In the hours following the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University, Governor Spencer Cox stood before the press and offered a prayer. But it wasn’t for the victim’s family, or for a nation reeling from yet another act of political violence. It was a prayer that the perpetrator would be someone from “another state” or “another country.” In his own words: “For 33 hours, I was praying that if this had to happen here, that it wouldn't be one of us — that somebody drove from another state, somebody came from another country… Sadly, that prayer was not answered the way I hoped for.”
Governor Cox was hoping the killer would be an outsider. Preferably a foreigner. That’s not just a rhetorical misstep—it’s a dangerous invocation of the kind of scapegoating that has long fueled xenophobic policy and public distrust.
This kind of deflection is not new. It echoes the rhetoric of President Donald Trump, who just last year claimed Vice President Kamala Harris had “imported an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world … from prisons and jails and insane asylums and mental institutions.” These words weren’t just inflammatory—they were designed to shift blame away from domestic failures and toward imagined foreign threats.
Donald Trump and the Rise of Political Violence
U.S. President Donald walks toward reporters while departing the White House on September 11, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Governor Cox’s remarks, whether intentional or not, reinforce a narrative that violence is imported, not homegrown. That’s a lie. And it’s a lie that has consequences.
The suspect, Tyler Robinson, is a resident of Utah. His arrest should have prompted a sober reflection on the conditions that allow radicalization to flourish within our own communities. Instead, Cox’s remarks implied that violence is somehow more palatable—less shameful—if committed by someone who doesn’t “belong.”
This framing is not only morally hollow, it’s statistically baseless. Immigrants, both documented and undocumented, commit crimes at significantly lower rates than native-born citizens. A 2024 study from the National Institute of Justice found that undocumented immigrants in Texas were arrested at less than half the rate of U.S.-born citizens for violent and drug crimes, and at a quarter the rate for property crimes. The Migration Policy Institute reports that immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than native-born Americans. The facts are not ambiguous: immigrants are not the threat.
What is a threat, however, is the persistent political impulse to deflect blame outward—to cast suspicion on the “other” rather than confront the rot within.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham framed the moment with chilling clarity: "Political violence erupts in America when there is an existential question—who is an American? Who deserves to be included in ‘We the people,’ or ‘All men being created equal’?” he said. “When that is in tension, when we don’t have common agreement about that, then, if you look at it historically, violence erupts." These are not rhetorical flourishes. They are the fault lines of a democracy under siege.
Political violence in America is not a foreign contagion. It is domestic, it is rising, and it is often fueled by rhetoric that dehumanizes, divides, and deflects. The bullets that killed Charlie Kirk were fired by someone born and raised in Utah. That fact should not be a source of shame—it should be a call to accountability.
Governor Cox later said, “We can return violence with fire and violence. We can return hate with hate… but at some point we have to find an off-ramp.” He’s right. But that off-ramp begins with truth. And the truth is: it was one of us. It often is.
Until our leaders stop praying for convenient villains and start confronting uncomfortable realities, the road ahead will only grow darker.
Meacham: Political Violence in America Linked to Deep Questions of Identity and Inclusion
"Who is an American? Who deserves to be included in ‘We the people" - Jon Meacham AI generated illustration
Hugo Balta is the executive editor of the Fulcrum and the publisher of the Latino News Network. Balta is the only person to serve twice as president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ).
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.