Kemp Says He’ll Support the Republican Nominee in 2024

Gov. Kemp made some news on Wednesday when he said during a Fox News interview that he would support Donald Trump in 2024 despite the multitude of attacks from Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. Well, that’s the way that most headlines read.

Considering that most people don’t read past the headline, one would think that Kemp is supporting Trump, Kemp’s support was more qualified. He actually said that he would support Trump if he won the Republican nomination in 2024.

“I’m going to support the nominee,” Kemp said, while also defending his past support of Trump and acknowledging the impact the former president had on the Republican Party. That doesn’t necessarily mean that Kemp will support Trump should he run for the Republican nomination. It only means that Kemp will back Trump if he wins the nomination.

Trump, by the way, lashed out at Kemp again today. In a release, Trump said, “To set the record straight, there were two reasons the Senate races were lost in Georgia. First, Republicans did not turn out to vote because they were angry and disappointed with Georgia Republican leadership and Governor Kemp for failing to stand up to Stacey Abrams and the disastrous Consent Decree virtually eliminated signature verification requirements across the state (and much worse), and was not approved by the State Legislature as required by the Constitution–having a major impact on the result, a rigged election.”

The second “reason,” according to Trump, “was Senator Mitch McConnell’s refusal to go above $600 per person on the stimulus check payments.” It’s worth noting that McConnell did introduce legislation to do $2,000 stimulus checks ahead of the Senate runoffs in Georgia, but he combined it with other issues that Trump demanded that Congress address, including repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Still, complaining about the Senate not doing another round of stimulus checks is strange for a Republican who spent much of his campaign deriding Democrats’ “socialist agenda.”