The Georgia Hour, episode 82: GA GOP State Convention 2025: Power Struggle and Transparency Issues

The Geor­gia GOP State Con­ven­tion, set for June 6–7, 2025, in Dal­ton, is a crit­i­cal bat­tle­ground for elect­ing a new state exec­u­tive board to restore grass­roots pow­er. Incum­bent chair­man Josh McK­oon faces chal­lenges from can­di­dates David Cross, Lau­rie McClain, Kylie Kre­mer, Norine Can­tor, and Lisa Pierce, who refused to sign an NDA, lim­it­ing their del­e­gate access and rais­ing trans­paren­cy con­cerns. McK­oon, accused of incon­sis­tent nar­ra­tives on finances and cor­po­rate struc­ture, alleged­ly down­plays a foren­sic audit need. Crit­ics, includ­ing Salleigh Grubbs and Bet­sy Kramer, defend estab­lish­ment con­trol, while McKoon’s $228K salary and trav­el allowances spark scruti­ny. Cross, tar­get­ed over past employ­ment, rep­re­sents a grass­roots push against the estab­lish­ment, exem­pli­fied by Grubbs’ lead­er­ship in Cobb Coun­ty, which shift­ed Demo­c­rat since 2020. Alle­ga­tions of mis­man­age­ment fuel calls for reform. The con­ven­tion will decide whether the GA GOP embraces trans­paren­cy and grass­roots influ­ence or main­tains the sta­tus quo under McKoon’s lead­er­ship, with impli­ca­tions for the party’s future direc­tion and align­ment with nation­al Repub­li­can goals.

• The GA GOP State con­ven­tion will be June 6–7. It is the first key that will need to take place in elect­ing a new state exec­u­tive board to turn the tides to restore the pow­er back to the peo­ple. 
• These are not good peo­ple that we are going against to restore the pow­er to the peo­ple. Uncov­er­ing a sto­ry that could hap­pen if the Josh Coverup team were to come to pow­er com­ing Fri­day morn­ing. 
• The five indi­vid­u­als who did not sign the NDA, Lau­rie McClain, Kylie Kre­mer, David Cross, Lisa Pierce, Norine Can­tor. They are run­ning a cam­paign with­out access to the del­e­gates. As a del­e­gate how can you research the can­di­dates if you aren’t allowed to access the infor­ma­tion. You will hear Josh McK­oon say­ing that he and his wife have been attacked. Josh McKoon’s wife worked for the GA GOP. and Josh has brought his wife into the mix by say­ing that when he thinks of grass­roots he thinks of his wife.  
• The resur­gence of the peo­ple into the par­ty has to be stopped and Salleigh Grubbs, Josh McK­oon and Bet­sy Kramer will tell you. Every day there is a forum, Josh changes his answers every day. Josh is upset that we looked at the finances. Josh said that he had a bowtie cri­sis in Wash­ing­ton DC. Josh makes $228K, and has a trav­el allowance up to $18K hope­ful­ly he doesn’t dou­ble dip. Plus his wife is rak­ing in mon­ey in Butts coun­ty. Josh can­not tell you the truth about any­thing. He will tell you this long tall tale about $138. He is in Wash­ing­ton DC, he has to go to an event and needs to get a bow tie, and his card was com­pro­mised and had to give the GA GOP card. How many times are we going to lis­ten to his dif­fer­ent sto­ry lines on the cor­po­ra­tion? The state com­mit­tee vot­ed to put togeth­er a cor­po­rate struc­ture com­mit­tee togeth­er. Josh will say any­thing to get elect­ed. Through­out the two years he made promis­es. Ask John Pad­gett if there is any­thing he has to do to allow the GA GOP Inc to file the par­ty paper­work prop­er­ly with the SOS. Josh has made up six dif­fer­ent answers in two years. Last week he said we are still wait­ing on the law­suit. On the zoom call he changed his sto­ry, the par­ty is incor­po­rat­ed for the lia­bil­i­ty shield. There is event insur­ance, every event is insured. We have con­ven­tions at con­ven­tion halls and there is always event insur­ance. This slip and fall sto­ry is stretch­ing and reach­ing. 
• In the third dis­trict, Katie Frost ques­tioned David Cross on why he was let go from Mer­rill Lynch, the ques­tion was a set up. Last night he was set up again to answer the ques­tion. They are try­ing to lay doubt about David Cross, 9 out of 10 Amer­i­cans have got­ten fired. David Cross is now in the pri­vate sec­tor he is not rely­ing on $228K a year on tax­pay­er posi­tion. David is in the real world, and in the real world peo­ple get fired and David turned it out to a very suc­cess­ful busi­ness. 
• Remem­ber the steak din­ner in ari­zona. Josh McK­oon raised $3M in the con­trolled cir­cle. Every­thing that has been found out in the finances should have been report­ed in an exec­u­tive com­mit­tee that hasn’t had a meet­ing since last August. Josh is telling you that when he went to Scotts­dale AZ at an RNC meet­ing that he host­ed a din­ner for $1700. What he did was make a case to these states to come to their dime, hotel room and every­thing to help us win an elec­tion. He is telling you that he can go all over the coun­try to help us win the elec­tion. We had a fundrais­er in Banks coun­ty that raised $35K that Josh McK­oon did not par­tic­i­pate in. Maybe Josh didn’t want a pic­ture with him­self and Colton Moore. Now we had free legal advice from dif­fer­ent states that Josh turned down, he want­ed to bring in mon­ey to cer­tain attor­neys to get the mon­ey for the legal sup­port. His rais­ing $3M is a joke, there is a pos­si­bil­i­ty that $1M came from Kel­ly Loef­fler. If we would have put out a call to the entire coun­ty for the legal bills, imag­ine what could have been raised. Josh has an attor­ney style answer. 
• Do you think the RNC ran $20M through the GA GOP and demand­ed that Travis Bow­den be removed and placed Rice as the Exec­u­tive direc­tor in his place. 
• Jeff D has a pre­vi­ous rela­tion­ship with Josh because they are tired of Lau­rie McClain ask­ing ques­tions. Who told you Jeff that you will get to review the finances dai­ly? 
• Accord­ing to Bet­sy Kramer you can’t just walk off the street with­out putting in your dues to take over. Salleigh is say­ing we need to go back to the estab­lish­ment ways. She is say­ing that every two years the new crew comes along and they want to kick the estab­lish­ment out. Salleigh is say­ing she is estab­lish­ment now, she has “trav­el” knowl­edge. If you have a chair­man that com­mits to work­ing with who­ev­er the del­e­gates vote in, and if the can­di­dates will com­mit to work­ing with any­thing the del­e­gates want they don’t need to be on the board. 
• Salleigh Grubbs wants to get a pro­mo­tion. Cobb coun­ty is the only metro coun­ty that moved more blue over 2020. And Lisa Pierce doesn’t know what she is doing? Salleigh over­saw the only coun­ty that moved more demo­c­rat under her watch. Lisa has what it takes to do the job, she has increased the vote in her coun­ty, unlike Salleigh Grubbs. 
• David Shafer crowned Josh McK­oon. Josh McK­oon tells us that the finances have been han­dled the same way for the last 15 years. It is way over­due for a foren­sic audit of the GA GOP. Who went on the stage with tears and gave the going away present to David Shafer, none oth­er than Salleigh Grubbs. Don’t for­get Salleigh crowned her replace­ment in the Cobb coun­ty going against the can­di­date that had worked for the par­ty only because she was Mus­lim she wasn’t qual­i­fied to be par­ty coun­ty chair. But Don­ald Trump made deals with Mid­dle East coun­tries where their reli­gion is Mus­lim. 
• David Cross com­ments edit­ed from the record­ing. 
• Shel­ley Wyn­ter had John King on the show.