Kemp rules out 2024 presidential bid; Says GOP candidates can’t win Georgia with fake 2020 election fraud claims

(CNN) — Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp ruled out running for president in 2024 and warned Republicans – including frontrunner Donald Trump – that they can’t win Georgia if they continue to spout false claims about election fraud from 2020.

“If (Trump) continues to do that, he’s going to lose Georgia in November,” he said in an exclusive interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source.”

Pressed on his own 2024 presidential aspirations, Kemp said he was “certainly not running.”

“In politics, there’s always doors opening and closing. I got a great job right now. I personally feel like having more people in the race does not help us win and beat Joe Biden. So, you know, I’m certainly not running for president. But there’s always doors opening in politics depending on how things play out, and we’ll see what happens,” he said.

He has refrained from offering a presidential endorsement at this stage of the race, but offered this message to his party’s 2024 hopefuls: “We have to tell the American people what we are for. We got to be forward-thinking and tell them what we’re gonna do. We can’t be looking in the rearview mirror. And then, we gotta have a candidate that can beat Joe Biden in November.”

Ultimately, Kemp said, he will “certainly” endorse the 2024 Republican nominee, even if it is Trump.

Pressed by Collins on whether Trump can win the state he lost by less than 12,000 votes in 2020, the Georgia Republican said he thinks he can due to President Joe Biden’s low popularity. But Trump, Kemp added, needs to stop talking about 2020.

“I think he (Trump) can because Joe Biden has been such a bad president. His approval ratings are just terrible in the state of Georgia right now. So I think he can. I also think he can lose Georgia if he’s not doing what I said: telling people what he’s for, staying focused on the race, quit looking back at the 2020 election. I mean, for goodness sakes, it was two-and-a-half, three years ago now. The American people want to know: what are you gonna do for me to help me offset the bad policies of Joe Biden?” he said.

Kemp reiterated that if Trump continues his false claims that the election was stolen, “He’s going to lose Georgia in November.”

“If you feel like the election was stolen – I know there’s people that are out there that do, there’s others that, you know, don’t, but it doesn’t really matter. The people want to know what you’re going to do,” he said.

He also noted that he didn’t believe that a Republican could win the presidency without the Peach State.

Republicans, Kemp said, “got to have a candidate that can win and can beat Joe Biden and can win in states like Georgia. There is no path for us to win the White House if we can’t win Georgia. And so that’s what I’ve stayed focused on.”

Tension between the former president and Kemp has been simmering for years. When Kemp refused to overturn Biden’s 2020 win in Georgia, Trump made the governor his No. 1 enemy, publicly railing against him throughout 2021 and recruiting former Sen. David Perdue to challenge Kemp in the 2022 GOP gubernatorial primary. Through it all, Trump failed to draw Kemp into a fight, and the governor won the primary overwhelmingly before handily defeating Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams in the November general election.

“He was mad at me. I was not mad at him. I told him exactly what I could and couldn’t do when it came to the election and I followed the law and the Constitution. And as I’ve said before, that’s a lot bigger than Donald Trump. It’s a lot bigger than me. It’s a lot bigger than the Republican Party,” Kemp said.

He continued, “But despite all of those things, I believe anybody running for president right now as a Republican, that would be better than what we’re seeing with the Biden-Harris administration.”

Asked whether any of the other GOP candidates have what it takes to beat Trump, Kemp noted that while national polling has been “pretty stagnant,” Trump’s rivals “are getting their legs under them now” and that there’s “still a long, long way to go in the race.”

He suggested that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis entered the Republican primary at a disadvantage, saying that high initial polling put him in a “tough spot.”

“I think Ron was in a pretty tough spot when he got in the race… His numbers were so high before he got in, in some ways, he didn’t have anywhere to go. And now he’s gotten in a stagnant place,” he said, adding that the DeSantis campaign is “in it for the long haul.”

Kemp also expressed frustration about the pace of an investigation led by Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis, an elected Democrat, into the former president’s conduct after he lost the 2020 election. Willis has indicated that final charging decisions could come as soon as next month.

“I’m probably more disappointed that it’s taken this long,” Kemp said.

He added, “People are wondering, like, why has this taking so long?… Why haven’t we had resolution? So, I think I think that just sows distrust in the system, which is unfortunate. That’s not what people should be feeling, no matter what side of the aisle you’re on. So, it is, you know, in my eyes, frustrating but we’ll see what she comes out with at the appropriate time.”