52%. donald trump campaigned for him and built him up, and then of course brian kemp went on to win over stacey abrams in the general. so republicans i think have wised up quicker than the rest of the republicans across the country because they value good conservative leadership that s not crazy. and that s the winning strategy as we go into this 2024 cycle. it s painful. it feels like fingernails down a chalkboard listening to tim scott and nikki haley and others kind of walking around, tiptoeing this question about donald trump. let s just stand up, let s get them to get in a room with a case of beer and a couple pizzas and agree, you know what? let s all call donald trump for what it is. they don t believe that this election was rigged. they don t believe what he s doing is good for the future of the party. and they certainly don t believe it s what s good to try to beat joe biden which should be an easy layup for us. they need to get in a room, be able to come out as a group and sa
we also have the debate next wednesday with many of the 2024 republican candidates and again, it s unclear if donald trump as well is going to be participating in those debates. my conversations with trump s team is as of now it s not looking very likely. but this is all potentially on a collision course for next week. a very busy calendar not only with campaign events but with court dates ahead for the former president. alayna treene, thank you so much. jim? as we await those surrenders in fulton county, at least one defendant, mark meadows, trump s former chief of staff, is trying to stop the process in its tracks. he s filing to move the case to a federal court. cnn s sara murray is here. so sara, is this about delay? is this about setting himself up perhaps for a presidential pardon which doesn t normally apply which would not apply to a state case? what s behind this? i think it s a lot of things. when they put this motion into the federal court, one, they re asking to m
afloat. so he is right now already facing the possibility that a judge could rule against him with finality in the case from the two georgia election workers. he could lose that and have a significant bill. he already has a bill of $89,000 and counting for legal fees of things that have happened so far in that case where they have had to fight over him getting electronic records. there s another case, smartmatic s case against him, he was just in court today arguing that he s not getting any more financial help, there was some financial help he got to the tune of 3$320 ,000 from save america pac to pay for some bills he needed to keep his records archived and to be able to produce them in the lawsuit, which is something that has to happen when you re a defendant in a lawsuit. and he s not going to be getting more financial help. that was what our reporter jeremy herb in the courtroom heard his lawyers say. and the judge, though, was unconvinced that he had a true financial hardship at
immune. and that means it shouldn t go to federal court. geoff duncan, trump of course calls this a fundamentally partisan prosecution here, as do many of his allies. it is notable in georgia, however, that it is gop officials including yourself who stood up to him, rejected his claims of fraud there, rejected his attempts to overturn the election. you interact with a lot of georgia gop voters. i wonder, when you meet them do they side with your view of the case and brad raffensperger and brian kemp s or do they side with the president s, the former president s? well, first of all, let s cue up the alternate universe strategy that played out post-2020. they re going back to the same game plan right now, right? shiny objects and point to things that really aren t true and don t matter. yeah. the exact answer to your question is i don t think you have to go any further than brian kemp s win. brian kemp beat david perdue in a primary process quite honestly by the biggest margin i
in georgia that is fundamentally a campaign or a political matter. so based on the evidence, it looks like it s not an official act. it can t be, if you think about it under the constitution. an official act to engage illegally. and there s other factors like the fact that the white house doesn t have a role in adjudicating state election results. so steep hill. you re saying it s not an official act because it was campaign-related or because it was potentially illegal? that it was not a nice official act as it all of the above. there s a very important 11th circuit case, the balcomb case that is going to come into play here which says if it was not official, if it was not done in good faith, if it was done with criminal intent or if it has any other of these badges of impropriety then it s not