The peacemaker governor

Utah Republican Spencer Cox joined Face the Nation on Sept 13, 2026, promoting his book "Off Ramp: How to be a Peacemaker in an Age of Contempt."

Johnson says don't panic

House Speaker Mike Johnson said that morning that Congress should resist imposing an AI moratorium and nobody needs to panic.

“we don't need everyone to panic”

Cox wants a bigger role

Asked what Washington should do on AI, Cox said the federal government needs a much bigger role than the one it is currently playing.

Congress is good at nothing

Cox needled the Speaker's worry about overreach. Inaction is the one thing Congress reliably delivers, and he said he's embarrassed by it.

“I'm embarrassed by the response from Congress to just about everything in our country right now.”

The insiders are the scared ones

Cox pointed to the Hugging Face incident and said the people who understand AI best are the ones sounding the loudest alarms.

“the people that know the most about this are the most concerned right now”

Calls in the last 48 hours

Cox said his team reached out to members of Utah's congressional delegation in the past two days, citing recent warnings from Dario, Sam and Elon.

An existential event, sooner

His thinking is shifting fast. Cox said the odds of a catastrophic AI event are rising more quickly than anyone projected.

“the possibility of an existential event happening is growing much more rapidly than anyone projected”

Not a shutdown, a table

Cox drew the line clearly: no moratorium, no shutting things down. Utah's pro-human AI approach puts the companies and the state in the same room.

“I'm not saying a moratorium. I'm not saying shutting things down.”

95% vote by mail

A pending Supreme Court ruling and new postal rules could hit Utah hard, where 95% of voters used mail ballots in the June primary.

Ten years to get it right

Cox said Utah spent a decade building vote-by-mail with heavy security, and promises everyone who should vote still will, whatever the Court decides.

“Everyone who should be voting will be able to vote in Utah.”

Trump calls it fake

With gas over $4 and inflation at 3.4%, Trump told the midterm convention the affordability crisis is a fake word invented by the people who caused it.

“They used the word affordability, right? Fake.”

Blame the war, build more

Cox tied gas prices to the war in Iran and said the real fix is construction. Permitting reform is the piece Congress still owes.

No home, no family

Housing is the worst of it, Cox said. A whole generation priced out of buying is a generation that can't start families.

“you can't start a family if you don't have a home”

Both parties actually agree

Cox said Democratic governors and members of Congress now back permitting reform too, a rare alignment he thinks can pass.

“America is back and we can start building again”

The $5,000 check problem

Trump wants to send every adult $5,000 if Republicans win. Cox pointed at $40 trillion in debt and the COVID cash that fed the inflation spike.

“We just passed the 40 trillion mark. It seems like that's unsustainable.”

Bullish anyway

Polls have been rough for Republicans, but Cox thinks Democrats going "full socialist" handed his party an opening for November.

“I'm feeling much more bullish about our chances as we head into November.”

Name-calling isn't debate

Shown Trump and Vance calling Democrats communists, Cox said both sides do it, noted threats against Congress are up tenfold in ten years, and drew his line at contempt, not disagreement.

“We should be able to have policy differences.”