DeSantis seizing on Trump weakness in Georgia via private Kemp meeting: report

Ron DeSantis held a private meeting on Friday with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp in the Florida governor’s apparent effort to build ties with Republicans who have broken with Donald Trump, Politico reports.

The Republican governors met at a Buckhead, Georgia hotel ahead of DeSantis’ scheduled appearance at a presidential candidate forum hosted by conservative talk radio host and Trump critic Erick Erickson, the report said.

DeSantis and Kemp did not discuss a potential endorsement during the approximately 30-minute meeting, according to two sources familiar with the meeting cited in the report.

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Kemp is among three Republican governors on the outs with Trump who DeSantis has been courting in recent months, the report said. Kim Reynolds (Iowa) and Chris Sununu (New Hampshire) are the others.

Trump has publicly assailed Kemp over his resistance to the former president’s claims of election fraud in 2020. The former president has made disparaging comments about Reynolds over her close ties to DeSantis, and called Sununu a “nasty guy” during a New Hampshire rally earlier this year.

The report notes that all three governors are well regarded in their home states and two (Reynolds and Sununu) represent states that will cast votes first in the nomination process.

The Kemp-DeSantis meeting is the second the two have held in recent months, according to the report. The two met earlier this year at the Georgia statehouse.

Alex Isenstadt writes for Politico that: “In their meeting Friday, DeSantis and Kemp discussed DeSantis’ recent appearance at the Iowa State Fair and the first primary debate next week, according to the two people familiar with the conversation. They also talked about what it’s like to campaign with family members on the road and about college football.”

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