Live from Virginia Tuesday morning on The John Fredericks Show – weekdays on WNTW AM 820/ FM 92.7 – Richmond, WJFN FM 100.5 – Central Virginia, WMPH AM 1010 / FM 100.1 / FM 96.9 (7-9 PM) Hampton Roads, WBRG AM 1050 / FM 105.1 – Lynchburg/Roanoke and Weekdays 6-10 am and 24/7 Stream – host Fredericks welcomed former Georgia Senator David Perdue to the show to discuss why he’s running for Georgia governor.
Fredericks: Joining us now, David Perdue. The former senator from Georgia. Got elected in 2014. Defeated by Jon Ossoff in the runoff as you know, January 5th I guess it was of 2020. Time passing us by. Happy New Year.
Senator Perdue Happy New Year, Merry Christmas to you and your lovely wife. And I appreciate your coming on today and your willingness to engage with our listeners, sir. Thank you.
Perdue: Well John, thank you for having me. I’m excited about it. I’m like you, I feel great this morning. I had a great night’s sleep on my own My Pillow last night so it’s all good. Thanks for having me.
Fredericks: I know a great promo. Go to mypillow.com put in promo code Godzilla. And you too can get a good night’s sleep like me and David Perdue. (Perdue chuckles) Senator Perdue, let’s get right to it.
After what really was a bitter defeat in the Georgia runoff last year to Jon Ossoff, you spent over $100 million to get re-elected. You couldn’t get over the top. What inspired this run for governor sir?
Perdue: Well it’s a great question John and it’s not what I had in mind this year. But I have to tell you I’ve been working all year with Brian Kemp from President Trump trying to get at what most people in the state are really upset about.
And that is that our governor caved into Stacey Abrams last year and let her take over our elections. And we saw the result. I won by 460,000 votes in November. More than Brian won in 2018. Almost 90,000 votes more than Ossoff actually in the general election when everybody voted.
But because of the irregularities, a lot of people in Georgia lost confidence in the voting system and didn’t come back out in January. And we of course did not produce the votes at that point. So I’m running right now because our governor has not really stepped up and tried to pull us back in.
Somebody said the other day said David you can’t run. You’re going to divide the party. I said no, the party’s already divided. People are upset right now about what happened in 2020. Look I’m not trying to change anything.
I asked for a special session in November and December. I went to court three times. I have just filed another lawsuit to find out if I have legal standing to get at the issues. It’s not to reverse the election as much as it is to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
We have to have confidence in how we vote. So I’m running right now to bring character back into the governor’s office and to fight for the people of Georgia. We have to stop Stacey and save our state. It’s just as simple as that John.
Fredericks: Senator, your endorsement of Brian Kemp in 2018 was really the key to getting him the nomination over then lieutenant governor Casey Cagle who had the lead in that runoff. It’s a very well-known fact that you lobbied President Trump very hard to back Brian Kemp. He didn’t know him from adam, basically, Trump has said that. What changed?
Perdue: He didn’t fight for us last year and he’s not fighting for us this year. You’re exactly correct. Brian Kemp would not be governor had Donald Trump not endorsed him and oh by the way not come to Macon, Georgia Sunday night before the November election in 2018.
And yet at every turn, Brian Kemp has fought President Trump instead of fighting Stacey Abrams. It’s very clear. So I’m running right now because we cannot allow Stacey Abrams to become governor and Brian Kemp can’t beat her.
He can’t bring the party together. He can’t get the Trump vote. President Trump has said that. So I just have stepped up here to give people a choice in this primary about who they want to run against Stacey Abrams. Look this is not just about Georgia.
My objectives are the following. We’ve got to have Donald Trump or somebody in the president’s job who is a conservative in 2024. We see the madness that’s going on in Washington right now. Big Tech is in control again. They’re destroying our education system.
Our military is being defunded again. Police are being defunded across the country. And this is madness. So we’ve got to put Trump back in the president’s office or somebody else from the Republican side to stop the madness.
That’s the first objective of ’24. Put a Republican back in the White House. The second objective is to make darn sure that Stacey Abrams is never governor of Georgia. I mean that’s just a fact. And then the third is we’ve got to get the Senate majority back and that means we have to win this seat back from Warnock this year.
And the only way to do that is to have someone besides Brian Kemp running for governor. In my opinion, it’s very clear that he cannot pull this party together and help us get that senate seat back or win that president’s job back in ’24.
Fredericks: So you think that if Governor Kemp is the head of the Republican ticket and is on the Republican ticket that it would hurt the Republicans’ chance to beat Warnock in the Senate? Is
that what I’m hearing?
Perdue: John I missed part of that, but it’s very clear to me based on my travel around the state and working with the governor this year and President Trump that if Brian Kemp were going to pull this party together he would have already done it. And that’s the bottom line.
And I just believe right now you’ve got to have every single Republican vote in 2022 just like we did in 2020 in November. And we won. Let’s remember that the Republican party produced 2.5
half-million votes, almost 100,000 votes more than democrats did when everybody voted.
It was only when we realized the intransigence that happened in the election and a lot of people lost confidence to then come back out and vote. What I’m proposing right now is just what president trump said in Virginia that helped us put a Republican back in that governor’s seat is that what the president said is true here in Georgia.
The voting laws have been improved. They’re not perfect yet but they’re good enough. We can overwhelm it if everybody votes. And so this is the time for true conservatives to stand up and make sure that they don’t let the radical left and Big Tech and the liberal democrats take control of our state.
We know what’s happened. Stacey Abrams wants Georgia to become another California. And I just could not stand by John and watch that happen this year. So I’ve thrown my hat in the ring. We’re going to run a hard primary here against the incumbent governor.
It’s a people’s race against the politicians though. I mean, I’m running against a guy that’s been in office for 20 years John. I mean if he were going to make a difference wouldn’t have already been able to do it? I just think that right now people of Georgia are looking for an alternative to stand up to Stacey Abrams. I hear it all over the state.
Listen to the full interview here:
