This Week's Interviews | Gov. Spencer Cox, Jia Tolentino, Andrew Garfield

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SPEAKER_2 (1:06)

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Monday Night Football, plus pregame and postgame. NFL Live, NFL Primetime. Everything you need to stay on top of every game, every week.

Jia Tolentino (1:20)

Unbelievable.

SPEAKER_2 (1:21)

And now, NFL Network is on the ESPN app. More football, more coverage, more ways to watch.

Football's on, all season long, on ESPN and streaming on the ESPN app.

SPEAKER_4 (1:36)

You're listening to Comedy Central.

SPEAKER_5 (1:55)

Hey, what about your daily show, my guest tonight?

Jon Stewart (1:57)

He is Utah's 18th governor and author of Off Ramp, How to Be a Peacemaker in an Age of Contempt. Please welcome to the program, Republican Governor Spencer Cox.

Spencer Cox (2:20)

It's great to see you. It's great to be here.

Michael Kosta (2:21)

Thanks for having me.

Jon Stewart (2:23)

Off Ramp, How to Be a Peacemaker in an Age of Contempt.

Talk about what is the purpose? I'll use a trick from your book on you at the very start. You seem very passionate about this. Can you tell me why you feel so strongly? That's from page 238

Spencer Cox (2:38)

It's in there.

Jia Tolentino (2:38)

Yeah.

Spencer Cox (2:38)

No, thank you.

Jon Stewart (2:39)

Look.

Spencer Cox (2:39)

A strategy. It is a strategy.

A year ago, something terrible happened in my state. Now, I've been writing about contempt, studying about contempt, and I've been practicing it.

SPEAKER_4 (2:51)

You're very good at it. Thank you.

Spencer Cox (2:53)

Polarization in our country and our inability to accomplish anything.

Jon Stewart (2:56)

Yes.

Spencer Cox (2:57)

And when Charlie Kirk was assassinated in Utah, I felt compelled to finish the work and to write this book. I care deeply about our nation.

Jon Stewart (3:08)

Right.

Spencer Cox (3:09)

I think we can solve problems without shooting each other. And I would prefer that. So that's why.

Jon Stewart (3:15)

But we have a pretty good history in this country of shooting each other.

Fair.

Pre-social media, we used to shoot people quite frequently. What is different about this time in your mind that makes the rhetoric, you know, it sort of reminds me of Six and Stones will break my bones, but names, that's the real issue. What do you mean?

Spencer Cox (3:41)

Well, look, I don't know that this is a new problem.

Jon Stewart (3:44)

Yes.

Spencer Cox (3:45)

And we do have this recency bias where we think everything's the best or everything's the worst. I mean, literally 600,000 Americans killed each other in the 1860s.

Jon Stewart (3:54)

Don't tell me how it ends.

Spencer Cox (3:55)

All right.

You'll get there.

The 1960s, the 1970s, political assassinations were fairly common. So I'm not here to tell people that it's worse than then, but I am here to tell people that we're headed in that direction again. And I don't think that's good for us or for our country. Now, the tools are different. The divisive tools, social media, the algorithms, our ability to surround ourselves with only people that are just like us, only hear what we want to hear, that confirmation bias, that's fairly new. The atomization of facts, we have three stations where you could kind of hear what was happening in the country. So all of that is very different. We are lonelier than we've ever been as a country. I think that's very dangerous. I think young men especially, the gamification of society, the lack of real contact is bad for them. And the results we're starting to see. It's not great.

Jon Stewart (5:00)

So let me ask, is the idea that by using different tools to disagree, we can begin to solve those problems? Or are those problems the result of those things? Like in other words, would you like to see that done to alleviate the loneliness? Or are there measures that need to be taken and we are not taking?