Kemp, DeSantis campaigns reject Trump’s ‘COVID Tyrant’ claims

The campaigns for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R ) and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) are both pushing back on former President Trump’s “COVID Tyrant” claims.

Kemp responded to a video of Trump where the former president said that “COIVD Tyrant[s]” want to take away Americans’ freedoms and called on people to “not comply.”

Kemp appeared to take the video as an attack on how he handled COVID-19 and blasted the former president for not supporting his decision to roll back pandemic restrictions in 2020. 

“The fact is former president Trump led the opposition to my decision to reopen Georgia — the first state in the country to do so,” Kemp wrote in response to the video on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “While he listened to Fauci & parroted media talking points, I listened to hardworking Georgians. He may not remember, but I sure as hell do.”

At the time, Trump said he disagreed “strongly” with Kemp’s decision to start reopening the economy in April 2020. DeSantis also moved to lift the lockdown in Florida around that time and officially ended the lockdown in September 2020.

“@BrianKempGA and @RonDeSantis were right and Donald Trump was wrong,” James Uthmeier, DeSantis’s chief of staff and campaign manager, posted in response to Kemp.

Over the weekend, Trump took aim at some governors for their pandemic policies as he praised South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R ), who endorsed the former president at a campaign event Friday. Noem was one of a few governors who did not impose stay-at-home orders during the pandemic.

“Unlike other governors, she never locked down South Dakota,” Trump said. “They all say, ‘Oh, I kept it open, I kept it open.’ They didn’t keep it open.”