‘First Shot Off The Bow’: WSJ Reporter Argues Brian Kemp Took Aim At Trump Because He Foresees His Waning Influence

Wall Street Journal reporter Cameron McWhirter joined CNN’s Kate Bolduan on Thursday to discuss the latest state of play of Republican politics in Georgia.

McWhirter made the point that not all Republicans are on the same page in the Peach State as many of the top officials there have rebuked former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and may even be cooperating with Trump’s prosecutors.

“Case in point, the popular Republican governor of the state. I’m fascinated on kind of his role going forward and how that is also going to play out,” Bolduan noted of Gov. Brian Kemp.

“He tweeted a response, Cameron and I know you saw this as well, to Trump’s promise that he, that Trump says he’s going to release a report that he called it, a report that he claims will prove voter fraud did occur in 2020, and it will also help to exonerate him of the charges that he faces there,” she added.

“So then the sitting Republican governor of Georgia, his response to that social media posting was this, ‘The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen for nearly three years now, anyone with evidence of fraud has failed to come forward under oath and prove anything in a court of law. Our elections in Georgia are secure, accessible, and fair, and will continue to be as long as I am governor. The future of our country is at stake in 2024, and that must be our focus.’ What do you think of that and what do you see as, you know, Kemp’s role coming up?” Bolduan asked.

“As someone who’s covered Georgia politics for a long time, that was extraordinary,” answered McWhirter, adding:

I mean, it’s a fairly measured tweet. It was posted he appended Trump’s true social comments right below that. So it’s a direct response to what Trump had posted. And throughout the mess since 2020, you know, we’ve been basically in election mode here since then. Kemp has been fairly muted in his response to Trump.

His approach when he ran for reelection and won was to try to just talk about issues like the economy and other things and just avoid this Trump mess. That Tuesday tweet was his first shot off the bow, and it infuriated, I know from my sources, that it infuriated a lot of the Trump camp in Georgia. But I think he’s making the bet that it, that they’re not going to be important, that for the Republican Party to move forward they have to let go of 2020. They have to move on.

“And he also probably remembers very closely how Donald Trump went after him very clearly,” Bolduan replied, recalling Trump’s vicious attacks on Kemp for certifying the 2020 election results in Georgia.

Watch the full clip above via CNN.