Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) on Wednesday made a lame joke to distract from the severity of his state’s restrictive voting law a day after President Biden gave a speech urging the protection of voting rights in the state.
Appearing on “Fox and Friends,” Kemp latched onto host Steve Doocy’s praise of the Georgia Bulldogs’ college national football championship win on Sunday night as a segue to knock Biden and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams’ role in pressuring businesses to boycott the state last year.
Part of the outrage over the state’s restrictive voting laws drove the MLB to relocate its All-Star game out of state.
Kemp quipped that the recent wins by Georgia sports teams, which include the Bulldogs and the Atlanta Braves, are “poetic justice” for last year’s boycotts.
“We were just so excited like the whole Bulldog nation,” Kemp said. “If you remember when we talked about Stacey Abrams and President Biden’s pressure to get the Major League Baseball All Star Game moved back last summer — it was poetic justice when the Braves won the World Series.”
Kemp then patted himself on the back, claiming that apparently nobody said a word about Georgia’s restrictive voting law in Georgia nor in Houston, Texas — the city where the Braves won the World Series against the Houston Astros — in November.
“That’s the way we ended the year and started it great with a Bulldog national championship,” Kemp said.
Kemp’s remarks come after the President used his bully pulpit to elevate Democrats’ calls for democracy reforms and filibuster changes on the national stage Tuesday. Georgia’s restrictive voting law, which was signed by Kemp last year, contains restrictive provisions such as new ID requirements for mail voting, limits on dropbox use and banning the distribution of food and most beverages to voters waiting in line to vote in person.
Kemp is also seeking re-election this year. Among his challengers is former Sen. David Perdue (R-GA), a Trump ally who has been a big proponent of the Big Lie of a “stolen” 2020 election. Kemp became one of Trump’s punching bags after he refused to boost his election fraud falsehoods.
Kemp’s reputation among fellow Republicans has hung in the balance since then despite signing his state’s restrictive voting law — GOP officials in two deeply conservative counties in northern Georgia overwhelmingly voted to censure Kemp last year, citing complaints that the Georgia governor didn’t challenge Trump’s defeat.
Additionally, Kemp could potentially face a rematch against Abrams, the former minority leader of the Georgia House of Representatives who has become a prominent voting rights advocate, later this year. Kemp narrowly defeated Abrams in the battleground state in 2018.
Watch Kemp’s remarks below:
