Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah is going public with private conversations he held with then-President Joe Biden in 2023, saying he tried to persuade Biden to pardon Donald Trump on the criminal charges he faced in multiple jurisdictions.
Surprisingly, he recalled, Biden seemed open to the idea.
Cox said he spoke with Biden about pardoning Trump as the pair sat in the presidential limousine driving through Salt Lake City.
“You know, I’ve actually considered this for a while,” Biden reportedly replied to Cox. “In fact, just this week as we were lying in bed, Jill and I had a long conversation about it.”
Trending
Cox’s anecdote is included in a new book, obtained by The Atlantic ahead of its scheduled release next month, titled, “Off Ramp: How to Be a Peacemaker in an Age of Contempt.”
The iconoclastic Republican governor, who has attempted to brand himself as a bipartisan figure willing to work across the aisle, said the request was made as part of a bid to unite a divided country.
The pardon never came, but Cox believed an olive branch from Biden to Trump could have curbed some of the deepening partisan tensions between the parties.
The governor has spent years focusing on initiatives to address partisan polarization and harmful rhetoric — writing in his book that his “research became painfully pertinent” after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk while he was speaking at a Utah university in September 2025.
Cox did not vote for Trump in 2016 or 2020, but he eventually changed his tune and backed Trump after the assassination attempt against the president at the rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 2024. The governor told The Atlantic that his decision spurred backlash “much stronger than I expected.”
“You have the opportunity to do something that no other person on earth can do right now: unify and save our country,” Cox wrote in a letter to Trump, expressing his support.
In Cox’s new book, he said that neither experience with the two presidents turned out “quite the way I’d hoped.”
“When I spoke with President Biden, I hoped he would choose mercy over escalation,” the governor wrote. “When I wrote to President Trump, I hoped he would choose unity over retaliation.”
Cox launched Disagree Better when he was chair of the National Governors Association in 2023, seeking to “reduce inflammatory rhetoric and foster a culture of healthy debate.” The initiative is now an independent nonprofit and remains one Cox’s chief efforts to fight harmful political partisanship — a pursuit he catalogues in his book.
“At some point we have to find an off-ramp, or it’s going to get much, much worse,” Cox said in an address days after Kirk’s assassination.
A few months later, Cox traveled with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, to make the case in Washington, D.C., that political leaders needed to dial back their rhetoric, including Trump.
Author
