AUGUSTA (Georgia Recorder) – Sometimes disasters can bring people together, and that’s what happened Friday for former president Donald Trump and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who appeared together in Georgia for the first time since 2020 for a briefing on Hurricane Helene recovery efforts.
The pair briefed members of the press near the Columbia County Performing Arts Center in Evans, where pallets of water, baby formula, paper goods and other necessities had been piled up.
A crowd of supporters could be seen cheering Trump’s motorcade as it passed by, but only a small number of supporters were present in the pavilion where the two men spoke, along with a group of Georgia National Guard members and Republican officials.
The briefing came a week after the storm ripped across the Southeast, devastating parts of Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia with flooding and wind damage. The hurricane has claimed more than 200 lives, including 33 in Georgia, and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage across the state, according to preliminary reports.
Kemp mourned several of those killed in the storm and praised the first responders and linemen from across the country who have been working to rescue victims and restore power.
“Resilience and hope have been on full display everywhere we’ve gone, including right here in Columbia County,” he said. “We’re grateful for those incredible people all over this state, but we’re also mindful that every moment of every day since this storm passed of the loss of life and the devastation that it brought.”
“We are not going to leave until the job is done,” he added. “I want to encourage all our local officials and so many of their citizens that are working so hard on this recovery and helping and talking to people every day, keep up that great work, keep the faith and know that we will be with you till the end.”
Trump said he was shocked by the number of people still missing.
“It’s not even believable when you look and you see the kind of suffering that’s going on right now,” he said. “But one of the biggest, I guess, question marks is the fact that there’s so many people missing. I’ve never seen anything where so many – the numbers are so large of those that are missing … hopefully they’ll be found and they’ll be found very healthy, but it never looks great. Never looks great. And our hearts break for the more than 200 American families who have lost their lives already.”
Trump mostly avoided speaking about the upcoming election, but he pledged to support Georgia in storm recovery efforts if he returns to the White House, referencing hurricanes that hit Georgia during his presidency, including Hurricane Michael in 2018.
“We have a big election coming up, and if I’m involved, I tell the governor, if I’m involved, they’re going to get the best treatment,” he said. “They’re going to get treatment like we did in the past. We always had — we had a big — the farmers got hit very hard. And I guess they got hit just as hard, or maybe is this worse, or is this of equal – Probably worse. That was a bad one. But we — we worked two or three times together. It was big storms, but I don’t think we’ve seen anything like this. But we got it taken care of in record time. And we will be very open and very committed to this state because it’s a great state, and you have great leadership.”
That kind of praise once would not have been out of the ordinary. The two were close allies since Trump’s endorsement helped Kemp cross the finish line in his 2018 Republican gubernatorial primary against then-Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, who had been the favorite to win.
The good times rolled on until the 2020 election. Trump narrowly lost in Georgia but declined to acknowledge his defeat, claiming the election was rigged. Kemp did not go along with calls to overturn the vote, angering the former president.
Trump recruited former U.S. Sen. David Perdue to run against Kemp in the 2022 primary, but Kemp swatted Perdue’s challenge aside with relative ease.
Trump has publicly attacked Kemp in the years since, including two months ago, when the former president called the governor “a bad guy, a disloyal guy, and he’s a very average governor” at an Atlanta rally.
“Little Brian. Little Brian Kemp. Bad guy,” he added.
Trump also attacked Kemp’s wife, Marty Kemp, for saying she would not vote for Trump and would instead write in her husband’s name on her ballot.
Kemp has mostly been content to keep his head down and not engage with Trump, saying that he will support Trump because he believes Democratic policies will be worse for the country. He delivered possibly his most scathing public rebuke of Trump in an August tweet on X, Kemp said Trump should focus on winning the election rather than dwelling on the past, “and leave my family out of it.”
But Trump’s attack on a popular sitting governor from his own party in a crucial swing state left many Georgia Republican operatives perplexed, and Trump quickly moderated, praising Kemp at a Savannah rally last month.
“He’s been fantastic. He really has been fantastic, and we’re going to get this done. I want to thank Governor Kemp for his support. Great support,” he said.
Trump previously visited storm-damaged Valdosta, where he falsely claimed that President Joe Biden had been ignoring Kemp’s calls for help. Kemp, normally one of the president’s sharpest critics, said Biden had called him shortly after the storm to offer help.
As of Thursday, Biden had approved a major disaster declaration for parts of Georgia, allowing residents in 41 of the state’s 159 counties to apply for financial assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Kemp said Georgia officials will continue to push for FEMA assistance in 90 counties affected by the storm.
In response to a shouted question from a reporter, Trump said “of course, it’s been a terrible response from the White House.”
Trump stayed behind for a few questions after the briefing, but Kemp did not.
Biden and Trump’s opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, have also toured Georgia’s hurricane-damaged areas.
Kemp opponents characterized the joint appearance as an attempt to play politics with disaster relief.
“It’s outrageous that Gov. Kemp would inject partisan politics into a critical recovery briefing by inviting candidate Trump, who has been spreading lies about Hurricane Helene recovery efforts,” said Lauren Groh-Wargo, CEO of Fair Fight, a left-leaning political action committee founded by Kemp’s former opponent, Democrat Stacey Abrams. “This should be a moment focused solely on the needs of Georgians, not to score political points.”
