Republican Governor of Utah Spencer Cox and Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania spoke in Washington, D.C. They called on Americans to stop using violence against political opponents.
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Two of the nation’s top state leaders who have had close brushes with political violence in 2025 hosted a panel on Dec. 9 where they called on Americans to stop hating their political enemies before it leads to “civil war.”
“We’re passing all the checkpoints, well ultimately towards failed states and things like civil war, I hate to even use that phrase,” said Spencer Cox, Utah’s Republican governor whose longstanding campaign for political unity was thrust into the national spotlight with the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September.
Cox participated in the panel alongside Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, whose house was firebombed in April.
Tuesday’s panel comes at a point where in addition to the killing of Kirk and the firebombing of the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion, a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband were killed and another lawmaker and his wife were injured at their homes in June; two Israeli embassy workers were shot and killed in D.C. in May; and a National Guard member was killed and another injured in a shooting also in the nation’s capital in November.
The pair spoke at Washington National Cathedral, about three and a half miles northwest of the White House.
Early on in the panel, Shapiro called out President Donald Trump for stoking hate in politics.
“When you’re a governor, when you’re a president of the United States, you’re looked to for that moral clarity,” Shapiro said, “and we have a president who fails that test on a daily basis.”
Trump at a rally in September following the killing of Kirk said that he hates his opponents.
“That’s where I disagreed with Charlie,” Trump said. “I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them.”
Cox closed the panel by calling for a return to a period where political party affiliation took a backseat to aspects including profession or one’s family.
“To my fellow Americans, to my fellow worshipers, whatever it is, whether you’re in a sacred place like this, whether you’re in a synagogue, whether you’re in a mosque, I don’t care where it is, you are are fellow Americans,” said Cox, who has been speaking about the need for political civility since first running for governor in 2020. “We need you now more than ever, this country, if we’re going to make it another 250 years, if we’re going to make it another two point five years, we desperately need you to lay down your swords and treat each other with dignity and respect again.”
