Gov. Brian Kemp Unloads on Trump Over COVID Response: ‘He May Not Remember, but I Sure as Hell Do’

RedState ^ | September 9, 2023 | Jeff Charles

[chickenlips]

Are the gloves starting to come off? If a recent post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, is any indication, high-profile Republicans and conservatives are starting to attack former President Donald Trump over his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic while he was in office.

Advertisement Even before the primary season began in earnest, many speculated that his support of lockdown orders and vaccines could become his Achilles heel. But so far, few on the right have raised the issue as they have been hesitant to attack Trump directly. Things appear to be changing, as Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp posted a response to a video the former president made in which he decried leftists trying to bring back mask mandates.

In the video, Trump said that “left wing lunatics are trying very hard to bring back COVID lockdowns and mandates with all of their sudden fearmongering” about the emergence of new coronavirus variants. “They want to restart the COVID hysteria so they can justify more lockdowns, more censorship, more illegal dropboxes, more mail in ballots, and trillions of dollars in payoffs” in the leadup to the upcoming election.

In a post on Saturday, Kemp wrote:

The fact is former president Trump led the opposition to my decision to reopen Georgia - the first state in the country to do so.

While he listened to Fauci & parroted media talking points, I listened to hardworking Georgians.

He may not remember, but I sure as hell do.

[volunbeer]

Trump did pile on Kemp along with the MSM and the Covidians over lockdowns. I remember it well and was quite disappointed in him by then. I took a lot of heat for saying that Trump had effectively turned his presidency over to Fauci. His constant undisciplined pressers during that time also played into the hands of the MSM.

He was a solid A in my book for 3 years and an F in year 4, but he still has my vote.

[Governor Dinwiddie]

Last night I heard Noem’s speech at President Trump's event.

She had the audacity to claim that she protected women's sports. What a huge whopper lie! She vetoed the bill that forbade males (”men dressed up like girls”) to participate in women's sports.

Don't trust her. She puts her finger to the wind, as another one who was "for it" before she as against it.

[newzjunkey]

Your hindsight is erroneous and Kemp should shut up. Trump was upset because Kemp was blowing past the reopening protocol rather than wait to see the results of each phase. Kemp was in a panic over the Georgia economy and lost over 9,000 in 2020 and almost 16,000 in 2021 to covid.

Kemp was late to react when covid began and held a dumbfounding press conference with his medical advisor saying he didn’t know it was person to person transmittable. He never put us in a hard lock down in Georgia unlike some states but there were places like city of Atlanta where the Democrat mayor was more strict than the state. Kemp seemed ill equipped and unprepared out of the gate on covid but muddled through.

Kemp lost less than half the citizens of self-styled covid warrior RDS.

Trump deserves credit for saving lives early with his travel restrictions and for giving governors the flexibility and support to do what they were elected to do. Some killed more, some stole freedoms but that’s the leadership elected by the state’s citizens. Trump pushed back against Fauci and moved towards reopening the country. No one moved forward with reopening without the federal guidance so pretending any governor beat Trump to the punch is BS.

At covid briefings Trump spoke out about his concerns for lock down side effects of missed medical treatments, mental health effects, learning effects as well as the economic impact. He did begin to sideline Fauci and brought in Scott Atlas for a different viewpoint. Liar Fauci would have kept us locked downs forever.

Everyone attacks Trump over covid but few notice how much better his record was in terms of cases and deaths compared to Biden even though Joe had vaccines, treatments and weaker strains to contend with. Even Poltifact had to concede the numbers.

Trump correctly noted even back in late 2020 his failure on covid was messaging. It’s one of the few times he admitted a misstep.

I also continue to point out the vaccines weren’t even out of trial before the 2020 election and Trump never pushed for a mandate.

[Revel]

Well I have to admit that by his own words Trump owns the Vaccines. He also owns the eviction moratoriums. He was the very first to do it. He was in at the federal level and pointed the way for the communist states.

Still he is the only hope this country has.

[Trump_Triumphant]

Kemp has an axe to grind.

[CommieCutter]

Just because you didn’t agree with it doesn’t mean you didn’t go along with it. I didn’t agree with it but I had to go along with it.

I needed to wear a face diaper just to get in the store to go shopping and had to wear one at work just to get my paycheck etc etc. etc.

I couldn’t force mom and pop to open up their shops, I couldn’t force Lowes to stop the six foot spacing rule.

And COVID itself was an unknown in how it was going to affect you until you got it.

[Road Warrior ‘04]

So the guy might have erred. He’ll get vote enthusiastically!

[mbrfl]

Correct. I live in Florida and can assure livius that we had statewide shutdowns.

[MayflowerMadam]

Noem might’ve been “the government”, but I believe she’s the only governor who didn’t shut down her state.

[safisoft]

What I knew had nothing to do with a “novel virus” - what true conservatives knew was that locking innocent people up was what communist China did.

It isn’t 20/20 hindsight, it is a basic understanding of liberty. All true conservatives get that. Trump didn’t because he doesn’t understand conservatism.

[Persevero]

I know, I had to wear the “mask” (a loose bit of cloth in my case) to shop. We only have so much agency.

I don’t hold it against anyone who got the shot even. I applaud those who made great sacrifices to avoid it if they didn’t actually want it. Like my RN friend who worked the Covid wards, refused the shot when it came out, and had no employment for over a year due to her stand.

I hold our government accountable for stomping on our civil liberties. And I hold the medical and pharma companies for being such pigheaded shills. I hold those who tried to snitch like reporting a man swimming alone in the Pacific Ocean, getting him arrested. Etc. I hold those who dissed their family and friends and accused them of murder and idiocy to account. And all those hypocrites who made idiotic rules for us but did not keep them themselves (Nancy with her haircut, Gavin with his restaurants and kids’ schools. . . )

But for those of us who aren’t independently wealthy living on a self sufficient remote farm? That’s almost all of us. We were victims of the Orwellian state - not perps.

[FreeReign]

This coming from someone that choses to live in New York

Many good Freepers live behind enemy lines in blue states. Why don't you direct your comment to Freeper #1 who lives in California and see how he responds?

Trump’s words: ..... Trump Dismisses COVID-19 Vax Safety Claims, Says He Saved 100 Million Lives

Here's Ron serving his 1 millionth customer in Florida.

...and then bragging about it on Twitter.

Ron DeSantis
@GovRonDeSantis

It was an honor to witness Henry Sayler receive his first dose of the vaccine today. Florida is rapidly approaching a monumental milestone of 1 million seniors vaccinated.

[everlast]

Did we know the extent of the lies then? The vaccine had just been put out and we all were told to get it at that time. Again, trump knew as much as we did. Don’t know why he we give Fauci a medal. Weird, but Fauci told everybody to trust the other science, birx did as well. Did trump give her a medal too?

[vivenne]

The original 15 days was to address the hospitals becoming overwhelmed with Covid patients. I doubt it was true but Trump wouldn’t have known that he was relying on the medical professionals. Trump was never in favor of long term lockdowns.

[Codeflier]

I am so thankful I lived in GA during COVID. Life for me was mostly normal. I couldn’t believe what was going on elsewhere because of the lockdown snowball Trump started. Kemp forever gets credit from me for going against the Trump/Fauci shutdowns.

[Montana_Sam]

Trump put trust in the fake “science” people - Fauci, Birx, et al.
Meanwhile, Kemp is still a totalitarian liar.

[Codeflier]

I’d say the failure in his last year was so monumental that it totally invalidates the first 3. Total failure from a Constitutional perspective. He did cause the lockdowns. Without the Emergency declaration and all the insane amount of money, flowing to the states, no state could have “afforded” a lockdown.

15 days to flatten the curve also provided the perfect cover for state, county, and city tyrants.

I totally blame Trump for the lockdowns.

[Vaduz]

Bingo better safe then sorry

[CodeToad]

Kemp supports election fraud and has worked to hide Georgia’s fruad in 2020.

[CodeToad]

We adults knew. You didn’t but we did. Check our posts from that time. We called you out even then.