GA Gov. Brian Kemp Responds To Trump Criticism: “I Can Handle It”, Lays Out Vaccine Approach

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Guy Benson: Joining me now is the governor of the great state of Georgia. He’s there. Eighty third governor. He is Brian Kemp, a Republican. Governor. It’s great to have you back on the show.

Gov. Kemp: Good to be back with you, Guy.

Guy Benson: I want to start with Covid and the Delta wave and the struggle that we’re seeing and a lot of states with cases spiking hospitalizations, especially among almost exclusively unvaccinated people. We’re seeing that sort of especially in the southeast as you’re looking at the new school year right around the corner. You’ve made some tough choices. I remember, you know, going back to 2020 in terms of reopening and decisions that you made at your level and you were criticized even by the president at the time. And things turned out actually pretty well in your state, at least in 2020, as you’re looking at the Delta surge and you’re looking at the reopening of schools this year and the new school year. Just talk us through your decision making process of how you try to balance the public health priorities and interests of the people of Georgia with also other liberties, the economy, the ability of students to thrive in schools. How do you how do you make those decisions? Because they’re not easy.

Gov. Kemp: No, they’re definitely not in everybody’s having to make tough decisions and deal with tough situations. Thankfully, our schools are opening back in Georgia. I visited two already on the first day of class in the last week. Very exciting to see kids in the classroom. That’s where they need to be. We’re doing everything in our power to make sure that that continues. But we’ve had a great working relationship with our school superintendents. We all went through this last year when we were the first state in the country in many ways with Jefferson City schools to reopen and get kids back in school after the hell that we went through in the early days of Covid and everybody learned a lot, but we got a great team that’s communicating and supporting one another. And so we’re continuing to do that. I’m also continuing to talk to them, you know, every few days to see what’s happening on the ground. I mean, there’s no doubt that Georgia is experiencing a delta wave like we’ve seen around the country in our hospitals. I did a Metro Atlanta Hospital CEO call a couple of days ago and got some really good feedback from them. They are extremely busy. They’re having staffing issues. The hospitals are full. The interesting thing is the news media won’t really write about this, but they were full before this wave started with people that had put, you know, procedures off surgeries off people are still having unfortunately, heart attacks, trauma that we’re seeing with the violent crime in Atlanta, a lot of shootings that they’re having to deal with. So it’s not necessarily our Covid volume is still, you know, not even close to what our peak was back during the holiday season this Winter. So we’re still in good shape. The staff is spending a lot of money augmenting staffing to help the hospitals. And we’re going to continue to fight through this. But we’re also urging people, look, talk to your doctor, talk to your medical professional about getting vaccinated 90 plus percent, 95 percent of the people in the hospital with Covid have not been vaccinated.

Guy Benson: How can you help persuade people in your state to go get vaccinated? Because I looked at the stats before the interview and Georgia is in the bottom five or bottom 10 in the country and vaccination rate, roughly around 40 percent of Georgians are fully vaccinated. We know that if people are fully vaccinated, even if they get Covid like I did a few weeks ago, it is a very mild case. You were very unlikely to go to the hospital. It’s almost certain that you’re not going to die. A lot of those really severe complications are among unvaccinated people. You just made that point. But it seems like there are there’s still a lot of hesitancy among Georgians. Why is that? And what are you trying to do as a chief executive? Not to dictate to people or to shame people, but convince people to get the shot?

Gov. Kemp: Yeah, good, good question and you know, we continue to do a lot of message, you know, constantly on that. I spoke to the Chamber of Commerce congressional luncheon yesterday in Columbus, Georgia, and urged them to help us, because I think at this point, there’s not many people that because of the mixed messages coming out of the White House, you know, get vaccinated, take your mask off. Now they’re saying put your mask back on. There’s just not a lot of trust there. I think pausing the J&J vaccine for a while. Looking back, really hurt the ability for people to take advantage of the one shot and done that’s what up to four out of the five Kemp family members, Marty, and two of the girls and I Johnson and Johnson, one of our other daughters is a teacher and she took a she was eligible before we were and took I think it was a Moderna vaccine. But, you know, we’ve done that. I’m glad that I did. We continue to message people don’t trust don’t listen necessarily the government to your health care provider, your local pharmacist to your doctor, people, you know, that have been vaccinated. But there is this hesitancy in the south. It’s not just a Georgia problem. We’re seeing it all across the south and southeast. Thankfully, our approach early on to target our seniors, medically fragile first responders, health care folks and teachers has really helped us, especially on the elderly population. Our death rates have plummeted with that age group because we got them vaccinated first. Our numbers are very good there and that’s really helping and keep a lot of the vulnerable patients out of the hospital that we saw early in the pandemic. But listen, this is going to be a tough fight. The Delta spreading so fast, people are going to get vaccinated or they’re going to get Covid. And my fear is you just don’t want to be that person that doesn’t do it and you get sick and have a really bad health outcome or lose your life. But that’s a decision that I trust people to make. You know, this is America. I don’t think mandates are the way to go or mask or vaccines. I’m continuing to tell people, do your own diligence and get comfortable and make a good health care decision for you.

Guy Benson: In a recent set of comments, you said, longer term, the most significant threat to the future of Georgia is crime. And last time you and I chatted, we were face to face down at our affiliate Xtra in Atlanta over by the Braves ballpark, which was fantastic. But we had this conversation then about rising crime in Atlanta. It is still a scourge. Talk about that issue and what you’re trying to do to bring it at least somewhat under control, because it’s been a real problem, particularly in Atlanta.

Gov. Kemp: Well, listen, as a husband to a great first lady, Marty Kaplan, a father of three daughters that range from 18 to 22. I mean, I’m not letting them go to the mall here in Atlanta. I’m not letting them go pump gas here. People are scared to death. And I hear this literally every day. I had guy lunch that had a buddy of his that was moving into a new apartment in midtown Atlanta and literally got run over by people that were trying to rob and carjack. And they didn’t even just push him out of the way. I mean, they literally ran over the guy, broke his leg. He couldn’t even come to the lunch today because he’s at home recovering from that. Another guy that was at the lunch was saying that some lady pumping gas at a convenience store was thanking him because he had his jacket off and he was he was he was carrying and she said thank you. And he said, what are you thanking me for? And he said for, you know, protecting yourself and helping protect us that are just simply trying to go pump some gas. When you have people that are getting shot jogging down the sidewalk or, you know, females that are pregnant, getting stabbed on public walking trails and you have dangerous street racing that literally the police won’t go after, they wouldn’t something need to be done. I’ve created a crime suppression unit using state resources. Thankfully, the Atlanta Police Department is helping us in those efforts. The problem is their policy makers at City Hall in Atlanta have their hands tied behind their back. But they’re riding with us. So we’re chasing these folks. We’ve made over sixty four hundred stops and issued the arrests or citations we picked up. Got one hundred and thirty two wanted persons several that had outstanding murder warrants. We didn’t pound at an incredible five hundred and twenty six vehicles, you know, with our with our crime suppression unit, which is State Patrol, Georgia Bureau of Investigation. We’ve got game wardens and Coast Guard certified game wardens going after these folks on four wheelers through parks and neighborhoods and anywhere else.

Guy Benson: But ultimately and there’s only so much you can do at the state level because it’s also a city problem. And when you have the city leadership and the Democratic mayor who’s decided not to run for reelection, I think for obvious reasons, and police leaving the force because they don’t feel supported, you’re going to get bad outcomes. And I know you’re trying to turn that around, but some of it is also local officials have to make better decisions and support their police. Governor, I do have to get your reaction. The former president, Donald Trump, put out a statement today about you. He sought to sort of seem to revel that you got booed at a recent Republican event saying that it’s because you didn’t deal with the election that was rigged, he said, in the state of Georgia, and that the country is going to hell as a result. That just your reaction to the statement from the president, former president?

Gov. Kemp: Well, listen, I won the straw poll at that event, 75 percent of the vote and, you know, political opponents are going to boo me. Unfortunately, I’ve never booed a fellow Republican in any Georgia Republican Party event in the state of Georgia. But, you know, I can handle that. I’ve been following the law and the Constitution here. I worked very hard for President Trump. I supported his legal challenges to the elections. But at the end of the day, Guy as I’ve told you before, I simply had to follow the law and the Constitution once the Secretary of State certified the election. You know, we’re going to continue to do that. And we’ve also passed we’ve also passed the election integrity that I’ve done over 90 interviews now pushing back against the Woke cancel culture, the national media, the activists like Stacey Abrams to simply put a voter I.D. requirement or absentee ballots and secure drop boxes and fix a lot of mechanical issues that we saw last year. And we’re not going to waiver back down even to the Justice Department lawsuit. We’re going to fight them like hell.

Guy Benson: And some of those interviews that you referenced were right here on the Guy Benson Show. I personally support what you did the right thing, in my view, even though it was painful on the election. I supported that law that you got passed over a lot of demagoguery and now there is, you know, a year plus to go before a potential reelection. We look forward to continuing this conversation. Governor Brian Camp in Georgia, thank you, sir.

Gov. Kemp: Take care Guy