- Utah Gov. Spencer Cox became the first Republican in 13 months to join a daily late night comedy show.
- Cox said he jokingly told President Donald Trump he could rename the Great Salt Lake if he helped save it.
- Cox said he did not intend to replace Pride Month by declaring June as Fidelity Month this year.
It was an ambitious idea from the start.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox wanted to bring his media tour to the liberal hub of Manhattan to tout his book, “Off Ramp: How to Be a Peacemaker in an Age of Contempt,” as the first Republican on a late night comedy show in more than a year.
For 20 minutes on Tuesday night, the “Disagree Better” governor tried to make his pitch for politics without contempt to the host of “The Daily Show” — a program built almost entirely on deriding conservative points of view.
Well, Jon Stewart wasn’t buying it.
Instead, he argued for the opposite.
“Let me make an argument for contempt,” Stewart told Cox.
The satirist made Utah Sen. Mike Lee the test for Cox’s theory.
In 2019, the senator had been one of two votes opposing the extension of healthcare funding for victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — which Stewart had advocated for since 2010 — on the grounds of fiscal responsibility.
Then, last year, Lee responded to the deaths of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband by making a joke about Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, posting the incorrectly spelled caption “Nightmare on Waltz Street” alongside a picture of the alleged killer.
Lee ultimately deleted the post.
Society must agree to hold certain things in contempt, Stewart went on. The alternative is acquiescing to them.
Cox agreed.
“That tweet was contemptible,” he said. “We should all stand up and say that’s not OK.”
The governor tried to explain he wasn’t talking about specific contemptible actions. He meant dismissing whole groups of people. Having “more disagreement,” as long as it’s done respectfully, is the whole point, Cox said.
He mentioned one of his favorite moments in Utah politics: the 2015 compromise that made Utah the first Republican-controlled state to enshrine LGBTQ nondiscrimination into the law, paired with protections for religious freedom.
Stewart didn’t share Cox’s optimism.
Stewart criticized Utah’s “Christian community” for, in his words, making gay Utahns “bargain for their humanity.” The so-called grand compromise wasn’t a “victory,” according to Stewart, it was something synonymous with contemptible.
“Fair enough,” Cox said.
In fact, Stewart disagreed with Cox’s whole premise.
Cox sees a splintered culture as downstream from individual isolation, fractured families and fading communities. The solution, he says, lies with people putting down phones, patching interpersonal relationships and going to church.
For Stewart, the problem of polarization is not caused by a lack of good-faith interactions between people with different worldviews. The responsibility shouldn’t be on individuals, but on the broken “incentive system.”
The two agreed to disagree.
Cox ventured to put forward another instance of “Disagree Better” in action. By emphasizing humanity over partisan identity, he convinced President Donald Trump to support the environmental cause of saving the Great Salt Lake.
“So the Republican governor of Utah was able, through this peacemaking, to get the Republican president to get him water,” Stewart snarked.
Cox joked he had told the president that they could name the lake whatever he wanted if he helps the state to save the lake.
Before concluding the segment, Stewart pushed Cox on one more issue.
This year Cox declared June “Fidelity Month.” It was a call for America to return to its “core values” of God, family and patriotism. It also appeared to continue his trend away from being the only GOP governor to recognize Pride Month.
The declaration ignited a flurry of pushback from activists and news outlets, while many conservatives saw it as a welcome opportunity to reaffirm traditional values. But, on Tuesday, Cox said the blowup was “not intentional.”
“We did not switch Pride Month for Fidelity Month,” Cox said. “Although that’s how it looked and I understand why it looked very bad.”
As they shook hands, Stewart thanked Cox for engaging in genuine conversation and urged people to read Cox’s “fascinating” book.