Trump's Rally in Atlanta: The Eyes of the Nation Turn Toward Georgia

In this episode, Cole Muzio dives into the recent political clash between former President Donald Trump and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp. Cole provides a comprehensive analysis of the feud's history, the current political landscape, and its implications for the upcoming 2024 presidential election. He emphasizes the importance of unity within the conservative movement and the necessity of strategic actions to ensure a Republican victory in November. He also highlights the stakes of the election, particularly the potential presidency of Kamala Harris, and urges listeners to focus on the bigger picture.

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Transcript

Cole Muzio (00:07.374)
Hey everybody, this is Cole Muzio, president of Frontline Policy Action with another episode of the From the Frontline podcast. It is awesome to be recording another episode with you guys. We have seen data that shows people are listening to this not only in the state of Georgia, but around the country and around the globe. We do have some international listeners and it's been kind of fun doing this. it's, you know, I appreciate, I appreciate all of you who listen to this regularly and hopefully you're learning something.

Hopefully you're having your perspective shaped and hopefully this has been of benefit to you. We would encourage you to share this podcast with your friends and help us grow our relationship because we think this is a great way to have a dialogue. And again, if you have any questions, if you disagree with something I say, if you want to dialogue or learn more, always feel free to reach out to us via our website, www .frontlinepolicy .com. Sign up for our emails if you don't get those. We would love to stay connected with you. I'm gonna try to record this

podcast relatively quickly because I don't want to spend too much time on this subject. I want to keep moving forward. I want to look to November, but we had an incident this weekend that I believe deserves a little bit more of a deep dive and some perspective shaping. So I'm going to talk about what happened this weekend and I was recording this podcast Monday, August 5th.

So I'm talking about Saturday, August 3rd, which happens to be my daughter's birthday. So we celebrated Audrey's fourth birthday this week. So that was fun. But I want to talk about what happened when Donald Trump came to Georgia on Saturday, August 3rd, reigniting a feud with Brian Kemp at a critical time as we head into this fall. So I'm going talk a little bit about this. I put out some tweets over the weekend. I got a ton

A ton of comments, got some support from those tweets, got a lot of angry comments as well. I'm going to warn you at the outset, if you are someone that is more concerned about making sure that there is only praise going in Donald Trump's direction than winning in November, turn off this podcast now because you're not going to necessarily enjoy it. I, from my perspective, I'm a father of four. I do not want to see Kamala Harris be president of the United States.

Cole Muzio (02:28.618)
I believe that her policies are absolutely devastating to the direction and trajectory and strength of our country. I also believe that her policies are devastating to my children, not only because I want my children to grow up in a free and strong and prosperous nation, but because her policies intentionally attack the values under which I'm raising my children. And so it is imperative to me that we beat Kamala Harris in November and that she's never president of the United States. And I want to win.

And I'm going to look at things that are possible stumbling blocks to keeping that from happening. And so I'm going to speak not only, I'm going give a little bit of a disclaimer here. I'm going to speak as someone who is a friend of, supporter of, ally of, usually when the media quotes me in papers, they'll mention I'm a strong Kemp ally, which, know, is true, but it's you know, only not how I lead off and describe myself, but someone that is supportive of Brian Kemp.

I am very grateful for what he and his family have done for our state, for what they do for our organization. They have been great. He has been a great partner for the things that we have tried to do in the state of Georgia, whether it's passing heartbeat, whether that's opening our state early during COVID, whether that's saving girls sports, whether that's, you know, passing school choice, whether that's election integrity passage in 2021.

Brian Kemp has been a great ally for the things that we have tried to do. And if you're sitting here in the state of Georgia, you're living in a state where over 32 ,000 lives have been saved as a result of the heartbeat bill. 32 ,000 abortions not occurring in the state of Georgia because he was courageous enough after winning a narrow election in 2018, designed the heartbeat law. You're sitting in a state that has the number one rated election integrity law according to Heritage Foundation, which is a very strong conservative organization that you should trust what they're putting out on that front. Brian

If you're sitting here in the state of Georgia, your taxes are lower than they otherwise would have been had he been governor. You have had tax money sent back to you because the state has a surplus. You're sitting in a state that is on a very strong financial footing. You're sitting in a state that is the number one consistently rated, the number one place in the country to do business. And so we have a thriving economy and we continue to take more tax revenue than was projected. And so we find ways to make sure that we're allocating that in conservative direction. We have supported our police.

Cole Muzio (04:46.818)
We've increased police pay. We've also supported teachers. We've increased teacher pay. And at the same time, we've made sure that we have the strongest parental bill of rights passed in the country. We have legislation. It's not perfect legislation. We need to go back and do more, but legislation that right now in the state of Georgia protects girls sports. we have legislation that removes CRT from the classrooms. We have had some of the strongest parent put putting parents back in, in charge of our schools legislation in the entire country. And we just passed the most sweeping school choice legislation our state has ever seen.

All that in part because of Brian Kemp's leadership. And so you may not be a Brian Kemp fan, but for the things that our organization has tried to do, we've been very grateful for that partnership. And so I will admit that from the outset that I am a supporter and fan of Brian Kemp and I really appreciate his friendship and partnership. At the same time, as someone that wants to see Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris in November, I'm also someone that wants to help us course correct and do things that lead to winning.

And so I'm going to talk about what happened this weekend. I'm going provide a little bit of historical context. And I'm also going to just try to point out if you have ears to hear, if you have a desire to win, if you want to see this movement get better, I'm going to point out some flaws that I saw from logic coming throughout this weekend. So let me set the stage a little bit. Some of the episode that we saw this last weekend was the catalyst for that. And this is going to tickle him and he's going to love

and this brings in more attention, is former Georgia Republican Governor Geoff Duncan. And I say former both for Lieutenant Governor and for Republican, because let me be abundantly clear. If you are someone that has intense concerns about Donald Trump, if you're someone that doesn't believe he's adequately conservative, if you're someone that takes issue with his policy positions or his character, you have not lost the right to call yourself a Republican. However, if you take those concerns,

And you say that instead of just having concerns about Donald Trump or questioning my support for him, I'm instead going to become a cheerleader for Kamala Harris, who supports abortion on demand, boys and girls, sports and bathrooms, who supports wildly inflationary policies for our economy, who supports open borders, who's the most radical leftist candidate we've ever had running for president of the United States. If you turn into a cheerleader for her as a result of your concerns for Donald Trump, you have lost the right to call yourself a Republican.

Cole Muzio (07:14.542)
Unless, again, you are at that point a convert to the Democrat Party. Whatever reason you choose to espouse at that point, you have lost the ability to call yourself a Republican. You shouldn't want to anyway. So Geoff Duncan is both a former Lieutenant Governor, served from 2019 to the beginning of 2023. He's also what I would consider to be a former Republican. Geoff flipped his endorsement from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris. He endorsed Joe Biden right before the June 27th debate. And so I find that particularly comical. So I mentioned that

But now he has flipped his endorsement to Kamala Harris now that she's the Democrat nominee for president again inexcusable for someone that would call themselves a Conservative you can have all the concerns about Donald Trump that you want to have But to instead take those concerns and become a cheerleader for Kamala Harris is something that I find to be unacceptable So Geoff Duncan does that which leads to a reaction from Josh McKoon because Geoff Duncan continues to cite beside it as a Republican and as a Republican for Kamala

So Josh McKoon writes this letter to Geoff Duncan. look, Josh obviously has some severe differences with Geoff now. Also, this is a little bit personal. Josh was a big supporter of David Schaeffer, who ran for Lieutenant Governor in 2018. Against Geoff, that was a very bitter, very nasty race between the two of them that led to a narrow Geoff Duncan victory. So Josh writes this letter. There's a lot of personal attacks in there, but also very directly says, look, please don't call yourself a Republican anymore.

then takes it a step further and says, if you show up to a Republican meeting, you are a trespasser and we will take action accordingly. Certainly a, you know, raised the tone of the conversation. I am frustrated that Geoff continues to be cited as a Republican, but I'm not gonna call him a trespasser if he shows up at a Republican event and has a change of heart. I certainly would love to see that. And I don't think Geogg Duncan.

frankly, is going to be inclined to show up to a Republican event anytime soon. So I don't know that that was necessary. But Geoff Duncan then responds with his own open letter, and it becomes this whole media story and frenzy as we head into Donald Trump's trip to Atlanta on Saturday. Now again, for extra context, this trip to Atlanta is at the same location that Kamala Harris visited about a week prior. And so there's going to be a back to back side by side comparison of how these two events

Cole Muzio (09:38.668)
went. So the stakes are higher than a typical rally. And so as Donald Trump is heading to Georgia, here's what he truths out. And this was part of a longer diatribe, but he gets to, Brian Kemp should focus on his efforts of fighting crime, not fighting unity. And then he goes on. He says he should be seeking unity, not retribution. He goes on to take credit for Brian Kemp's victory, both for the nomination, as well as his defeat of Stacey Abrams.

He then brings in Marty Kemp and we'll talk, we'll give some context to all this. He brings in Marty Kemp, said he and his wife did not think I could win. I said, I'm telling you, you're going to win. Then he won and he was happy and his wife said, thank you, sir. We'll never be able to make it up to you. Now she says she won't endorse me and is going to write in Brian Kemp's name. Well, I don't want her endorsement and I don't want his. They're the ones who got Fannie Willis and her boyfriend all jazzed up and ready to go. He could have ended this travesty with a phone call.

but he doesn't want to end it because he's a bad guy. And then he goes on with some further truth social posts. Then he gets to Atlanta. People are kind of hoping, you know, that created an online firestorm. He gets to Atlanta. People are hoping he's not going to mention it from the stage. Surely not. He's surely not going to go there. This is a guy that wants to win, right? And he goes on at several points on stage, making sure to mention Brian Kemp and also Marty Kemp and attacking them personally. He repeated the bad guy line and talked about, you know,

the crime in Atlanta, talked about the number of things that were under the governor's control. At one point called him little Brian. Why is this important? It's important on a couple fronts. And I want to talk about these, you know, one, Brian Kemp has a 63 % approval rating in the state

Donald Trump came after Brian Kemp, and I'm gonna talk a little bit more about historical context in a second, but Donald Trump came after Brian Kemp in 2022 with the full might of everything that he can do. He recruited a challenger and he didn't recruit a challenger, he didn't find some rando. He found a former United States Senator that was at one point the most popular elected Republican in the state of Georgia, and that's David Perdue. He found David Perdue, who's also a multimillionaire who could raise money and fund his own campaign.

Cole Muzio (11:52.782)
He then gives David Perdue more money than he gave anybody else in the 2022 election cycle. They recruit an A plus primary challenger team and they go after Brian Kemp with everything they've got in the 2022 primary. Brian Kemp beats David Perdue 72 to 21. It was not a close primary. Donald Trump, when he speaks against Brian Kemp, is not speaking against Brian Kemp from a position of strength. He has swung and he has missed.

And you could say, look, you could take a very different position on Brian Kemp than I can, than I do. You'd be listening to this and go, look, I'm not a fan of Brian Kemp. was one of those 21 % of people that voted for David Perdue. I support Trump in this feud. But as someone that wants Donald Trump to win in November, you should recognize that Brian Kemp is the most popular from a polling standpoint and from every angle that you can look at this, the most popular elected official in the state of Georgia. He also has a lot of money. He also has a big organization.

And to go after Brian Kemp, if your goal is to win and be president of United States of America again, in a swing state in Georgia that has been tightening ever since Kamala Harris became the Democrat nominee, does a disservice to the cause that you are fighting for. All the people that show up to your rallies, all the people that are going to do or not for you, all the people that are giving money to you, it does a disservice to them because it hinders your chance to win. And so number

I want to speak to that. And someone that wants to see Donald Trump beat Kamala Harris in November, to go after Brian Kemp is another incident where we have the candidate not doing everything that he can and should and showing the self -restraint and discipline required to win and be president of the United States again. We are having, again, this is being recorded, Monday, August 5th, we are having a major stock market crash. We have had over last four years, a crisis at the border.

We have major international crises going on. We cannot afford Kamala Harris for four more years. And if you have a personal grudge, that's fine. But leave it at the door, please, as we conduct this election and try to make sure that we can win. You're going after somebody. Look, this election, again, you may be Trump supporter, and you may be someone that very enthusiastically goes and votes for him in November.

Cole Muzio (14:16.192)
Everyone needs to understand that you are dealing with, a polling perspective, when you ask favorability questions, you are dealing with two of the historically most unpopular presidential candidates that we have ever seen. Donald Trump is unpopular. Most of America does not like him. Just because you may be around a lot of people that love him and when you deal with intensity, Donald Trump has some of the strongest intensity favorables of any politician you will ever find.

He has a very loyal fan base. This is not a criticism and me saying nobody likes Donald Trump. This is not a criticism and me saying, look, nobody feels very strongly about Donald Trump. There are a lot of people that love Donald Trump. But when you look at a majority of America, a majority of America does not. Kamala Harris may not have the loyalty and following that Donald Trump has. There's certainly a burst of energy behind her campaign right now because she's not seen it.

But Kamala Harris is also not liked by the majority of America. And that was the same problem Joe Biden just had. He was not liked by the majority of America. You have two unpopular candidates. And so whoever wins is going to win on the backs of people that do not like them, but are voting for them anyway, because they believe that they're the best choice for America. And particularly in the state of Georgia, which Donald Trump has never pulled particularly well here.

He is going to need to win on the backs of people that do not like him. In particular, on the backs of people that like and have voted for Brian Kemp twice, but they stayed home in 2020 or they, or they skipped the presidential race or they don't like him or they held their nose and voted for him or they actually voted for Biden, but they don't like Biden. They don't like what they've seen the last four years. These are the same people that skip tickets or flip tickets in 2022 where they voted for Kemp and they voted for Warnock or they skipped the Senate race.

or whatever, you have got to win those people. It doesn't matter how many people that you get to your rally. It doesn't matter how many people that you get to love you and buy a red MAGA hat. It matters. Can you get over 50 % of the state or the plurality of the state to vote for you over the other person? And you have to have people that don't like you in order to do that, given the current trajectory of the presidential campaign. That's what's so frustrating.

Cole Muzio (16:38.894)
When people are looking for can you show some self -discipline? Can you win me over? Can you prove that you're less of a threat than the other person? This is something that people consider because Brian Kemp again has a 63 % approval rating which is astronomically high for a swing state governor He is somebody that's one over independence one over Democrats. That is a fact and we're gonna talk about what is a fact in a second But I think it's really important to

So setting that aside, I do want to provide a little bit of history because I commented on this on Twitter. And I'm going to talk about the comments a little bit too. But I heard a number of refrains that just show people do not understand what is going on and they have proven themselves incapable of putting themselves in someone else's shoe. I'm going try to dispel a couple myths. Number one, Donald Trump, as he said in his Truth Social post, and he has said repeatedly, publicly, multiple times.

And as people continue to repeat, Donald Trump will say, I put Brian Kemp in office. And I think when people, and he says that because he wants people to start with the supposition that Brian Kemp owes Donald Trump everything. Therefore, he should be willing to, anytime Donald Trump asks him to do something, he should be willing to do it. Let me set the record straight. 2018, an intense primary between Brian Kemp and Casey Kegel and a bunch of other guys leads to those two, Kemp and Kegel, going into a runoff.

Kegel entered in first place, but everyone knew in the state of Georgia, if you're listening from around the country or around the globe, Georgia has a runoff process. Top two people go on to a runoff. In that 2018 election, everyone knew Casey Kegel had been Lieutenant Governor for 12 years. He was going to finish first. He was going to be a continue. He was promising a continuation of what we had seen under governor Nathan Deal. Brian Kemp was the disruptor. Brian Kemp was the conservative and

There was always a sense that if you could finish in the top two, if you could finish in second, you could consolidate the conservative movement and surpass Kegel. That's what Kemp did. He finishes in second, he begins to make gains and eventually overtakes Kegel in public and private polling. Brian Kemp was set to beat Casey Kegel in a relatively close 55 -45 type race. And then Donald Trump comes in with a bomb of an endorsement, which locked the race up as a blowout.

Cole Muzio (18:56.014)
It's important to understand that context because Donald Trump wants to make it sound like Brian Kemp was doomed that he had no chance. He was not going to win everyone in the camp orbit. Everyone that was a supporter of camp and every political observer knew by the time that Trump had endorsed camp that camp was on the path of victory. It was going to be a W not a massive one again 5545 type win. You're going to go to Election Day with it being somewhat of an open

Donald Trump endorses Brian Kemp. He turns that into a blowout. I don't want to diminish the Trump endorsement. I don't want to diminish the effect of it. I don't want to diminish its power. It turned it into a blowout 70 -30 type win. It was over on election day. Nobody had any doubt which way this thing was going to go, but Brian Kemp was going to win anyway. As you head into November 2018 general election, the number one thing that Stacey Abrams was using against Brian Kemp was his close proximity and relationship to Donald

Donald Trump's polling was underwater in the state of Georgia. His favorabilities were not high. He was seen as somewhat toxic and she tried to tie Kemp to Trump as a puppet. So I need folks to understand this because you have to be self -aware enough to know where strengths are. Brian Kemp had to overcome Trump in the November general election in 2018. He was maybe an asset for turning out hardcore Republicans. And so I don't want to just dismiss any positive effect he could have had in November.

But where Brian Kemp struggled was the Metro Atlanta suburban voters that you need to win in order to be successful as a Republican in the state. He really struggled with those in 2018 and you saw kind of a really historic downturn among those voters in Cobb County, North Fulton County, and in Gwinnett County. Donald Trump was not an asset in beating Stacey Abrams in 2018 on net. As Kemp gets elected, as his staff sees the data, as his supporters see the data, as the media sees the

You know that to be a fact. And it is revisionist history to say that Brian Kemp owes his governorship either the nomination or the general election victory to Donald Trump. Now that doesn't mean that there should be an adversarial relationship. It doesn't mean that there shouldn't be gratitude on behalf of Brian Kemp towards Donald Trump. It doesn't mean that there shouldn't be affinity as that governorship started, but you need to dispel that myth because it is not rooted in reality. And when we talk about these points, you need to talk from a place of reality, just because Donald Trump says it on the stage.

Cole Muzio (21:18.542)
doesn't make it true. Again, Brian Kemp was going to win the nomination and he was going to have a close battle against Stacey Abrams in November without Donald Trump. But Donald Trump gave him not a victory in the primary, he gave him a landslide victory, but not just not a victory. And then, know, on net was not a positive factor in the 2018 general election. So that's important to know. Other things that I keep hearing.

And let me just set the stage again as you're looking at the Kemp -Trump relationship. 2019 was where the first rift between Trump and Kemp occurred. Brian Kemp was given the opportunity to fill a Senate seat that was going to be left open by US Senator Johnny Isakson, who's not going to finish his term. That left an opening. Donald Trump wanted Brian Kemp to appoint Congressman Doug Collins.

Congressman Doug Collins was not a conservative, had not assembled a conservative record in either the Georgia State House or the United States Congress. Ratings that rate how a congressman performs in Congress pegged Doug Collins as the second or third most liberal Republican in the Georgia delegation, which is not a delegation known for conservative diehards. Doug Collins did not have a conservative record. That's who Donald Trump wanted Brian Kemp to pick. And here's another overlay. Doug Collins had endorsed Casey Kegel.

and very much represented the old Georgia power structure. That was not going to be someone that Brian Kemp was going to appoint 2019. Instead, he appoints Kelly Loeffler. That leads to a big blow up between Donald Trump and Brian Kemp. Now, I want to be clear on this. Brian Kemp does not owe his governorship. He does not owe his appointment. He does not owe his constitutional responsibilities to the service of a United States president, regardless of whether that person has been an ally and regardless of whether that person is a member of his party.

Brian Kimp owes the people of Georgia that appointment. And he made the best appointment that he thought, we're not gonna get into Loeffler versus Collins right now. But he did his duty by appointing who he thought was right. Now, Donald Trump has the ability to speak into that, weigh into that, have that conversation. But there were things said both privately and publicly that are the type of things that if you're in a normal personal relationship, completely sever that relationship. And at best, could possibly lead to physical altercations in other circumstances.

Cole Muzio (23:44.494)
This was a very negative, nasty toned dialogue. Brian Kemp at that point, appointed the person that he thought was right, took nothing out on Donald Trump. Never trashed the president publicly, never trashed the president privately, and continued to go to work to try to make sure Donald Trump was elected in November of 2020. Fast forward into 2020. You have COVID. COVID hits all our nations trying to figure out what to do. We closed down.

First state open is the state of Georgia. Again, you are freer in the state of Georgia. You were able to avoid the full ramifications of COVID because of the leadership of Brian Kemp. 2020 though, Brian Kemp opens up and instead of receiving support, gratitude, help from the presidential administration, he gets trashed in the media by Donald Trump. Does Brian Kemp speak out against Donald Trump? No. Does Brian Kemp take retribution against Donald Trump? No.

He continues to try to do his job, just like he did with his appointment, do his job as governor of the state of Georgia, continues to try to help Donald Trump make sure that he wins in 2020, continues to get to work, but doesn't take any public shots or private shots at Donald Trump, despite what Trump is spewing back at him. And again, remember this is a politically heightened time. Everyone's judging everything. The media here, the left here is writing about how Brian Kemp is a killer. He's a murderer.

He set people up for failure. Everyone's going to get disease. Our people are going to die because of Brian Kemp. And instead of receiving support from the administration, he gets thrown on the bus by the administration. So a very negative thing and puts his family at risk at that point in time as well. Again, Brian Kemp doesn't respond. He continues to try to be a Trump ally politically as you're entering into this election season. Throughout all of 2020, Brian Kemp is

And his team are telling the Trump team, Hey, George is a battle. You need to get here. George is a battle. You need to get here. Kemp stumps for Trump. The entire statewide ticket stumps for Trump. In fact, I remember, think, you know, I've only been to a couple of Trump rallies. I went to the one. I went to one in Macon last year or in 2020. I went to one elsewhere as well. Kemp spoke to both of them. Kemp was a rally speaker on behalf of Donald Trump showing support for the ticket.

Cole Muzio (26:07.342)
showing support for the president again, who has publicly attacked him, thrown him under the bus twice and said things that typically lead to the severing of relationship. is enthusiastically supporting Donald Trump, doing everything that he can to make sure that he gets elected. You head into 2020 and I will talk about some of this, but you have the election, Trump is declared the loser, Biden the winner. Trump says the election was stolen. You get through all that.

I'll talk about that in a second. But at no point did Brian Kemp trash anything that Donald Trump was doing. no point in that process did Brian Kemp refuse to be, refuse to, no point did he really take a position on the claims. He said, look, settle this in court. That's the legal process by which you can do this. Again, you can dispute, you can say, look, that's not what he should have done. That's not what this podcast is

But he still was not taking shots at Donald Trump. But I need you to understand what was happening as a result of these claims in 2020. Brian Kemp's family was under attack pretty constantly. Brian Kemp himself was under attack. There was death threats. There were those kinds of things. Brian Kemp's being called a traitor. He's being called a spy. He's a threat to the United States Constitution. He is being attacked with a level of relentlessness and ferocity that I have never, ever seen.

And it leads to huge ramifications on his family, on their personal lives, on things that are going on. And it leads to a real credible threat against the Kemp. People need to understand that. Again, you now have several instances where someone has come after you and you have had to deal with that. You have held your tongue. You have not fought back. You've not sought retribution. You've not severed relationship. You've continued to help that person.

And you head into the aftermath of 2020 and all this continues to happen. You don't speak out. You don't do, you don't do anything to push back against that. You don't fight against that person. You continue to plot and do your job. And then you head into 2022, you have a candidate recruited against you, someone that had been a friend, someone that's run against you. You continue to have these attacks again, you know, from the former president. He continues to come to your state and trash you. You don't say anything back. I want to just say

Cole Muzio (28:27.66)
that is as someone that is.

I can have a quick temper. Brian Kemp throughout his career and this relationship that he's had with Donald Trump has shown extraordinary superhuman level of restraint for his unwillingness to engage in the back and forth. For those that want to portray Brian Kemp as somehow needing to be the bigger person in this or whatever.

Brian Kemp has been the bigger person in this. There is no argument that says that Brian Kemp has started a fight with Donald Trump or that Brian Kemp has been slugging it out with Donald Trump. This has been, he has said very few things, starting with his reelection in 2022, said very few things against Donald Trump and largely those were course correcting kind of things. Mr. President, we shouldn't speak this way. Mr. President, if we want to win in 2024,

We need to do X, Y, or Z, not A, B, and C. There's largely course correction kind of statements, not attack sort of statements. It is really important that people remember that as you're talking about this fight between Kemp and Trump, Donald Trump has been 100 % the aggressor in this. Now, if you could be sitting here going, look, well, he deserves it. Brian Kemp did wrong, Fine. But you cannot position this as Brian Kemp started this. Now, some people...

In my Twitter mentions went after Marty Kemp a good bit and Trump did as well in his tweet. So I want to talk about that specifically for a second. A few months ago, Marty Kemp was asked, will you vote for Donald Trump in November? Her response was he hasn't earned my vote yet. And she said that if she needed to cast a vote right then she would write in Brian Kemp's name for president. I want you to understand that was a few months ago.

Cole Muzio (30:28.07)
I also need to you to Marty Kemp is not a public elected official. She's the wife of a public elected official. She is someone who has seen her family attacked, someone who has seen her husband attacked. She is someone that has experienced significant challenges in life as a result of what Donald Trump has said and done about her family and her husband. If you put yourself in Marty Kemp's shoes.

And you come up with a different answer. You may be a very saintly person and you may be able to come up with a different answer of, absolutely, I support Donald Trump. You cannot make the argument that it is an unfair statement on behalf of Marty Kemp, given what she has endured and what has gone on. And again, set aside however you feel about 2020, however you feel politically about the Kemp's.

It is a very fair statement for a wife and a mother for what that family has gone through to come up with that statement. And I was getting throughout the weekend, a number of people replying to my tweet saying, look, just stop. And the governor's tweet saying, look, leave my family out of it. When he talked, when he talked, when he kind of shot back at Trump, a lot of people saying, Marty Kemp started it. I want to point out that if that is your response to

It is not me, it is instead you that has a low expectation of Donald Trump. That for months he has held a grudge against the first lady of Georgia who's not an elected official, who simply said, he hasn't earned my vote yet. And by the way, he could probably earn her vote with a call and said, look, I'm sorry. I want to partner. I want to, I want to help Georgia. I want to work with Brian in the next four years, whatever it is. And he doesn't have to do that. But instead of making that call, instead of trying to earn her vote.

He chooses to trash her, trash Brian, make life more difficult for their family and make life more difficult for his own victory because the grudge that he's now had for months since she said that is going to be the overriding emotion he has as he heads into Atlanta.

Cole Muzio (32:39.618)
The fault isn't with Marty Kemp, it's with Donald Trump in that situation. So I want to be very, you know, again, as I'm getting these comments back, you know, people like, well, she started it. If your expectation of the next president of the United States is that he has to respond to what a first lady says months prior when he heads into a state, and he has to put that response ahead of his own interest and your interest in having him win the election, you are setting way too low of an expectation on the guy that you hope to be president of the United States again.

So that's my challenge to folks. I also want to have this challenge to people as I've seen a level of nastiness on Twitter and in social media over the weekend, last few days. Look, we're heading into November. Coalitions to win elections are broad. They're big. Again, they include people that may not like the candidate. You have to communicate in a way that is, or you should want

communicate in a way that is winsome. I have seen so much, this feud, which again I think is somewhat one -sided, this feud stirs up so much animosity and ad hominem attacks, it's ridiculous. I've never, never ever seen anything quite like it. But the number of people that very quickly resort to words like traitor, that quickly go to a rhino without looking at someone's record or who they are or what they've done.

that go to a place of nastiness is very disconcerting. And if you're a Christian and you're behaving this way online, I want to encourage you that your goal should be not only to win people over to your political cause, but to win people over to the cause of Christ. I see a lot of that are retweeting or talking about Christian things. And then when it comes to their political candidate,

They have a level of toxicity that I think is just foreign to anything that would be biblical or scriptural in terms of a way to dialogue. The number of attacks that you see that are just, again, above and beyond nasty are pretty wild, and it's not gonna be draws people in. And again, they're not always rooted in fact. I got a number of responses. Everyone hates Brian Kemp. You may hate Brian Kemp.

Cole Muzio (35:07.662)
And you have a right to do so. Your local group may not like Brian Kemp. You may know a lot of people that don't like him, but he beat Donald Trump's handpicked candidate. It was a former United States Senator who was a multimillionaire, highly successful business guy. beat him 72 -21. Brian Kemp has a 63 % approval rating in the state of Georgia. He went by winning by 52 ,000 votes in 2018 to winning by 300 plus thousand votes in 2022. Brian Kemp is on a fact level, a popular

governor. And so when you come at it and say, well, everyone hates Brian Kim, everyone's seen him for who he is, everyone knows that he's a traitor, everyone knows he's a plant from China. Find some new different friends. And again, you can hold that position. But to say that everyone has this position, you're never going to be able to win someone over if you're in an echo chamber like that. So this episode has gone a little bit longer. In fact, I recorded a preview. I'll give you a peek behind the

curtains. I recorded a previous version of this that I kind of got halfway through. I'm like, I don't really like where this is going. This is a complicated topic. I wanted to touch on it because it's related to Georgia. You know, this episode's gone a little bit longer than I anticipated. But I think it's important, one, that people understand kind of a little bit of the history, that people understand what Brian Kemp and the Kemp family have gone through, that they understand

kind of where this feud originates, that you kind of dispel some of these myths. And then as we talk about this, look, I would love for there to be unity. I don't know that fake unity does anybody any good, but I can tell you, Brian Kemp has said repeatedly that he's gonna vote for Donald Trump. By all the things that have happened in their relationship, he said repeatedly, I'm gonna vote for Donald

Brian Kemp is pouring millions of dollars into down ballot races to help Georgia candidates and to help increase Republican and conservative turnout across the state. There has been no point Brian Kemp undermining Donald Trump's path to victory in November. In fact, is Donald Trump's best asset in the state of Georgia from a popularity standpoint and from an infrastructure standpoint. I want to win in November.

Cole Muzio (37:28.83)
And what we saw this weekend was not helpful to that. And I want to just tell you, for those that say, well, look, we shouldn't talk about it because it's not helpful. We need to hold our candidate and his campaign to the standards that as investors or as folks that care about that result, that we would want them held to. I want Donald Trump to care as much about winning, about him winning as I do.

I want him to care as much about him winning as you do. And I think when we see this kind of output from him in his campaign, it is right to say, look, Mr. President, you are the best candidate for this office. We want you to beat Kamala Harris. So cut it out. And that's my point to folks. As we look at what is happening and the trajectory of this race, Kamala Harris is a laughing stock. She's not a serious person. I think some of the best

know, commentary that I've heard on her speaking style has been that she sounds like the student in class who didn't read the book past page five, but she gets asked the question to give the synopsis of the book and she comes up with a whole bunch of filler trying to act like she knew what she's talking about. She sounds like that with everything that she says. She is the vice president of an administration that has failed in every sort of context. She holds

every radical view that you could hold. There is no metric. There is no way that this race should be close. And so as we head into November, we as advocates need to hold our candidate to a high standard and said, look, let's care about victory. Let's do the things required to win. We also as advocates online in social media and interactions with other people don't need to focus on our echo chamber. You need to focus on people that are going to be required to help you win.

Because the stakes are really high. So my encouragement to folks as you're listening to this is You can disagree with me all you want you can hate Brian Kemp. You can love Donald Trump You have every right to do those things But as someone that wants Donald Trump to win This episode in Georgia on Saturday mattered something that cost him In a state that latest polling was showing us that this was a two -point kind of race

Cole Muzio (39:51.874)
That's the nexus of voters you just lost. And so we can get back, again, all the metrics point to something that should be a Donald Trump victory. But that doesn't mean that we need to be silent. That doesn't mean that we need to continue attacking Brian Kemp because that's what Donald Trump just did. Hold your candidate to a higher standard. Let's work to win. Let's focus on that. Let's not repeat myths, truths. Let's know what we're talking about. Let's not come at things with arrogance or hostility or nastiness. Let's try to do better as a movement.

Because here's the reality folks and for those that are diehard Trump supporters You may not want to hear this Donald Trump if he wins in November will be president for four years and After that the conservative movement has some choices to make in fact the moment he gets sworn in the conservative movement has some choices to make I believe that we are right on the principles that we are right on the issues that we are having a huge amount of momentum Behind what we say they can believe

And it is imperative that we win America to our cause. And how do we build the infrastructure? How do we find the candidates? How do we find the people that can help us win and build a whole generation of conservative victories? And that's what I'm about. That's what our organization is about. That's what this podcast is about. That's what this discussion is about. And I appreciate you listening. In the meantime, let's pray for the state of Georgia. Certainly was a turbulent weekend, but God bless you all. Have a great week.