ATLANTA — Former President Donald Trump said Thursday that he would "love" to repair his relationship with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.
"Yeah, I'd love to see it get repaired," the former president said during an afternoon news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
The more conciliatory tone toward Georgia's Republican governor came less than a week after he renewed his disparaging remarks about Gov. Kemp during a rally in Downtown Atlanta.
But the former president and 2024 Republican presidential nominee also indicated he felt Kemp would need to do the lifting for any reconciliation. Trump said he didn't know if he could repair the relationship.
"I got him elected. Without me, he wouldn't be governor," Trump said. He continued saying he has good relationships in Georgia, "but unfortunately not with the governor. I've never understood it. When you get someone elected, they're supposed to like you. He's not exactly, for some reason, and you have to ask him about that..."
Trump has had a sore spot for the Georgia governor since the 2020 presidential election, when Trump felt Kemp was not doing enough to help him overturn his loss to President Joe Biden in the Peach State.
As he did on Thursday, Trump has long claimed credit for Kemp's political rise, and the governor's hesitance to take extreme measures in 2020 to help Trump -- such as calling a special legislative session to challenge the result -- has been perceived by Trump as ungratefulness and disloyalty.
Last weekend, before his Atlanta rally, Trump posted a statement on his Truth Social account saying he didn't want Kemp's endorsement and calling the governor a "bad guy" for not ending Fulton DA Fani Willis' prosecution of Trump over alleged 2020 election interference (Kemp, as governor, does not have the executive authority in Georgia to interfere in a local prosecution).
Gov. Kemp fired back at Trump on X, saying he’s focused on winning in November, not "petty personal insults, attacking fellow Republicans, or dwelling on the past." Kemp also made a particular objection to Trump referencing Georgia First Lady Marty Kemp in the Truth Social post.
"Leave my family out of it," Kemp wrote.
Fellow elected Republicans expressed their solidarity with Kemp, including Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr — who wrote, "I stand with Brian Kemp and Marty Kemp" — and Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns.
Other influential Republicans in Georgia, such as Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, were at Trump's rally and have been staunch supporters of the former president -- but they haven't joined in the attacks on the governor, who broadly maintains strong approval ratings.
11Alive reached out to Gov. Kemp's campaign office for a comment but has yet to hear back.
