The news conference on Friday morning was called to update the public on the end of the manhunt for the shooter who killed Charlie Kirk, a shocking open-air assassination that has left a divided nation fighting over who is to blame.
But Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah, a Republican, used his turn in the spotlight to make a full-throated appeal for the practice of forgiveness, urging the country to find a way to lower the political temperature in a deeply fraught moment.
“We can return violence with violence, we can return hate with hate, and that’s the problem with political violence — is it metastasizes,” Mr. Cox said. “Because we can always point the finger at the other side. And at some point, we have to find an off-ramp, or it’s going to get much, much worse.”
“History will dictate if this is a turning point for our country,” Mr. Cox continued, “but every single one of us gets to choose right now if this is a turning point for us.”
Mr. Cox’s impassioned remarks, delivered as the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, stood to the side, seemed in some ways to be a direct rebuke to language of vengeance that prominent members of his party, including President Trump, have used in the days following the shooting.
Republicans from the White House to Capitol Hill have blamed the left for the shooting of Mr. Kirk, an influential right-wing youth activist. They have vowed to find and shut down groups that have been critical of Mr. Kirk and his polarizing brand of politics. Some figures on the far-right have called for all-out war.
Mr. Cox’s plea drew a sharp contrast to Mr. Trump’s words on Fox News on Friday morning after he told the hosts that the suspected shooter was in custody.
“The radicals on the left are the problem,” Mr. Trump said, “and they’re vicious and they’re horrible and they’re politically savvy.”
Mr. Cox, instead, put the blame on one person: The shooter.
“There is one person responsible for what happened here and that person is now in custody and will be charged soon and will be held accountable,” he said.
He also cast the intensely politicized response to the shooting, which was filmed and posted to social media and has been viewed countless times, as the outgrowth of a broader problem in society, though not one confined to either political party.
“Social media,” he said, “is a cancer on our society right now. And I would encourage people to log off, turn off, touch grass, hug a family member.”
Mr. Cox also drew on what he said were the words of Mr. Kirk himself, before asking young people — the group with whom Mr. Kirk, who was 31, connected so easily — to find a way out of the cycle of political violence that some experts warn the assassination could inflame.
“He said, ‘Always forgive your enemies, nothing annoys them so much,’” Mr. Cox said.
“To my young friends out there, you are inheriting a country where politics feels like rage. It feels like rage is the only option but through those words, we have a reminder that we can choose a different path,” he added.
“Your generation has an opportunity to build a culture that is very different than what we are suffering through right now,” he said.
Mr. Cox’s turn at the mic was consistent with his approach to politics, one that has earned him admiration from moderate groups while grating on many Republicans in his deeply conservative state. A member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he has long worked to encourage people to tone down political rhetoric and made an initiative called “Disagree Better” a hallmark of his tenure as governor.
Mr. Cox’s call for calm on Friday morning came even as he shared information that had the potential to further inflame the political anger around the killing of Mr. Kirk. The governor said that unfired cartridges found alongside the gun believed to have been used to kill Mr. Kirk were engraved with messages, one of which said, “Hey, fascist! Catch!”
“This is our moment, do we escalate or do we find an off-ramp?” Mr. Cox said on Friday morning. “It’s a choice, and every one of us gets to make that choice.”
Kellen Browning and Elizabeth Dias contributed reporting.
Jess Bidgood is a managing correspondent for The Times and writes the On Politics newsletter, a guide to how President Trump is changing Washington, the country and its politics.
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