Utah Gov. Cox faces scrutiny for using military cemetery photo with Trump in campaign email

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah’s Republican Gov. Spencer Cox came under criticism Wednesday for sending a campaign email that featured a photo of him and former President Donald Trump at Arlington National Cemetery during a wreath-laying ceremony.

Federal law prohibits campaign or election-related activities within Army National Military Cemeteries, and that rule was widely shared before the Monday ceremony, Arlington National Cemetery said Wednesday.

Cox’s campaign apologized for using the photo and for politicizing the graveside ceremony, which honored Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover of Utah, one of 13 service members killed in an airport bombing during the Afghanistan War withdrawal three years ago. The email was soliciting donations for Cox’s reelection bid.

“This was not a campaign event and was never intended to be used by the campaign,” the governor wrote in a post on X. “It did not go through the proper channels and should not have been sent.”

Trump’s campaign faced its own blowback over an altercation between his staff and a cemetery worker who tried to stop the team from filming and photographing at the burial site. The former president had been invited to attend by some of the families of the fallen service members. His campaign officials had been warned before their arrival and the altercation that photography would not be permitted in that section of the cemetery, a defense official told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Cox recently surprised voters when he pledged his support to Trump after the president’s July assassination attempt, despite saying days earlier on CNN that he hadn’t voted for Trump in 2016 or 2020 and would not cast a ballot for him again this year.

Cox’s sudden embrace of Trump, who has not endorsed him back, represents a puzzling departure from his carefully curated persona as a Mitt Romney -esque moderate.

His state is a rare Republican stronghold that has half-heartedly supported Trump, whose brash style and comments about refugees and immigrants do not sit well with many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. About half of Utah’s 3.4 million residents belong to the faith known widely as the Mormon church.

The endorsement came a month after Cox breezed to victory in the primary over ardent Trump supporter Phil Lyman, who espoused false claims of election fraud following the 2020 presidential election.

Cox is expected to comfortably win reelection in November in the Republican-dominated state.

In addition to criticism in the comments of his social media accounts, Cox’s opponent in November, Democratic state Rep. Brian King, said it was disrespectful for Trump and Cox to use a veterans’ memorial event as a campaign photo op. He called on the Republican governor to rescind his Trump endorsement.