Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp told Axios that despite their disagreements over the election, he is still grateful to ex-president Donald Trump for “all the things that he did to help Georgia."
“I have never said a bad word about him,” Kemp said.
Kemp also defended the new voting regulations, adopted shortly after the 2020 presidential elections to meet security and transparency requirements, and stated that the upcoming midterm elections in Georgia will be fair.
“We just had mayoral elections all over the state of Georgia, and I didn’t hear a word about suppression or any other issues,” he said.
The governor also noted that he plans to raise spending on education and salaries for teachers, and continues his efforts to widen gun access in Georgia so that people can carry weapons without a permit.
Trump lambasted the GOP governor, calling him "a complete and total disaster," after the latter had certified Georgia’s 2020 election results, and decided to take revenge by endorsing rival Republican candidate and former US Senator David Perdue against Kemp in the gubernatorial race. Trump even said that Stacey Abrams, who is running for the post from the Democratic Party, might make a better governor than Kemp.
“I thought it was pretty ridiculous that he would think that," Kemp said on Wednesday. "But I think we'll let the voters decide that. I don't think many Republicans think Stacey Abrams will be a very good governor or president.”
Commenting on Perdue’s recent claims that he wouldn’t have signed the certification of the 2020 vote in Georgia, Kemp said that the Constitution “doesn't say 'I can.' It says, 'I shall.' And so that's what I did. I followed the law."
Trump has persistently claimed that he won “very substantially” in Georgia, insisting that approximately 5,000 ballots were submitted on behalf of dead people — something that state officials have vehemently denied even after state election staff discovered four ballots that were cast on behalf of dead voters.
According to official statistics from the latest presidential elections, Trump lost to Joe Biden in Georgia by approximately 12,000 votes.
Trump, whose campaign has lost more than 60 lawsuits alleging voter fraud in a bid to reverse the 2020 election results, continues to insist that the voting was “rigged” by Democrats.