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By Daniel Bush
White House Correspondent
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Utah Republican Gov. Spencer Cox was not a household name before the conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated Wednesday, in a shooting that has roiled the nation and sparked a tense debate about the rise of political violence.
But Cox has quickly gained a national following — winning praise from both Democrats and Republicans — with his nonpartisan calls for unity in the days since Kirk was killed during an event at a Utah college campus.
Speaking to reporters Friday morning at a press conference to announce that a suspect, Tyler Robinson, had been apprehended, Cox said he believed Kirk's assassination represented "a watershed moment in American history."
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"The question is, what kind of watershed?" the governor said. "And that chapter remains to be written. Is this the end of a dark chapter in our history, or the beginning of a darker chapter in our history?"
Cox's off-the-cuff remarks appeared to capture the deepening anxiety Americans have felt in the 48 hours since Kirk's gruesome death was recorded live on social media.
The shooting was the latest in a growing number of attacks on political figures from both parties, including the assassination of a Minnesota Democratic state lawmaker and her husband earlier this year, and the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump at a 2024 campaign rally.
The political debate immediately boiled over in Washington, as Trump blamed the "radical left" for the assassination in an Oval Office speech and members of Congress openly sparred over the killing.
To many observers Cox has stood out as a voice of reason focused on finding common ground instead of stoking divisions. The moderating role is in keeping with Cox's political message since he ran for governor in 2020.
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A Utah native, Cox worked as a lawyer and telecommunications executive before entering local politics in the early 2000s. Cox won a seat in the state House of Representatives in 2012, and was appointed to serve as lieutenant governor the following year. Cox was elected lieutenant governor in 2016, and governor in 2020.
He easily won his reelection bid in 2024, though with a smaller margin than any Utah Republican gubernatorial candidate in two decades. Cox only endorsed Trump last year, after previously criticizing him for his actions on January 6, 2021. Trump did not endorse Cox's reelection bid.
"This is very consistent with who he's always been," said Rob Jolley, a top lobbyist and veteran of state politics in Utah. Cox is "conservative politically, but he's someone who wants to reason with others who disagree with him and vice-versa."
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In his comments Friday, Cox refrained from casting blame for the assassination. He compared the moment to the 1960s, a tumultuous decade punctuated by the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and other political leaders.
Cox also struck a chord with many parents across the country who have struggled to explain the shooting to children who watched videos on social media of the moment Kirk was shot, coming in the immediate aftermath of another viral, grisly killing captured on video.
"We are not wired as human beings, biologically, historically, we have not evolved in a way that we are capable of processing those types of violent imagery," Cox said. "This is not good for us, it is not good to consume. Social media is a cancer on our society right now."
Cox added that Kirk's killing offered a stark choice.
"Do we escalate or do we find an off ramp? It's a choice, and every one of us gets to make that choice.
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