Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp recently advised GOP presidential candidates to move on from “sour grapes” and “focus on the future” if they want to win the White House in 2024.
But in an hour-plus town hall on CNN Wednesday night, former President Donald Trump doubled down on false claims about the 2020 elections, including in Georgia; defended his conduct before and during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021; and lashed out at moderator Kaitlan Collins as a “nasty person.”
Trump began the night with familiar and disproven claims that the 2020 election was rigged against him.
“Unless you’re a stupid person, you see what happened,” he said.
On Georgia specifically, Trump described his recorded call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger as “perfect.”
“I said, ‘You owe me votes,’ because the election was rigged.”
That characterization, of Raffensperger “owing” him, was one of several instances that legal experts said Trump may have inadvertently implicated himself in areas where his past conduct is the subject of ongoing criminal investigations.
“Subjects of criminal investigation aren’t usually reckless enough to go on national television and admit their corrupt intent, but Donald Trump just handed Fani Willis a new piece of evidence and tied a bow on it,” Antony Kreis, a Georgia State University constitutional law professor, told one of your Insiders last night.
Trump also described taking classified documents from the White House, which is the subject of a special counsel investigation.
“I had every right to under the Presidential Records Act. … I was there and I took what I took and it gets declassified,” he said.
And he insisted that former Vice President Mike Pence should have helped him overturn the election results on Jan. 6th, which Pence said he did not have the authority to do.
“He had the right to do it. They convinced him he didn’t and it was a horrible thing for our country,” Trump said. “If you would have sent those votes back to Georgia, Pennsylvania and other states …” he said, without finishing.
The response from the audience of mostly Republican voters was raucous and approving through the night.
But Republicans who have broken away from Trump didn’t like what they saw.
“If republicans fall for this snake oil salesman again … we deserve what we get,” former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan wrote on Twitter.
As for Kemp’s earlier warning that, “Not a single swing voter in a single swing state will vote for our nominee if they choose to talk about the 2020 election being stolen,” that was totally ignored.
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REACTION. The reaction to the Trump town hall ranged from happy to horrified, depending on where you were sitting.
President Joe Biden immediately sent out a fundraising appeal. “It’s simple folks. Do you want four more years of that?” he asked on Twitter.
New York’s Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said it never should have happened, writing “CNN should be ashamed of themselves.”
Trump ally U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Rome, responded: “This man is unstoppable!”
The New York Times’ Peter Baker praised host Kaitlan Collins for doing “a heroic job” fact-checking the former president throughout the event.
But the harshest review of all may have come from CNN’s own media critic, Oliver Darcy. “It’s hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN Wednesday evening.”
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Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
NOT HAPPENING. Democratic lawmakers and gun safety activists held a Capitol news conference Wednesday morning to demand that Gov. Brian Kemp call a special session of the General Assembly to take up gun safety measures following a mass shooting in Midtown Atlanta earlier this month.
Democrats introduced more than a dozen bills this year to limit access to firearms, but none received a vote.
Asked about the chances of a special session, Kemp ruled it out, telling WSB-TV’s Richard Elliot, “I think there’s a lot of politicians posturing right now, which is unfortunate. What I’m doing is I’m continuing to gather the facts on this individual and what are the circumstances as to why this happened.”
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“NOTHING POLITICAL.” University of Georgia football coach Kirby Smart said people should not read too much into the team’s decision to decline the White House’s invitation for a visit on June 12.
Speaking Wednesday morning before playing in a pro-am golf event in Alabama, Smart said the team already has too much on its plate for that day, including hosting hundreds of recruits at youth camps, the Athens Banner-Herald reported.
“It’s the No. 1 time for recruiting for football coaches,” Smart said. “You’ve got 600 to 700 kids coming to your campus, you can’t leave to go to the White House and have no one on your campus. So the time just didn’t work out. There was nothing political about it.”
Smart added that he has been to the White House three times as defensive coordinator for the University of Alabama’s team. Those 2009, 2011 and 2012 season championships all occurred during President Barack Obama’s tenure.
Meanwhile, the White House continues to extend invitations to other championship teams. It announced Wednesday that the Super Bowl-winning Kansas City Chiefs will visit on June 5.
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BUSY DAY. Vice President Kamala Harris isn’t the only prominent liberal to visit Atlanta on Friday. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders will hold a field hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee at the Morehouse School of Medicine.
He’ll be joined by leaders from Morehouse and other historically black colleges and universities to discuss how to increase the nation’s medical workforce, expand access to health care and bring more quality services to Black Americans.
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Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
BIDEN BOOSTERS. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock are among 50 prominent Democrats on President Joe Biden’s national campaign advisory board.
They are the only two members from Georgia on a list that includes Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker.
Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said they are part of a “broad, diverse coalition of voters who came together in 2020 to deliver President Biden and Vice President Harris a historic victory.”
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Credit: Nathan Posner for the AJC
Credit: Nathan Posner for the AJC
IMMIGRATION VOTE. After a delay of several hours to iron out last-minute changes, Republicans in the U.S. House moved forward on an immigration and border security package.
The updated legislation includes language that would authorize a congressional study on whether to classify drug cartels, particularly those controlling street trade in Mexico, as foreign terrorist organizations. The previous version of the bill put the study in the hands of the Department of Homeland Security.
U.S. Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Athens, was reportedly among those who objected to that language and insisted on the change. Reporters who caught up with Clyde exiting a meeting Wednesday in the Republican whip’s office wrote that his concerns were addressed and he was fully supportive of the bill.
A separate group of lawmakers objected to language requiring businesses to electronically verify that employees are legally allowed to work in the U.S. A provision was added allowing agricultural businesses to request to be exempt from that policy.
Undocumented immigrants make up about 40% of all farm workers.
With those changes, Republicans took a procedural vote that allowed for debate and set up today’s final vote. U.S. Rep. Rick Allen, R-Augusta, told one of your Insiders that he is confident the bill will pass.
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TODAY IN WASHINGTON:
- President Joe Biden will deliver remarks at the White House on his conservation efforts while in office.
- The U.S. House will vote on Republicans’ immigration and border security package.
- The Senate has a series of floor votes scheduled.
- Senate Democrats will meet to discuss strategy for addressing gun violence.
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Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
KING DING. The usually mild mannered Georgia Insurance Commissioner John King took serious offense to comments that U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson delivered during a House hearing about the Southern border Wednesday.
Arguing for more legal immigration, Johnson said, “If you had no immigration, then we would have no food on our plates, we would have nobody taking care of the construction of our homes, nobody cleaning up in the hospitals. Honest work that deserves an honest day’s pay. That’s the kind of system that we need to have in this country.”
King responded on social media, “The First Lady thinks Hispanics are breakfast tacos. Now, a Georgia Congressman says this. Democrats are transparent and it’s disgraceful.”
King, a Republican, is the first Latino elected statewide in Georgia.
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Credit: Mike Haskey/Ledger-Enquirer
Credit: Mike Haskey/Ledger-Enquirer
FORT MOORE. The days of “Fort Benning” will officially end this afternoon as the massive Army base in Columbus is renamed “Fort Moore,” in honor of Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and his wife, Julia Moore.
The change is the result of a Department of Defense initiative to identify and recommend new names for military installations with names linked to the confederacy, the AJC’s Brian O’Shea reports.
Lt. Gen. Moore was a decorated combat veteran who fought in the Korean and Vietnam wars. Julie Moore was well known for her efforts on behalf of military families. They are both buried at what will soon be known as Ft. Moore.
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Credit: AJC Staff
Credit: AJC Staff
SPEED TRAP. Our friends over at AL.com won two Pulitzer Prizes this week, including one for a series exposing how police in the tiny Alabama town of Brookside preyed on residents to boost its coffers.
It reminded us of the tale of Ludowici, the southeast Georgia village that was such a notorious speed trap in the 1960s that then-Gov. Lester Maddox put up a billboard warning motorists to steer clear.
Maddox traveled to Ludowici with his trademark ax handle and gave a speech at the Methodist church, promising to “clean up" the town. His idea of a remedy was a unique anti-economic development plan. State workers erected billboards at Ludowici's two main entrances that proclaimed: BEWARE! DON'T GET FLEECED IN A CLIP JOINT! DON'T GET CAUGHT IN A SPEED TRAP! After locals tore down one of the signs, Maddox posted highway patrolmen on twenty-four-hour shifts to guard them.
Ludowici’s travails prompted a Georgia law that local police departments can’t receive more than 40% of their budgets from speeding ticket fines. Departments that abuse that power can lose their right to use speed detection devices.
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Credit: Courtesy photo
Credit: Courtesy photo
DOG OF THE DAY. No, “Coconut Frye” isn’t a dish at a Tiki bar. He’s the best pal of state Rep. Spencer Frye, seen here on the water together.
The Athens Democrat bought Coconut as a puppy for $100 from a farm near Walnut Grove. He reports the boxer mix had “one foot in the grave” with worms that a veterinarian said were caught just in time.
Coconut now spends his days guarding the Frye home from squirrels and other small creatures. And on the best days, he’s boating with Big Frye in Republican Rep. Alan Powell’s Hartwell district. Frye calls Coconut “a loyal and smart, hardworking dog” and “the best $100 I ever spent.”
Send us your pups of any political persuasion — and cats on a cat-by-cat basis, to patricia.murphy@ajc.com, or DM us on Twitter @MurphyAJC.
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AS ALWAYS, Jolt readers are some of our favorite tipsters. Send your best scoop, gossip and insider info to patricia.murphy@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com and greg.bluestein@ajc.com.
