Former President Trump and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp will appear together on Friday for the first time in four years as they receive a briefing on recovery and relief efforts one week after Hurricane Helene tore a path of destruction after slamming into the southeast United States.

The former president and the popular two-term conservative Georgia governor are scheduled to be briefed on storm damage and to “deliver remarks to the press” as they team up during a visit to Evans, a town in the northeast portion of the state.

The event is not being described as a campaign stop.

For Trump, it’s his second trip this week to Georgia, following a visit on Monday in Valdosta. The state, along with North and South Carolina, and Tennessee, took direct hits from the powerful storm. The death toll from Hurricane Helene now stands at over 220, with hundreds still missing, more than 800,000 people in seven states still without power or running water, and damage estimated in the billions.

TRUMP CLAIMS BIDEN, HARRIS, STORM RESPONSE IS INCOMPETENT

With Trump locked in a margin-of-error presidential race with Vice President Kamala Harris, and Georgia and North Carolina crucial battleground states, Trump has repeatedly slammed President Biden and Harris over their handing of the federal response to the storm.

“It is going down as the WORST & MOST INCOMPETENTLY MANAGED ‘STORM,’ AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL, EVER SEEN BEFORE,” Trump claimed in a social media post on Thursday, as Biden spent a second straight day in the southeast surveying storm damage. 

HEAD HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING ON HURRICANE HELENE AFTERMATH

And Harris stopped in Georgia on Wednesday for storm briefings and to meet with local officials and victims of the storm, as she canceled a campaign swing in another key electoral state, Pennsylvania.

The vice president heads to North Carolina on Saturday to survey damage and get briefed on federal, state and local efforts.

When Trump visited Valdosta on Monday, he wasn’t joined by Kemp, who was surveying storm damage in other parts of Georgia.

For two years after his 2020 election defeat to President Biden, which included a razor-thin loss in Georgia, Trump attacked Kemp for failing to overturn the election results in his state. 

Trump urged, and then supported, a 2022 GOP gubernatorial primary challenge against Kemp by former Sen. David Perdue.

The former president toned down his criticism of the governor after Kemp crushed Perdue to easily win renomination on his way to re-election.

KEMP SAYS THERE’S NO PATH TO 270 FOR TRUMP WITHOUT GEORGIA

But in August, Trump went on a 10-minute tirade against Kemp at a rally in Atlanta just blocks from the Georgia State Capitol. He blamed the governor not only for failing to overturn the 2020 vote count but also for not stopping a county prosecutor from indicting the former president for his attempts to reverse the results.

Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally held in Atlanta, Georgia, on August 3, 2024. Reuters/Megan Varner

“He’s a bad guy. He’s a disloyal guy. And he’s a very average governor,” Trump said. “Little Brian. Little Brian Kemp. Bad guy.”

But just a couple of weeks later, in a major about face for Trump, the former president praised Kemp in a social media post “for all of your help and support in Georgia, where a win is so important to the success of our Party and, most importantly, our Country.”

“I look forward to working with you, your team, and all of my friends in Georgia to help MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” the Republican presidential nominee added.

Trump’s change of heart came amid a margin-of-error presidential race in Georgia.

The Peach State is one of seven key battlegrounds whose razor-thin margins decided Biden’s 2020 victory over Trump and are likely to determine whether Harris or Trump succeeds the president in the White House.

Republican strategists agree that to recapture Georgia, Trump will need assistance from Kemp’s well-oiled and funded political machine to turn out GOP voters.

In this Nov. 4, 2018, file photo, then-Georgia Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp, left, walks with then-President Donald Trump as Trump arrives for a rally in Macon, Ga. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File) (AP )

Kemp emphasized in an exclusive national interview with Fox News Digital in August that “there’s no path for former President Trump to win or any Republican . . . to get to 270 [electoral votes] without Georgia.”

The governor said his state “should be one that we win if we have all the mechanics that we need. And I’m working hard to help provide those in a lot of ways and turn the Republican vote out.”

“It’s my belief that we cannot afford four more years of [President] Joe Biden and Kamala Harris or Kamala Harris and [Minnesota Gov.] Tim Walz, which I think would probably be worse than even Biden and Harris were,” Kemp said.

Kemp also told Fox News at the time that Trump’s tirade from early August “was a small distraction that’s in the past” and emphasized that Republicans “need to stay focused on the future. . . . We need to be telling people why they should vote for us, what we’re going to do to make things better than they are right now. And there’s a host of issues that I think you could contrast Kamala Harris and her record.”

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

A Georgia man is thanking God after narrowly surviving being stranded in the North Carolina mountains during and directly after Hurricane Helene devastated the state on September 27.

Kyle Vargas of McDonough, Georgia hiked 13 miles on foot through the mountains after being stranded in the Tar Heel state while visiting Ashland with his brother for a work trip.

DOLLY PARTON JOINS HURRICANE HELENE RELIEF EFFORTS WITH $1M DONATION: ‘THESE ARE MY PEOPLE’

“Just to look around and see trees everywhere and cars in sinkholes and stuff smashed…like I never seen anything like that before,” Vargas told FOX 5 Atlanta. “Man, I could cry right now… He just always showing me He got me.”

Vargas said that strangers offered the two men rides along the way, which they documented with video, and God helped him find his way back home to his wife. The two made it home without the use of GPS and after Vargas’ wife had given up looking for them.

“I knew God was just sending people our way,” said Vargas to FOX 5 Atlanta. “All it did was increase my faith in God.”

AMERICAN FLAG STANDS STRONG AFTER TOURIST TOWN LEVELED BY REMNANTS OF HURRICANE HELENE: ‘HOPE AND STRENGTH’

The Vargas brothers turned to evacuate the area on foot after being stranded for one day in the area over concern for Kyle’s wife. Many mountain roads were made nonfunctional for cars by downed trees and mudslides.

Vargas credits God with his safe return home after the devastation of Hurricane Helene. (WAGA)

“We didn’t think the storm was going to cause as much damage as it caused on the mountain that it did,” said Vargas to FOX 5 Atlanta. “Basically, we were trapped…we were stuck.”

The trek through the mountains took hours and the brothers had practically no phone service.

Kyle Vargas said he and his brother had to rinse off their boots in a nearby river to remove caked-on mud. (WAGA)

“We walked about 13 miles climbing over trees, walking through the mud that slid down on the road from the landslides, we had to rinse our feet off in a river,” said Vargas to FOX 5 Atlanta. 

The latest number of deaths recorded from the impact of Hurricane Helene is 225 as of the publishing of this article.

A Georgia woman died alongside her twin newborn boys while hunkering down for their safety as Hurricane Helene ripped through their rural town. 

Obie WIlliams discovered his daughter, Kobe Williams, 27, and her sons, Khyzier and Khazmir, after a tree fell on top of their trailer in Thomson, 120 miles east of Atlanta, causing her to fall on top of the children. 

Williams said he received a call from his daughter last week as Helene battered the area. She heeded his advice and sheltered in the bathroom with her month-old babies until the storm passed. When she stopped answering her family’s phone calls, Williams dodged power lines and downed trees to check on her and the boys. 

MORGAN WALLEN DONATES TO HURRICANE HELENE RELIEF, SAYS FAMILY IS ‘SAFE’ AMID DEVASTATING FLOODS

“I’d seen pictures when they were born and pictures every day since, but I hadn’t made it out there yet to meet them,” Williams told The Associated Press, days after the storm ravaged eastern Georgia. “Now I’ll never get to meet my grandsons. It’s devastating.”

Williams’ grandsons were born Aug. 20 and are the youngest known victims of Helene, which has claimed the lives of at least 230 people throughout the Southeast.

The death toll is expected to rise as search and rescue continues to comb through new areas.

HURRICANE HELENE: NORTH CAROLINA RESIDENTS FIGHT FOR THEIR SURVIVAL AS BASIC GOODS BECOME SCARCE

Members of the Civil Air Patrol load water for Hurricane Helene relief into a pickup truck at a water station in Augusta, Ga.  (AP Photo/Jeffrey Collins)

Williams described his daughter as a lovable, outgoing and strong young woman who always had a smile on her face and loved to make people laugh. She was studying to be a nursing assistant but had taken time off from school to give birth to her sons.

“That was my baby,” he said. “And everybody loved her.”

Williams, who lives in Augusta, said many of his 14 other children are still without power in their homes across Georgia. Some have sought refuge in Atlanta, and others have traveled to Augusta to see their father and mourn together.

Williams said they are waiting for the bodies to be released by the county coroner and for roads to be cleared before arranging a funeral.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.