In Break From Trump, Utah's GOP Governor Urges Calm After Charlie Kirk's Killing

"At some point, we have to find an off-ramp, or else it's going to get much worse," warned Gov. Spencer Cox as Trump blamed the "radical left" for Kirk's death.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) on Friday sought to lower the temperature following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, issuing a heartfelt plea for calm and unity, a message that stood in sharp contrast to that of President Donald Trump.

“We need more moral clarity right now,” Cox said at a press conference. “I hear all the time that ‘words are violence.’ Words are not violence. Violence is violence. There is one person responsible for what happened here, and that person is in custody, will be charged soon, and will be held accountable.”

“We can return violence with violence, we can return hate with hate,” he added. “That’s the problem with political violence. It metastasizes. We can always point the finger at the other side. At some point, we have to find an off-ramp, or else it’s going to get much worse.”

Cox’s comments came as a breath of fresh air amid 31-year-old Kirk’s gruesome shooting earlier this week at a college campus in Utah. They also contrasted starkly with remarks made by the president of the United States, who shrugged off a question about “fixing the country” when asked earlier Friday about radicals on the right.

“I’ll tell you something that’s gonna get me in trouble, but I couldn’t care less,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News. “The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime. The radicals on the left are the problem.”