MACON, Ga. — Governor Brian Kemp spoke about Georgia's readiness to hold the Republican National Convention Wednesday morning, a day after saying the state would be honored to host the event on Twitter.
President Donald Trump threatened to move the convention from North Carolina earlier this week. Since then, several states have thrown their names into the mix.
But is Georgia ready for such a large-scale event amid COVID-19?
Kemp stopped in Macon Wednesday to visit the Medical Center, Navicent Health and Irving Tissue, and was asked about the event at both locations.
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"We'd love to have the RNC here, I feel like we could do that in a safe way," he said at Navicent. "It's not until August -- we'd have plenty of time to prepare for that."
He acknowledged a lot of time and money has already gone into having the event in North Carolina, but said Atlanta is ready and equipped.
"We have the hotel space and the event venue space in Atlanta for large events. We've done it before; we just had probably one of the greatest Super Bowl experiences ever," he said.
But Georgia's COVID-19 outlook is also a huge factor in whether or not those hotels and spaces will be used.
"Well if we were going to have a large event today, I'd tell you, 'no we're not ready to do that,'" Kemp said at Irving Tissue. "If we were going to do one in August, I'd tell you that 'yeah I think there's an opportunity we could do that.'"
He said the RNC is not the only event they're looking at later in the year. Many professional sports teams are ready to get the ball rolling again with fall events.
Kemp said event planning is a long, complex process, but they'll continue to follow data and science to make those calls.
With medical guidance, Kemp said he thinks it's possible to hold any large-scale political event in person safely.
"If there's an interest to do that here, we'd certainly would like to do that and just see where it goes," he said.
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