ATLANTA—Republicans need to set aside past grievances and unite to win the presidential election in November because America cannot withstand four more years with radical Democrats in the White House, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said Friday.
Kemp spoke at radio talk-show host Erick Erickson’s The Gathering conference on Friday morning in Atlanta, days after former President Donald Trump called fellow Republican Kemp “a bad guy,” “a disloyal guy,” and “a very average governor.” The rift began when Kemp refused Trump’s request to hold a special legislative session to investigate the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
“With a lot of noise out there, as you can imagine, a lot of distractions, in my opinion, is not what we need to be doing right now in the presidential campaign, or on any campaigns that we’re running in the state of Georgia, to keep our majorities in the House and in the Senate,” Kemp said. “Despite all of that noise, my position has not changed.”
The Georgia Republican is committed to getting Trump back in the White House, he said.
“The thing that bothers me most about the Biden-Harris administration is, they’re picking winners and losers in Washington, D.C.,” Kemp said.
It’s crucial to get conservatives back in office to reform executive branch agencies, the Georgia governor said. The governor is hopeful a Republican president can overhaul the administrative state after the Supreme Court’s overturning of the 40-year-old Chevron doctrine, which had the effect of increasing the scope and power of unelected bureaucrats.
Kemp in April signed a school choice bill into law, garnering criticism from Biden administration Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona.
“Getting kids out of failing schools and giving them an option where they can get out of that failing school, to get an education that they deserve, in our state, to me, that is an absolute no-brainer,” Kemp said.
For the first time in history, the gross domestic product growth combined in the South outpaced that of the Northeast. Kemp said that’s because of Republican governors, such as Greg Abbott of Texas, Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, and himself.
“It’s because of the Republican governors,” Kemp said. “It’s because of the business environment, and it’s because of the environment in the Northeast and in places like California. They’re literally just running people out of their states, and we’re glad to take them, as long as they vote our way.”
