- [Announcer] PBS Utah presents the Governor's Monthly News Conference, an exchange between Utah Reporters and Governor Spencer Cox.

(inspiring music) - Good morning everyone.

It's great to see you.

Thank you for joining us.

We want to thank members of the media who are here with us today.

Before I begin, I'd like to just say a few words about the heartbreaking events in Tremonton.

On Sunday night, I got a message from our commissioner of public safety that the unthinkable was unfolding in Tremonton and hoped for the best.

But instead, we got the worst possible news.

Every night before I go to bed, I pray for our LEOs, our law enforcement officers across the state, that they'll all get home safely.

And that night, two families got the tragic news that their husband and father, their son would not be coming home.

Utah lost two remarkable officers from the Tremonton and Garland Police Department, Sergeant Lee Sorensen and Officer Eric Estrada.

They truly embodied the very best of public servants.

I've had an opportunity to spend time with both of their families.

I've met their spouses, their kids, and I've met their friends and neighbors.

And I'm just devastated.

Two better individuals I don't know that exist in our state.

Sergeant Sorensen served for 17 years in law enforcement and had just been promoted to sergeant, a reflection of the trust that he had earned from his fellow officers.

He did more than just serve in law enforcement.

He actually worked part-time for the medical examiner's office at the state.

He was one of my employees.

He was also recognized by the Tremonton Fire Department with a distinguished service award this year, and he and his wife received Garland City's Wheeling award for lasting contributions to the community.

Officer Estrada served with his full heart in every assignment.

His incredible wife Brittany, told me that he got into law enforcement because he just loved people and he wanted to help people.

And that's what he was doing when he lost his life.

Colleagues and neighbors remember him as a dedicated husband and father who brought professionalism and kindness to the job every single day.

We're also thinking of Deputy Mike Allred of the Box Elder County Sheriff's Office, and his canine partner Azula.

They were both wounded in the shootout.

I just have to say that I got a chance to meet Deputy Allred and Azula as well.

It's miraculous that they survived.

A turn of the head at the exact moment that the bullet entered his vehicle likely saved his life.

And he had no idea how badly he was injured.

And yet he was able to remain calm and as a hero, as he directed other officers who were rushing to the scene away from the line of fire and likely saved additional lives that night.

To the Sorensen and Estrada families, Abby and I and the entire state, we pray for you.

We are here to support you.

And I'm just so proud of Utah and the way that people have responded in Tremonton and Garland, of course, in Box Elder County, of course, Cache County where Officer Estrada is from.

But so much more than that.

Every corner of the state, there's been an outpouring of love and support and a reminder of what truly matters in this life and how grateful we are for law enforcement officers that put themselves into harm's way every single day.

As far as state law enforcement goes, it's been over a hundred years since we've had two fatalities like this in a shooting with our law enforcement officers.

So fortunately, this is something that does not happen very often here, and I'm grateful for that.

But there's still evil in this world and good people who are willing to stand in front of a bullet to protect the citizens of this state.

So with that, I'm happy to take any questions.

- Governor, what are your thoughts on prosecutors planning to seek the death penalty in those officer killings?

- I think it seems very appropriate in this case, and I support that.

- That was my question, but I have another one.

The suspect was already charged in the past.

Do you think that the system failed?

- Well, look, the system, I always, when I get these questions, the answer can't always be when somebody does something wrong, we lock them up forever.

That can't be the answer.

So we're always trying to find balance in the system.

There is a review that is happening of this person's background history, specifically around domestic violence charges before.

We have made significant changes around domestic violence over the last couple years with the legislature.

And the question is, would those changes have impacted this in the past potentially?

And so we'll learn what we can from this to prevent it from happening in the future.

I certainly hope that we have an opportunity to learn from it.

And if mistakes were made and if we can strengthen the system, then we absolutely should, but it's impossible for any of us to predict what will happen.

Lots of people make mistakes and don't shoot cops in cold blood.

And so I don't know the details about this particular suspect and his mental state, but he deserves the death penalty.

- Governor, on Monday, Trump announced he'll lead an effort to get rid of mail-in voting by signing an executive order to help bring honesty to the 2026 midterm elections.

This is something that Senator Mike Lee said he supports, and your Lieutenant Governor said that states should continue to have the constitutional right to choose how they conduct secure elections.

And so I'm wondering whether you think Trump's attempt to change mail-in voting from the federal level will improve election security across the country or whether states should push back?

- Yeah, so I think it's a little more nuanced answer on that.

I think President Trump and all of us are right to be extremely cautious when it comes to mail-in voting.

I've expressed those concerns in the past.

Utah is an outlier when it comes to the way that we implemented vote by mail.

The time that we took, the processes that we've gone through, the changes that we've made over time, including last year to make sure that mail-in voting is safe.

Most states who do mail-in voting did not do that.

Most of the states that recently have implemented mail-in voting did it virtually overnight, almost literally overnight during COVID without going through the process and the procedures.

And so it's very reasonable for someone to see that and say vote by mail is problematic, and we need to make sure that that voting is secure and not, you know, not be able to say that all vote by mail is not the same.

I'm very proud of our vote by mail system.

I will tell you, I had a county commissioner who was recently elected, come up to me just a couple weeks ago, somebody who was deeply concerned about election integrity in our state, who had complained about election integrity in our state, who went and toured the election facility in his county, went through all of the steps and came out as a defender of the way we do voting in the state.

He said, "There's no way for mass fraud in this state."

He said, "I'm blown away."

Had no idea all the checks and balances that exist in the system.

And I think that that is really important.

Look, it's not whether I think voting should be done by the states or not.

The constitution is very clear that it's in the purview of the states and not the federal government.

And I think states should defend that.

But we can do both things.

We can defend the role of the states and be very serious about voter integrity.

And I think more states need to be more serious about voting integrity.

And of course we're always happy to share with them the changes and the security features that we've implemented in Utah that would help them.

- Now, governor, if President Trump does act to prohibit voting by mail, how far would Utah go to act to defend its authority to make laws around how it administers elections?

- I don't, again, I would have to see what that looks like and, the constitution's very clear on this one, so, you know, we'll just have to see what that looks like.

- Governor, in regards to Stuart Adams, do you think that there should be a third-party investigation or at least a legislative ethics inquiry into the allegation against him?

- What is the allegation against him?

- The allegation that he- - Is there something that needs to be investigated?

I just, are there facts in dispute here?

- Well, the allegation is that he promoted, and he's denied this, that he promoted legislation that would benefit a relative in a criminal case.

And President Adams has denied that, saying that's not the case.

- Is there an allegation that he promoted it?

What is the allegation?

- The allegation- - That he's denied?

- The allegation is that he promoted legislation to benefit a relative in a criminal case.

- To whom did he promote it?

- Pardon me?

- To whom did he promote this legislation?

- Well, as has been reported, he allegedly supported that legislation at the Capitol.

The speaker of the house is now convening a meeting of stakeholders to review whether that is the right policy.

There have been rallies at the Capitol calling on the president to resign over this.

There's a state senator and a Salt Lake County council.

- I know you still haven't given me the allegation though.

To whom did he promote this?

- That he abused his power.

- Okay, how did he abuse his power?

Who did he promote this to?

Who did he talk about this to?

- He talked about it to his Senate Majority Leader.

- And they both admitted that.

Is there anybody else?

Is there an allegation that he promoted it to someone other than his?

- That he talked to the defense attorneys?

That he sent letters to the judge?

That he... - Okay, that's very different.

Those are two very different things.

Again, I'm trying to understand.

You're saying there's some allegation out there.

I don't think there are any facts in dispute.

I think the facts are very clear.

He talked to the Senate Majority leader, the Senate majority leader took that information.

He went into and he proposed a piece of legislation.

I found out about this case that you're referring to when I read the article.

The Senate president never talked to me about this.

I learned about it in "The Salt Lake Tribune" when Robert Gehrke wrote that article.

- Whether you agree or disagree, whether there is merit to the allegation or if there is any impropriety on behalf of the Senate president, there are some people who believe that there is.

So the question is, should there be, in your view, a third-party review and/or investigation or at least a legislative ethics inquiry into their concerns?

- So I don't, again, I don't think there's nothing to investigate.

The facts of this are very, very clear.

The facts are abundantly clear.

It's been reported.

I don't think anybody's denied that what happened happened.

As I mentioned, I learned about this when you all learned about it.

Actually, some of you probably learned about it before I learned about the allegations.

And so the question is, should he have told me about it?

Should he have leaned on me?

I would love to read "The Salt Lake Tribune" story about what would've happened if he had done that.

I can only imagine how people would've reacted if he had done that.

Look, I've...

There have been times in my term as governor when I've been so mad at Stuart Adams that I couldn't see straight on certain bills and that has happened a couple of times.

I can tell you that this is not one of those times.

I'm very grateful that I had no idea that this was impacting someone in his family, his granddaughter's family, because it may have changed the way I reacted to the bill.

And let me also be clear, anybody who says they didn't know what was in that bill is lying to you, or they're a terrible legislator.

This was not something that was hidden at all.

This idea that this was something that was put in a bill at the last minute is absolutely not true.

It's fundamentally not true, and it's verifiably not true.

Now, the bill did come out late in the session.

That part is true not because of this provision in the bill, because this is an incredibly complex bill that lots of people were working on for months and months and months, really years going back.

This provision was talked about multiple times.

I knew this provision was in there.

And so did every other legislator who read the bill.

It was in the short title.

It was brought up in every committee hearing.

It was actually asked about on the house floor during the debate.

So there is no controversy about whether people knew this was in the bill or not.

The only question I have is, is this the right policy?

And this is a really tough one, guys.

This is a hard one.

You have kids in high school being treated differently depending on where their birthday falls during the year.

And if their birthday falls in May instead of June, then they get treated the same as a 50-year-old who had a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old.

And that's the question, is that fair?

Some people think that that is fair.

That something magical happens the minute you turn 18 and you are an adult and what you do should be treated the same.

The legislature debated this and before the legislature, lots, we had these groups together working on these policies, giving their input when this came forward, and when it was presented to me, I paused on it.

I had to ask myself, is this the right policy?

It makes sense, I think to treat 17 and 18 year olds, and let me be clear, to give the judge the opportunity.

This is not mandated in law, but to give the judge the opportunity to treat an 18-year-old the same as a 17-year-old instead of a 50-year-old.

So the only question I had for me is, is this the right policy?

And it was a close call.

Maybe it's not the right policy.

Maybe now that we have an opportunity to reflect on it, maybe it doesn't go far enough or it goes too far.

And that's what we do.

That's the process.

Every single legislator has experiences in their life where they see something that they feel may be unjust and that influences the way they bring legislation to the table.

Again, I have lots of reasons to get upset with Stuart Adams.

This was not one of them.

I'm really grateful he never talked to me about it.

- Would you support the policy if this was an 18-year-old boy who had had sex with a 13-year-old girl?

- Yeah, so again, that's a very interesting part of this whole discussion, right, is that nobody knew that was the case.

And I've asked myself that question too.

It's funny when I tell people, everybody assumed from the article that it was a grandson, not a granddaughter.

I don't think it should matter, but for some reason, everybody I talk to, it does.

So again, that's the question that we're, that's why I said it's a really close call.

I also wanna be clear, and this is the part where I think nuance is completely lost.

This doesn't let them off the hook with a slap of a hand, still a third degree felony.

This is serious, serious stuff we are talking about.

And in this case, again, the law didn't even apply to his granddaughter.

So look guys, there are no easy answers to this one, but I'm just grateful that Stuart Adams did not bring this to my attention, that I signed the bill based on the policy.

I will say it's very fascinating to me that the very people calling for his resignation actually support the bill.

Let's move on.

Next question.

- I do wanna clarify though, do you think, you know, if you were in Stuart Adams's position, do you think he acted inappropriately?

Do you think it was proper for someone in the top position of the Senate to weigh in on the outcome of this bill?

- I think it was appropriate for the top person in the Senate not to weigh in on this bill, which is exactly what happened.

- So he did nothing wrong here?

- I just said what I think is appropriate is that he did not weigh in on this bill.

And I can only imagine what you would've written, if he had.

- Governor, I wanna ask about berm management in the Great Salt Lake.

Obviously it's on the special session agenda, but is that enough, especially with water levels continuing to fall as well as state agencies reporting that water usage is spiking?

- Sure.

No, it's not enough.

It's definitely not enough.

But it is one of the tools that we definitely need to use and you're gonna be hearing more from us on more that we can do around the Great Salt Lake.

The Great Salt Lake is an incredible gem for our state.

It's critical, again, economically, ecologically.

I've been very fortunate to be able to spend some time out on the shores of the Great Salt Lake recently.

And the, you know, the migratory birds and the refuge that's out there is so important to everything that we are.

Look, you know, our capital city is named after that lake.

It's not just a feature of our state.

It's core to who we are as human beings.

And it's worth protecting.

I'm grateful for a legislature that has stepped up in big ways over the past few years to save the lake.

We're still working through those bills to shepherd more water to the end.

But we are being successful.

This year for example, mineral companies haven't been able to take as much water as they normally have because of a bill that we signed last year that prohibited that from happening.

And so we've seen a huge change in behavior that is going to help the lake over the next several years.

And again, some of that is voluntary behavior, but a lot of that is legislation that we passed changing over 160 years of water law in this state, but we're not done.

And so we'll keep working through that.

But there are some temporary engineering measures that we can do to preserve life around the Great Salt Lake and the salinity of the lake is part of that.

And being able to raise and lower the berm is part of that as well.

We've made some changes in the past.

This is one we wanted to do earlier and we got some pushback.

And now that pushback has recognized that we were right and we should make that change.

- Governor, the execution of Ralph Menzies is coming up and his attorneys say it would be, quote, "a grotesque spectacle to shoot a man with dementia."

What are your thoughts on that?

- Well, look, I don't make those decisions.

We have a board and a process that will make those decisions whether there is dementia or not.

Those are facts that are in dispute.

A panel, and then, you know, judges reviewing all of these decisions will decide whether there is dementia or not.

And I'm grateful that I don't have to make that call, but I'm grateful that we have a process that does.

I can tell you that there is nothing more thorough than the death penalty process in our country.

There are so many levels and layers of appeals and opportunities there.

And so if those appeals are denied because the evidence does not support an allegation of dementia, then we will move forward as required by law.

- Governor, is Utah among the 20 states that the Secretary of Defense says will be activating National Guard personnel to assist ICE agents?

And also will you be sending any of those National Guard personnel to help out in DC?

- So I'll answer the second question first.

We have not received any communication about help in DC.

So I'm not aware of any requests there.

As a, you know, as a dual authority state, like other states, the federal government does have the opportunity to call up the National Guard.

The president does have that authority.

What we've said from the very beginning is this, that we are willing to work to support the efforts to remove people who are here illegally.

However, with a couple caveats there, that it would only be in a support role.

So our National Guard will not be putting hands on people, will not be arresting people.

That is not the role of the National Guard.

And we would not allow that to happen.

We've offered in the past because we've had problems to help with things like transport because we don't have an ICE facility here.

Transportation takes a lot of time and effort away from Homeland Security and their ability to do their jobs, processing paperwork, those types of things that make it difficult.

We've offered to help there.

So those are where we would be able to help.

So that was condition number one.

Condition number two is that the federal government has to pay for this, that it can't come out of state funding.

And so we're in active communication with the federal government.

And by the way, I think that's true of most states, that that's the way most states are feeling about this.

And so we'll know in the next, you know, in the next couple weeks what that looks like 'cause they get more information back to us and we'll be able to make that decision.

- As far as President Trump deploying the National Guard to Washington DC, raising the possibility of deploying the National Guard to other cities throughout the country, is that something that you would sign off on if he asked the Utah National Guard to assist in that?

- Well, we won't need the, you know, I hope we never need the Utah National Guard.

We've deployed here before when we've had riots and property damage that was happening here in the state of Utah when people's lives were at risk.

We are hoping we don't need to do that here, that we'll be able to, I don't anticipate that the president would call up the National Guard from one state to go into another state.

I think again, he would have the authority to call up the National Guards in those states.

And so our job is to make sure that we're doing our job so that we don't need the National Guard here in Utah.

- If he did attempt to do that though, would you sign off on that proposal?

- I would have to see what that looks like.

- Do you support the US decision to send warships near the coast of Venezuela?

- Look, I'm not as read-in on what's happening in Venezuela right now.

I know there are some deep concerns.

There are lots of concerns happening all over the world.

Of course, you know, we're seeing deployments happening in the Middle East, in Asia.

Certainly these decisions impact Utahns.

We are a service-oriented state.

We have a very high level of participation when it comes to the military and the National Guard.

And so any time there is active military incursions happening anywhere in the world, it impacts Utahns.

So always concerned, but I just have to say I'm not read-in enough to make an informed decision on what's happening in Venezuela.

- I wanna ask you about the proof of citizenship conversation that's happening around the country.

So voters' rights groups have reached out to us.

They're wondering if that could be in the special session.

Is that something you've already been consulted on?

Have you been read in on it?

- Yeah, so conversations about the special session are just starting to happen.

Obviously, I feel very strongly that only, in fact in Utah, it is illegal for anyone who is not a citizen of the United States to vote.

And we wanna make sure that we have processes in place to prevent that from happening.

And if it is happening, we need to root that out.

You know, there have been reports that maybe there were two cases of some potential illegal votes.

If, again, if that happened, then those should be prosecuted, and so we'll be working with county attorneys on that.

We're constantly looking to update our voting laws to make sure that we're protecting people and protecting the sanctity of those voter rolls.

And so I don't know if that's something that's going to come up in a special session or in the general session, but I know those discussions are happening.

And so if there's a proposal that is ready for a special session, it could possibly happen, if not more likely that we would do that in January.

- And that's all the time that we have for our television broadcast.

Thank you for joining us for the Governor's Monthly News Conference.

- [Announcer] This has been the Governor's Monthly News Conference.

For video and more information, visit PBSutah.org/governor.

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