Republican Utah governor endorsing Trump in reversal

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) handed former President Trump an endorsement Friday in the wake of a failed assassination attempt on Trump last weekend, a reversal of his previous position.

“Mr. President, I know we have some differences, and you probably don’t like me much. And that’s OK,” Cox wrote in a letter to Trump, which he shared on the social platform X. “I’m not writing this letter looking for a position in your Cabinet or a role on your team.” 

“I have told everyone that you are going to win the state of Utah and you are going to win the presidency again. You don’t need my help and support to do that However, you have a chance to do something that people have said is impossible,” the governor continued. “You have a chance to build a coalition of support that our country has not seen since Ronald Reagan.”

He added, “You, and only you, can be that kind of leader for us today.”

Cox is one of the last Republican governors to throw their support behind the former president, after Trump accepted the formal GOP nod Thursday at the final day of the Republican National Convention.

The Utah governor has been a vocal critic of Trump in the past, including blaming him for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Cox called on the former president to resign following the insurrection, saying it would be “good for the country.”

In February, he said it would be a mistake for the party to nominate Trump again for the presidency. 

On July 11 — two days before Trump was grazed in the ear with a bullet during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania — Cox told CNN’s Kaitlin Collins that he did not plan on voting for either major party candidate in the 2024 election. Instead, the governor said he would write someone in, as he did in 2016 and 2020.

However, Cox said that after the assassination attempt, he was “grateful” to hear Trump call for unity and to “lower the temperature.” 

“There’s a willingness to try,” Cox said during a press conference Friday. “That’s all I can ask for and hope for. So, I told him in that letter, I said if you’ll do this, I will do everything I can to help and support you.” 

According to the Utah Desert News, Cox sent the letter to Trump on Sunday and planned to publicize his endorsement only if he was satisfied with Trump’s acceptance speech at the convention. He called the speech a “winning message” that the nation “desperately needs right now.”

“People have been trying to ask him to do this for years, and he’s never said things like he said in the past week,” Cox wrote Friday on X. “My commitment to him was that I would help him try to lower the temperature in this country.”

“From what I’ve heard from people around him that he is committed to this, that, again, this is something that that hasn’t been high on his list in the past,” he added. “I think that’s probably an understatement, and so, so I’ll work closely with him to help do that.”

Cox also predicted Trump was on track to win, saying “it was not even close,” pointing to data showing the former president ahead in national and battleground state polls. 

His prediction, however, was coupled with a call for Trump to treat President Biden with “respect,” as a growing number of Democrats press Biden to withdraw amid rising concerns about his age and mental fitness.

“By treating President Biden with basic human dignity and respect and by emphasizing unity rather than hate, you will win this election by an historic margin and become one of our nation’s most transformational leaders,” the governor wrote.