Utah Gov. Spencer Cox really wants you to know he is not running for president.
It's literally the first sentence of his new book.
But the governor believes he is trying to do something "much more ambitious."
In his authorial debut, Cox undertakes to rally a nation spiraling toward disunion.
The culprit? A crisis of character, catalyzed by a screen-driven epidemic of loneliness.
Cox's solution — familiar to supporters and skeptics — is to cultivate community by disagreeing better.
"I don't pretend that anything I say, or a book, is going to completely change the course of history or the polarization that's happening here," Cox told the Deseret News. "But what I hope will happen is that people will give it a chance."
Cox sat down with the Deseret News this month ahead of the publish date to discuss the intentions behind "Off Ramp: How to Be a Peacemaker in an Age of Contempt," which is scheduled for release by Penguin Press on Sept. 8.
The book packs Cox's origin story, governing philosophy and blueprint for depolarization into less than 250 pages. It also has its fair share of inside looks into what Cox considers some of the best and worst moments of his time in office.
One episode shapes the book from start to finish.
The assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10, 2025, shook the Beehive State and shined a spotlight on its governor. It also exposed the violent underbelly threatening to upend U.S. politics.
"It really did feel like a powder keg in the country," Cox told the Deseret News.
"It really did feel like a powder keg in the country."
In press conferences following Kirk's murder, Cox pled with his fellow Americans to find an alternative to "shooting each other." At the time, his book — based on years of advocating for political deescalation — was already well underway.
The project quickly morphed into "a continuation of that plea," he writes in Chapter 7.
Here are five of the biggest takeaways from "Off Ramp."
In the book's opening chapter Cox recounts that shortly after 12:20 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 10, his quarterly staff lunch was interrupted by an urgent update from Highway Patrol Captain George Hansen that Kirk had been shot.
Within moments Cox was answering a call from Secretary of State Marco Rubio who was in the White House Situation Room.
Cox had nothing to report yet.
What followed was a rapid succession of reports. First, an inaccurate briefing: Kirk was alert. Then, a few minutes later: He was in life-threatening condition. Then, minutes after that: He was facing imminent death. Then: "fatal."
Cox relayed the news to Rubio and returned to the governor's mansion where President Donald Trump called.
"Spencer, this is terrible," Trump said, according to Cox. "It's just such a tragedy. Charlie was a great guy, a great American. He helped me get elected. Everyone loved Charlie. But you know who really loved Charlie? The youths."
The Deseret News became the first to publicly confirm Kirk's death more than an hour later at 2:13 p.m.
The reaction to Kirk's murder revealed the depth of "our acrimony," Cox writes, which "feeds on death." A stunning number of people celebrated on social media, and an equally shocking share accused Kirk's widow of being involved.
"There were calls for violence, calls for retribution, retaliation, revenge. I won't take credit for that not happening. In fact, Erika is maybe the most important figure in making that not happen."
But it was Erika that Cox credits most with pulling the country back from the brink.
"There were calls for violence, calls for retribution, retaliation, revenge," Cox told the Deseret News. "I won't take credit for that not happening. In fact, Erika is maybe the most important figure in making that not happen."
Cox lists 11 principles of peacemaking in the final chapter of his book. No. 10, "Forgive Bravely," was inspired by Erika.
Cox was there the day she forgave her husband's accused killer to the millions watching Kirk's public memorial.
"I was there in Phoenix. ... It's one of the most powerful, most Christian, Christ-like moments I've experienced," Cox told the Deseret News. "And I think that had as much to do with lowering the temperature as anything else out there."
Cox's fears of political violence shaped his focus as governor long before they became a reality on Sept. 10.
On Aug. 9, 2023, less than a month after Cox began his "Disagree Better" initiative as National Governors Association chair, federal agents killed a Provo man who threatened President Joe Biden ahead of his visit to Utah.
Later that day, Cox sat next to Biden in the president's armored SUV. Cox used the one-on-one to push back on Biden's expansion of national monuments without local input and to request federal help for the Great Salt Lake.
Then he pitched what he knew might seem like a crazy idea to the Democrat sitting in the White House.
"I think you should pardon Donald Trump," Cox told Biden, according to Chapter 7 of "Off Ramp." The two were now parked in front of the hotel. Cox explained he thought a pardon would allow the country to begin to heal its divides.
Biden said he would consider it. But he was doubtful; too many people wanted to see Trump prosecuted, he said.
Cox's "Disagree Better" message came under intense pressure when Cox came up for reelection in 2024.
He was convinced elevating civility and compromise had won him a tight Republican primary in 2020, and had allowed him to navigate culture war questions like transgender treatments for minors with less vitriol than other red states.
But the governor's approach became a liability against the aggressive attacks of GOP challenger Phil Lyman. Tensions between Cox and the state's most active conservatives reached a breaking point during the 2024 state convention.
Instead of his planned speech, Cox suggested the delegates were booing because they "hate that I don't hate enough."
The "biting sarcasm" felt good at the time, Cox writes. But soon he regretted it, realizing in his eagerness to bridge divides he had failed to disagree better with Utahns to his right. He felt he had "returned contempt with contempt."
"I was wrong," he states in Chapter 6.
Over the next month, Cox held meetings to mend his relationship with his fiercest conservative critics.
He then turned his attention to Trump himself.
On July 12, 2024, Cox culminated his "Disagree Better" campaign with a final pitch to avoid rhetoric that leads to political violence. Less than 24 hours later, Trump was nearly killed by a bullet that grazed his ear, and the shooter killed a rally-goer and seriously wounded another.
Cox had worked to form a friendship with Biden. If there was ever a time to reconcile with Trump, his own party's standard bearer, it was now. So, Utah's governor wrote an idealistic letter calling for Trump "to unify and save our country."
The letter sparked backlash from some of his "closest friends." But Cox believes it was worth it.
"I have to admit that watching President Trump tweet was like watching da Vinci paint."
Not only did Trump publicly state he agreed with Cox's message, the president has since given Cox his ear on multiple issues, like discussing $1 billion for the Great Salt Lake during a 90-minute Oval Office meeting in February.
At the end, Trump asked Cox to help craft a Truth Social post promising support to "MAKE 'THE LAKE' GREAT AGAIN."
"I have to admit that watching President Trump tweet was like watching da Vinci paint," Cox jokes in the book.
Most of Cox's book is spent making the case that the country is in deeper trouble than people think — "that we are on a path to a complete failure of our democratic republic" — and then balancing that prognosis with hopeful remedies.
His overarching proposal will come as no surprise to those who have followed Cox's rise to become a spokesperson for "touch-grass populism," labeling social media a "cancer" and calling for platforms to be treated like tobacco companies.
"The answer is not to become better performers in the digital arena," Cox writes. "If peacemaking starts anywhere, it is by taking the off ramp from our technology long enough to see the real people right in front of us."
In his interview with the Deseret News, Cox explained that the problem is deeper than performative politics for clicks. Algorithms are the enemy because they get in the way of interactions that connect humans to other humans.
Cox's "unifying theory" of American polarization comes down to community. And one of the rapidly shrinking cores of community is religion, which is important to creating "citizens worthy of the American experiment."
"I need a little time away from that for the very reasons that I wrote the book. I care much more about my family than I care about politics. And so we're always going to do what we can to serve and give back, but also take care of the people that we love."
"I think it's all moral and spiritual," Cox told the Deseret News. "Politics is where people are finding meaning and belonging now. And that's an unhealthy tribe that leads to these polarizing outcomes, and we become unmoored."
Cox is the first to acknowledge how politics, if it takes too central a place, can interfere with family life.
Politics has been hard on his family, he said. Rather than serving as a trial balloon for a federal race, Cox hopes to take a page from his own book by trying to build his community by strengthening his closest relationships.
"I need a little time away from that for the very reasons that I wrote the book," he said. "I care much more about my family than I care about politics. And so we're always going to do what we can to serve and give back, but also take care of the people that we love."
But Cox said he would "never say no just upfront" to the idea of serving in a presidential cabinet "with the right person."