Former President Donald Trump came to Atlanta on Wednesday for a high-dollar campaign fundraiser.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Greg Bluestein provided live updates to “Politically Georgia” as he waited outside the hotel where the event was scheduled to take place.
“The attendance looks a lot like the top of the 2020 ticket,” Bluestein tells the podcast. “We’ll see former Sens. David Perdue, Kelly Loeffler, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and GOP mega-donor Bernie Marcus.”
He also noted that Georgia mainstream Republicans, such as Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, were not planning to attend the event, further marking some divides in the state’s Republican Party.
Trump’s visit to Georgia comes after he made his stance on abortion known earlier this week, saying the decision should be up to the states.
Tuesday on “Politically Georgia,” Georgia GOP Chairman Josh McKoon said he understood Trump’s stance and was doubtful that Congress would ever take up a federal abortion law.
“Well, I think the message is that the election for president of the United States is not going to, in any way, change the law on abortion in the state of Georgia,” McKoon says. “That is a matter for the Georgia General Assembly.”
The chairman said he expects other issues will take over the 2024 election cycle.
“This campaign, this election, is going to be decided on the economy, on the border, on this administration’s foreign policy,” McKoon says. “It’s about people feeling safe and secure economically and physically.”
Former Democratic state Sen. Jen Jordan disagreed.
“I’ve never seen Republicans move so quickly away from an issue. This was their crown jewel,” Jordan says on Wednesday’s podcast. “We women were told by Republican men, let’s be clear, and women that we were being hyperbolic, we didn’t know what we were talking about, all this stuff wouldn’t happen.”
If you remember, Jordan gave an impassioned speech back in 2019, when Georgia’s abortion law passed narrowly in the state House.
That law didn’t go into effect in Georgia until after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
In Arizona, the state’s Supreme Court delivered a landmark decision Tuesday, giving the go-ahead to enforce a long-dormant law that bans nearly all abortions.
Jordan says the recent Arizona ruling in favor of the 1864 law was a consequence of losing Roe v. Wade. “Once you take Roe v. Wade away,” she says, “then the law goes back into place.”
Thursday on “Politically Georgia”: We’ll talk about U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff’s federal inquiry into Georgia’s child welfare system.
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