Donald Trump and Georgia Governor Brian Kemp are taking advantage of the hurricane recovery to appear together for the first time

EVANS, Ga. – After privately reconciling, former President Donald Trump and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp are using the aftermath of Hurricane Helene to publicly flaunt their détente policies a month before Election Day.

Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, and Kemp, a popular governor in his second term, are expected to appear together outside Augusta, Georgia, on Friday afternoon to promote recovery efforts after Helene made landfall in Florida and was making its way inland through Georgia had caused great damage and other states.

The appearance will take place at a public pavilion in the town of Evans, with Trump and Kemp surrounded by water, paper products and other supplies. It marks the latest turn in the contentious relationship between the two Republicans, which dates back to Trump's insistence that his 2020 election loss was fraudulent and his repeated broadsides against Kemp for not helping him secure the Democrat's narrow victory To overthrow Joe Biden in Georgia.

It also comes days after Kemp publicly disputed Trump's false claims that Biden and his White House failed to help Georgia and other Republican-led states affected by the storm. Kemp clearly told reporters that Biden had personally called him and offered any help Georgia might need.

“The president just called me … and I missed him and called him right back and he just said, 'Hey, what do you need?' And I told him, you know, we have what we need, we're going to work through the federal process,” Kemp said of Biden. “He offered to call him directly if we needed anything else, which I really appreciated.”

In Valdosta on Monday, Trump ignored reporters' questions about Kemp and confirmed that Biden and his administration were indeed leading the federal response and working with officials in affected states led by governors of both major parties.

It was not clear Friday whether Trump and Kemp would answer questions from reporters gathered in Evans – a situation that would almost certainly put the governor in the position of again disputing Trump's misstatements with the former president at his side.

As recently as August, Trump used social media posts and a rally in Atlanta to accuse the governor of “fighting unity and the Republican Party” and criticized the first lady of Georgia for saying she wanted to appear on her presidential ticket Write her husband's name. Kemp had said for months that he would support “the Republican ticket,” but without specifically naming Trump.

That spectacle sparked fears among Republicans in Georgia and nationally that GOP disunity would lead to a repeat of 2020, when Biden won the state by fewer than 12,000 votes out of 5 million cast.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and Trump's Vice President JD Vance helped negotiate a détente, with Kemp eventually saying in a cable news interview that he supported Trump's comeback bid and Trump in turn praising the governor on social media. Not long after, Vance and Kemp spoke at a Faith & Georgia Freedom Coalition Gala and Private Backstage Meeting. During his dinner speech, Kemp specifically called for returning Trump to the White House. Still, he spent most of his argument criticizing Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris rather than praising Trump.