Latest / Mic Drop Comedy / Gov. Spencer Cox On Why Charlie Kirk_s Assassination Made Him Finish His Book _ The Daily Show

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Gov. Spencer Cox On Why Charlie Kirk_s Assassination Made Him Finish His Book _ The Daily Show · Mic Drop Comedy

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Nice to see you.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: It's great to see you. It's great to be here.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
• 0:03
  Speaker 3: Off-ramp, how to be a peacemaker in an age of contentment.
• 0:06
  Speaker 3: Talk about what is the purpose. I'll use a trick
• 0:10
  Speaker 3: from your book on you at the very start. You
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: seem very passionate about this.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Can you tell me why you feel so strongly? That's
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: from page 238.
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: It's in there. Yeah, no, thank you. It's in there.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: A strategy.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: It is a strategy. A year ago, something terrible happened
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: in my state. Now, I've been writing about contempt, studying
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: about contempt, and.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I've been practicing it.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: You're very good at it. Thank you. Polarization in our
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: country and our inability to accomplish anything.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: And when Charlie Kirk was assassinated in Utah... I felt
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: compelled to finish the work and to write this book.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: I care deeply about our nation. I think we can
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: solve problems without shooting each other. And I would prefer that.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: So that's why.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: But we have a pretty good history in this country
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: of shooting each other. Fair.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Pre-social media, we used to shoot people quite frequently.
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: What is different about this time in your mind that
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: makes the rhetoric, you know, it sort of reminds me,
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: sticks and stones will break my bones, but names, that's
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: the real issue.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Like, what do you mean?
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Well, look, I don't know that this is a new problem.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: And we do have this recency bias where we think
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: everything's the best or everything's the worst. I mean, literally 600,000
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Americans killed each other in 2020. in the 1860s.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Don't tell me how it ends.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: All right. You'll get there. The 1960s, the 1970s, political
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: assassinations were fairly common. So I'm not here to tell
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: people that it's worse than then, but I am here
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: to tell people that we're headed in that direction again.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: and I don't think that's good for us or for
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: our country. Now, the tools are different, the divisive tools,
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: social media, the algorithms, our ability to surround ourselves with
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: only people that are just like us, only hear what
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: we want to hear, that confirmation bias, that's fairly new.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: The atomization of facts You know, we used to have
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: three stations where you could kind of hear what was
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: happening in the country. So all of that is very different.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: We are lonelier than we've ever been as a country.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: I think that's very dangerous. I think young men especially,
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: The gamification of society, the lack of real contact is
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: bad for them. And the results, we're starting to see,
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: it's not great.
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: So let me ask, is the idea that by using
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: different tools to disagree, we can begin to solve those problems?
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Or are those problems the result of... those things?
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: In other words, would you like to see that done
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: to alleviate the loneliness, or are there measures that need
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: to be taken that we are not taking?
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: So what we're seeing in this country right now is
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: this toxic divisiveness. And we're seeing it at the national level,
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: and that's what I know you want to talk about.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: It's what you just talked about, for sure. What I'm
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: even more concerned about is what's happening at the individual level.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: So Four times as many people have lost a friend
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: or a family member to politics. We've replaced healthy tribes
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: in our country, volunteer organizations, faith-based organizations, with politics. Politics
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: has become a religion for a lot of people, and
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: those are very unhealthy tribes. And so my concern with
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: that is as we continue to lose that, as you
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: drive to Taco Bell and don't talk to a real
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: person now, you're talking to artificial intelligence, that's gonna continue
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: to lead us to this very dark place. And we
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: can't solve any of our greatest problems if we can't
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: have a debate, if we can't talk to each other.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: If you're beneath me and I'm not willing to engage
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: with you, then we can't solve that. So my point
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: is that I don't pretend like I'm gonna solve all
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: of the nation's problems, but if I can get you
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: to talk to a cousin or a friend that you
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: don't talk to anymore, that's eventually how we heal our nation.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: The crowd feels that very strongly. Let me make an
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: argument for contempt. The reverse.
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: I have found in my experience that you have to
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: be able to discern things that are contemptible. There are
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: things that are contemptible. How do you reckon that we
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: address that? is the idea that we just acquiesce to
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: the contemptible.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: I'll make it specific.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Tell me more about why you feel this way.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: Senator Mike Lee, he's a Utah guy.
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: I dealt with him trying to get the 9-11 Zadroga
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: bill passed, which was funding for first responders and survivors
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: of 9-11 who lived down at Ground Zero who.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Were getting sick.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: I'm very familiar, yeah.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: We had a meeting with him, with firefighters, police officers,
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: and all that. Uh, and, uh, he was, uh, I'm
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: gonna go with not good. And then was one of
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: only two senators to vote that down. And then when, uh,
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: the tragedy happened in Minnesota, and those people were killed,
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: and he tweeted out.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: Uh, nightmare on Waltz Street. How do I.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: First of all, when I spoke to Congress, I treated
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: them with disdain because that's what they'd earned. And that
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: disdain helped the power disparity between them. Isn't that a
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: tool sometimes for the weak to be able to deal
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: with those? If you can't call something truly contemptible and
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: treat it as such and have society agree to that,
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: why would we have to acquiesce to that?
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: That's all. I'm curious.
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: Truly.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: And I mean that. This, I think, is a good
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: conversation to have about it.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: It's an important conversation to have. And look, I'm not
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: telling you that you should not find things contemptible. I
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: find lots of things contemptible. And you've given some examples
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: of that. That tweet was contemptible. We should all stand
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: up and say, that's not okay. We don't support that.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: And yet, you met with him. even though you knew
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: he wasn't supportive?
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: I didn't know at the time. No, I knew he
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: wasn't supportive, but I didn't know he was that.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: Which is fair, but you had the meeting. And that's
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: the point I'm trying to make. Look, there is nothing
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: that I'm, no argument I'm making here that we should
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: compromise on our principles, that we have to give up
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: on the things, our core beliefs. I'm not talking about
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: just being nice to each other. That's not what this
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: is about. This is about sitting here and having this
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: debate face-to-face. You telling me how you feel, I'm going
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: to tell you how I feel. And at the end
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: of the day, we might find some areas where we
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: can agree, and we might not. And you might think
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: I'm a terrible human being, and I might leave here
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: thinking that that was a waste of time. My mom
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: was right. I shouldn't have come on the show. Did
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: your mom say that?
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: No, no, no.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Can I tell you what's so weird?
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Can I tell you something?
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Your mom said I shouldn't come.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: On the show? No, my mom says I shouldn't be
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: on the show. She doesn't like me.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: For the record, my mom likes you.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Understood.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: No, it was not that. But that's not what this
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: is about.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: It turns out that people that learned how to debate
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: in high school and college are less polarized than the
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: rest of the country. Having actual debate is something we
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: don't do anymore. I think we actually need more disagreement.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: I think we need more of this instead of the
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to engage with you because you're beneath me.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: I think you're you're evil. I just think there's nothing
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: more un-American than hating our fellow Americans.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: I just think that that is in some ways a caricature.
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: of how Americans relate to each other, one that is
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: displayed on... I find it more in state houses than
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: I do in actual houses.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: I find that before we can all learn.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: To be peacemakers with each other, the system is not
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: incentivized for that.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: On that, we agree.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: Aren't we placing the onus of this on individuals? When
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: in some respects... This is a natural product of the
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: incentive system that's in place in our government and in
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: our ecosystem.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. So the hardest part about doing this and practicing
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: it is that the incentives are completely misaligned. As a politician,
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: The algorithms reward me saying outlandish things, tearing down my opponents.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: I'm much more likely to get elected, at least historically,
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: over the past 20 years. That's certainly been the case.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: We had Stanford study this, their depolarization lab. We did.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Elitist communists.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: Sometimes.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: We... We actually put a Republican and a Democratic governor together.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: They filmed ads together. We got 24 of them to
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: do it, where they said, hey, we disagree on lots
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: of things, but we can disagree without hating each other.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: We both care about our country. Right. some things. They
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: studied this in their lab. They did an experiment. Thousands
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: of people watched these videos. We looked at their responses.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: It turns out that there is another way to get
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: elected in this country. 70% of Americans hate how divided
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: we are right now. They're desperate for something else. There's
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: a market failure. The incentives are misaligned. Neither party is
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: responding to that market failure right now. And I'm just
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: convinced that the first party who does is going to
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: do very, very well. I hope it's my party, but
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: that remains to be seen.
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think that's... That doesn't seem to be
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: the lesson they're learning from the last 10 years.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: What's worked?
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: Tell me where this has been successful and where you
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: have found its limitations.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: So it's successful when you can try to take what
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: appears to be a zero-sum game and turn it into
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: a win-win situation, which happens on occasion in politics. Talk
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: to me. Okay, real examples of this happening in the
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: state of Utah. We're working on the Great Salt Lake
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: right now. Environmental disaster, the Great Salt Lake is drying up.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: No country on Earth has been able to preserve a
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: great saline lake once they enter terminal decline. The environmental left,
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: of course, was all over this. Like, hey, yeah, we
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: got to save the lake. No surprise there. How do
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: conservatives come along and and work on this in a
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: state where we have a we have a super majority
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: of Republicans in the statehouse? OK. And so this is
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: an area where we.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Is that reflective of your population as well? Yes.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: OK, because in a lot of states like Massachusetts, super
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: majority of Democrats, but not a lot of states have
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: super majorities that are not necessarily reflective because of gerrymandering.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: So, again, talking about the incentive structures.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: And that's one of the incentive structures, I agree, is
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: a problem in our country. So, you know, how do
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: we figure out how to work on this? And we
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: need some help nationally. So I've got to figure out
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: how to work with Joe Biden on this problem. And
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: then I have to figure out how to work with.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Was he anti-saving the lake?
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: Um.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: So this will challenge your priorities a little bit. So
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: I'm in the beast with President Biden.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: The beast is his car.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: His car. This is the limousine, the presidential limousine. He's
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: in Salt Lake. My wife and I are there. We're
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: having a wonderful conversation with him. I bring up the lake.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: He says, sure, yeah, we'd love to help and whatever.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: We nothing really happened after that. I mean, so he wasn't.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Opposed to it from the government.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Wait, what?
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: You said they would do something and then nothing happened.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Shocking.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: I know. Sir, at long last.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: A year and a half later, I'm in the Oval Office.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: I'm talking to President Trump and I bring up the
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: Great Salt Lake. We have a conversation about it. He says, okay,
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: what do you need? And I said, a billion dollars.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: And he said, great, let's work on getting you a
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: billion dollars. And the next day I get a call
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: from his team.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: And what are you going to have to name the lake?
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: What do you believe will be....
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: So the Republican governor of Utah was able, through this peacemaking, to.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Get the Republican president to get him water?
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Again, it's really, really important for our state. This is
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: a big deal.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Completely understand that.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: I'm with you.
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: A billion dollars is not a terrible price to pay
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: to preserve that land.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: And what I will say, one of the most stringent environmentalists, anti-Trump,
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: people I know who's working on this project had a
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: red hat made that said, make the Great Salt Lake
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: great again, and tweeted out how grateful he was for
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: the president's help on that issue. And I told the
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: president we'd name it whatever he wants if he helps
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: to save the lake.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: So in your mind, you were able to, what was
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: it about, what did you change to make that happen
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: other than in the course of convincing the president why
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: this was a good idea or not. Did you feel
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: that was a cultural hot button somehow?
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Sure, yeah. I was very worried that Republicans would just
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: see this as kind of a climate change, you know,
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: leftist idea. Oh, I didn't even think of it like that. Yeah,
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: and that's where, you know, if the environmental community supports it,
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: then we're opposed to it, right? And this was us
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: trying to bring those two together to work on this issue,
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: not just there, but in the state houses where, well,
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: where we now have bipartisan support.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Give me a more hot button. Give me another Utah.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Give me another Utah.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Okay. Several years ago, LGBTQ protection and rights. No red state.
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: No red state had taken this on. This was, so
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: think kind of 2014, 2015.
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: You were one of the only red state governors who
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: made a pride month.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: Is that correct?
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: That's correct. So I was lieutenant governor at this time.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: But the Indiana's blowing up over this issue, religious freedom,
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: RFRA laws. You saw the same thing in Arkansas.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: This was people saying, I don't want to bake a
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: cake for like a gay wedding.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Correct.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: Yes. Yes.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: This was.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: You have to bake a cake regardless of your religious beliefs.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: We brought in the LGBTQ leadership in the state. We
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: brought in the religious leadership in the state, the predominant church,
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but others,
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: the Catholic Church, the Jewish faith, the Muslims, all around
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: the table. And for.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Muslims.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: Weeks, yes.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Utah.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: They're there.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: So we... I can tell it's been a while since you've.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: Been to Utah.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: I haven't been there in a while.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: I went through there and I was like, can a
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: brother get a cup of coffee in this town? And
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: then I was done. I found a Starbucks.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: There's one there now.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: I'm an old man.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: I saw the beard. But honestly, I might need a
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: hit from that marker before we're done. Understood.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Understood.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: I'm with you. So, look, we brought them all together.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: And it was rough. I mean, there were times where
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: people walked out of the room. They felt contempt for
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: each other at times.
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: And yet.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: What were you attempting to do? Were you attempting a
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: legislative solution? What is it that you were looking to craft?
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Well, we did craft it, and this is what came
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: out of it. Okay. Two things that were really important.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: So one was protection for LGBTQ people in our state,
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: citizens in our state, in employment and housing. you know,
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: you don't get kicked out of your apartment because you're gay.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: And I mean, these did not exist in our state.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: That was not a protected class at the time. We
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: were the first red state in the nation to do that.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: And we added protections for people of faith. So you
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: don't have to bake the cake if you don't want to.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: But you also don't get to fire people from their
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: jobs or kick people out of their apartments.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: But But you can understand how.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: Look, I mean, we're sitting there on the night this
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: is signed. I mean, maybe now it doesn't resonate because
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: it was several years ago, but this was groundbreaking. I mean,
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: at the time, and I have religious leaders and the
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: LGBTQ community like hugging and tears in the rotunda of
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: the Capitol. And it's a great example of bringing people together.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: I think it's certainly an admirable effort. It's hard for
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: me not to look at it as there's a power
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: disparity in that equation, and that the gay community in
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: Utah is not equivalent to the Christian community in Utah.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: And so the difficulty I have in that, just being honest, is.
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: That you're asking a community of people whose humanity has
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: not been recognized as total to accept that they will be,
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: you will still be viewed, we can't fire you, but
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: we will still view you as aberrant and we will
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: enshrine that in the law. Because it does, if you
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: flip that and you say to somebody, I will not
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: bake a cake, because you believe in Jesus for your wedding,
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: I think you can see that that's a contemptuous position.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: And so asking a group that is traditionally less righted
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: to accept a bargain for their humanity still strikes me
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: fundamentally as, I don't want to say contemptible, but boy,
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: there's some synonyms that that are hard for me to,
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: it's a hard one to swallow as a victory. Does
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: that resonate.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: In any way?
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, it resonates, but I don't think that that
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: was how it was viewed. And again, you can talk
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: to them. I'll let them have that conversation with you.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to end up. I do one show
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: a week, man. I spent my whole August reading this thing.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: What I will say is those protections went both ways.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: And it's not about contempt. It's about religious freedom, which
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: is really important to people. You wouldn't have to bake
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: a cake for a Christian if you didn't want to.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: That is also included in the law. We're not going
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: to force you to do that piece. And yet, at
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: the time, again, this was incredible.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: Rare.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: It had never happened. Those types of protections in a
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: red state, and it didn't have to happen. That's the point.
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: But even then, so even now, though, and I so
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: appreciate the effort, but you no longer have Pride Month
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: in Utah. You've changed it to Fidelity Month. Why?
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Well.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: Do you want to know the real story? No. Yeah.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Lie to me.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I really do.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: OK, so the Pride Month thing, again, got very contentious.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: And the decision was made a couple of years ago. Look,
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: celebrate Pride Month. That's great. Government will stay out of it.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: You celebrate whatever months you want.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Do you not acknowledge any months there anymore?
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Well, there are some months we don't acknowledge.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: Again, understanding the question of the power disparity, again, it's a, hey, man,
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: people got upset about it. Was it mandatory? Did everyone
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: in Utah have to wear a unitard and wave a
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: flag and dance?
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: No, they did not. No, they did not. What I
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: will say is the Fidelity Month piece of that, that
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: was not intentional. That was something that came out in April.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: We said, that's great. And we didn't know it was
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: coming out in June.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: Oh, so Fidelity Month is not replacing Pride Month.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: We did not switch Pride Month for Fidelity Month, although
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: that's how it looked, and I understand why it looked
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: very bad.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: Does Utah have a Fidelity issue that they would have to...
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: Seems like every month is Fidelity Month.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: You would hope so.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: I would think. Certainly more than Jersey and New York.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: I've been here for a couple of days. It's fun.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: It's something.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, man.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: It is different than Utah.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: You know what? We are going to change that to
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: our new tourist slogan, New York. It's something. My man,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: And I appreciate you having these conversations in good faith
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: and good spirit. And that is, I will say this,
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: we need more good faith argumentation. And that includes being
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: able to discern the contemptible and to discern when things
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: are being weaponized in the opposite direction. And I do
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: appreciate it. And I urge people to read it because
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: it is an interesting read and it's a fascinating look.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: And I really do appreciate it.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: Spencer Cox!