After years of resisting full-throated support for Donald Trump, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox has now endorsed him. The change followed the failed assassination attempt on the Republican presidential nominee, which Cox characterized as a “very sobering moment.”
“I'm doing everything I can to help and support him,” Cox told reporters at his July 19 monthly news conference. “We'll still have lots of disagreements, I'm sure, and we'll still do everything we can to help the state of Utah and to help the Republican Party be successful.”
As recently as last week, Cox said he did not plan to vote for the former president — and said he did not vote for Trump in either the 2016 or 2020 elections. However, Cox said the attempted assassination made him have a change of heart, even spending the night “distraught.”
“I spent the next day, Sunday, in contemplation, prayed a lot, and felt that I just felt that I needed to write a letter to the former president, which I did.”
Cox later released the full letter he sent to Trump on X, formerly Twitter, where he expressed his belief that “God had a hand” in saving the former president’s life.
“I don’t know what it feels like to be less than an inch away from certain death,” he wrote. “I also hesitate to even imagine what would have happened to our country if your life had not been miraculously spared. I worry that we would have experienced the unthinkable.”
Last Sunday I was feeling incredibly discouraged about our nation. After much prayer and searching about how to help heal our divides, I felt I needed to write former President Trump. I’m hopeful I can help in some small way. pic.twitter.com/RBOgFTHE39
— Spencer Cox (@SpencerJCox) July 19, 2024
Cox pledged he would assist the former president going forward and added that he was “more confident now than ever before” of a Trump victory in November.
”He doesn't need my help to win at all,” he told reporters. “But I do think that I can help and be a voice when it comes to helping to unify our nation, when it comes to helping to lower the temperature and to reduce political violence, and that was my commitment in the letter to him, that I would do that.”
Cox championed his “Disagree Better” initiative during his time as the head of the National Governors Association, which was specifically targeted at divisive political rhetoric and getting people on opposite sides of the political divide to engage with each other in a more constructive way.
“This is something I believe in,” he said. “I preach it. I try to live by it. I am not very good at it. I know that former President Trump isn't very good at it. Hasn't been for a long time, that's been one of my biggest struggles, for sure, and yet there, there's a willingness to try.”
Pointing to Trump's more toned-down rhetoric in public statements made since the attempt on his life, Cox noted the former president has “never said things like he said in the past week.”
During his headlining speech at this week's Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Trump opened with a more contemplative approach before launching back into a typical stump speech.
Cox had been a rare Republican holdout in his support for Trump, alongside Utah Sen. Mitt Romney. In February, Cox said the country would be making a “huge mistake” by nominating either Trump or President Joe Biden as candidates for president.
“I'm a proud conservative,” he said on Friday. “I'm a little different conservative, maybe, than the party is today. I always considered myself a Ronald Reagan conservative, and certainly, there are some differences between that and the party [right now], and I'm trying to be open and to learn from people who have different ideas within the party.”
Cox has consistently faced criticisms from the right-wing of the GOP and conservative media figures for his resistance to Trump and more hardline policies on things like LGBTQ issues.
His sudden reversal also solicited strong reactions from his political opponents.
“Gov. Cox has now kissed the ring and given his full endorsement to Trump, a convicted felon,” said Democratic Rep. Brian King, who is challenging Cox in November. “This is the same Trump who … called for mass deportations and lied about the 2020 election results.”
Despite his new embrace of Trump, Cox said he was “not naive” to think that the former president had completely changed his ways, or that we won’t see the same brand of scorched-earth politics that was ushered in when he first ran for office in 2016.
“I get that he's a flawed person,” said Cox. “I'm a flawed person. He's a flawed candidate. I'm a flawed candidate. I've made my commitment that I will do this, and as a man of my word, I'll follow through with that commitment.”