A few hours after attending Jimmy Carter’s funeral in Washington, Gov. Brian Kemp hopped a flight to Florida to take his place at the head table for a meeting of Republican governors hosted by president-elect Donald Trump.

Not long ago, a friendly face-to-face meeting between the former rivals would have been unthinkable given Trump’s repeated attempts to oust Kemp from office and forever exile him from Republican politics.

But the gathering at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday illustrated how vastly their relationship has changed as Kemp enters the final leg of his second term in office and an ascendant Trump readies his return to the White House next week.

The truce between the two Republicans, forged in the heat of the campaign after Trump badmouthed Kemp at an Atlanta rally in August, has held firm since Trump recaptured Georgia and won every other battleground state.

And Kemp, whose recent election as chair of the Republican Governors Association affords him a national platform in GOP politics, is fast recalibrating his relationship with the once and future president.

How Kemp navigates his relationship with his longtime frenemy will help determine billions of dollars in government aid for Georgia and the future of state programs that depend on Washington’s largesse.

It will also shape Kemp’s political future, as the term-limited governor must soon decide whether he challenges Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff in 2026, position himself for a White House bid in 2028 or retreat from politics.

Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC

Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC

Most pressing, the governor must have backing from Trump and the GOP-controlled Congress to secure more than $12 billion in Hurricane Helene relief, his top federal priority. And he’ll need White House support for plenty other programs, including his struggling Pathways healthcare initiative.

That’s no given. Kemp is still scarred from a monthslong battle for Hurricane Michael relief in 2019 that was bound up in partisan theatrics. And Trump has repeatedly threatened to punish those on his bad side, even if they’re fellow Republicans. Kemp has the scars to prove it.

But the realpolitik approach goes both ways. Trump needs help from Kemp and other Republican governors to achieve his political agenda, including his campaign’s centerpiece pledge to carry out mass deportations of unauthorized migrants.

Likewise, Trump must also rely upon close coordination with states to implement other day-one promises made during the campaign, from school gender policies to shifting stances on vaccine mandates.

As the governor put it in a recent interview, Republicans have an knack for letting “bygones be bygones and just do whatever it takes to win.”

He added: “And that’s been my commitment for well over a year now.”

A state-shaping saga

Few Republicans would have better grounds to hold a grudge than Kemp.

Once allies, their relationship began to fray in 2019 when Trump bristled at Kemp’s selection of Kelly Loeffler to an open U.S. Senate seat without his approval. It unraveled entirely a year later after Democrat Joe Biden eked out a victory in Kemp’s home state.

Trump branded Kemp an ingrate and a turncoat after the governor refused to call a special legislative session to invalidate Biden’s victory and rebuffed other attempts by Trump’s allies to undermine the election.

An infuriated Trump set out to destroy Kemp and his top allies, swearing that Kemp would “go down in flames” at the ballot box. His prediction was spectacularly wrong, as Kemp trounced a Trump-backed rival and won his rematch against Stacey Abrams.

Unburdened after his reelection, Kemp used his platform to urge Trump to ditch his obsession with 2020 and focus on the future. Still, he never took sides in the GOP nominating contest, and cast a blank ballot in Georgia’s primary.

Their détente exploded in August when Trump unleashed a 10-minute tirade that belittled Kemp and his wife Marty at a downtown Atlanta rally, setting off weeks of furious negotiating to restore the peace.

But as polls showed a tight race in Georgia, one of seven battleground states, Trump quickly changed his tune about Kemp. He complimented the governor when they reunited in Augusta to discuss Helene relief in October, their first in-person meeting since 2020. And he praised him as a “really good” leader at rallies.

Kemp, in turn, deployed his campaign machinery to boost Trump and trekked across Georgia for the former president and legislative candidates. At events, Kemp didn’t whitewash his turbulent past with Trump. But he cast it as a question of “who’s going to be better for our state and for our country.”

“Look, you may not like Donald Trump personally,” he said to a group of suburban Republicans before the election. “But you’ll like his policies a lot better than Kamala Harris’. It’s a business decision. You’re making a business decision.”

Of course, there’s no telling whether the truce will hold. Some past conflagrations seemed to burst out of nowhere. And many from both parties are tired of the squabbling.

“Georgians want their elected leaders to put egos and politics aside to address our state’s most pressing issues: providing relief for families impacted by Hurricane Helene and expanding access to quality healthcare and housing,” said state Sen. Jason Esteves, an Atlanta Democrat.

Senior Republicans sounded optimistic that the feuding is at an end. Chris Riley, who was Gov. Nathan Deal’s top aide for both his terms, said Kemp’s strategy has “put the needs of Georgians over any personal challenges” with Trump. And Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, an ally of both Kemp and Trump, said GOP victories have a way of smoothing things over.

“Everybody’s moving forward,” he said. “There’s no ill will. I mean, President Trump is going to be the president. I’m looking forward to working with him, and I know Gov. Kemp is as well.”