McKoon, a former state senator who has tried to bridge the divide between Kemp and Trump.

Loeffler, who remains a huge Republican donor and hosted a fundraiser for Trump in April, was among those who issued celebratory statements Thursday.

“No one fights harder for America than Donald Trump,” Loeffler wrote on X. “No one works harder for Georgia than Brian Kemp. And there’s nothing more uniting than saving this country from the threat of Kamala’s communist takeover. Proud to stand with them in the fight to Make America Great Again!”

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Colvin reported from New York.