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- [00:00]
A
Hey everyone, welcome back to the In Good Faith podcast where every week I'm talking to people I think are the most important and influential people in the world. And we've already given you two brand new episodes over the last week. I also wanted to give you this minisode because I got a chance earlier this week to talk to Governor of Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro. You know Governor Shapiro, he's running for reelection for his second term as governor in 2022. He won the state with Assad numbers. But I also wanted to sling some questions his way because you know, he was the runner up to be Kamala Harris vice president. And earlier this year he was a victim of political violence when an arsonist set his house on fire when he was inside. And so on Monday we talked about political violence of K. Harris is telling the truth about him in her book Free Speech and then his insane and frankly delusional views on Josh Allen. And hey, even though this is a little tiny baby mini episode, so cute. I don't know what that was. If you enjoy this episode, give it five stars on Spotify and Apple and give it a like on YouTube. And like always leave a comment on what you agreed with, disagreed with or who you'd like to see as a guest next. Governor Shapiro, I mean, just jumping straight into it. Political violence, I think it's, it's on top of many Americans minds right now. You were a victim of political violence. I mean, what are your thoughts? I mean, is there a fix here for where we are right now?
- [01:07]
B
I mean, look, the fix requires all leaders to speak and act with moral clarity, to universally condemn violence, to acknowledge that there have been victims on the political left and the political right, and that there have been perpetrators of the violence that espouse views on all different sides of this. I think it's also important to note that those who engage in violence aren't always the most rational, linear thinkers. And so they've got views on lots of different things that oftentimes don't easily fit into one bucket. So the answer to this is elected leaders like me or the President of the United States or others speaking and acting with moral clarity, something President Trump has failed to do. But I think it also falls to our fellow citizens to do their part, whether it's taking down the temperature on social media or in their direct engagement with others and working in a way that doesn't compromise your views or values. I don't think anyone should stand down when it comes to expressing their viewpoint or expressing their values. But to do so in a respectful, constructive manner, in a way that tries to heal the divide in this country. That's the answer. Now, it's a whole lot easier said than done, but that's the answer.
- [02:23]
A
When you say Trump has failed, are there specific things that you're pointing to?
- [02:27]
B
Let me just look at the last week or so in the wake of the killing of Charlie Kirk, which, of course, was a tragic, awful incident. Whether you agreed with Charlie Kirk or not, seeing someone literally get their head blown off while they're sitting in a town square engaged in dialogue is not something that should be okay for anybody in this country. What President Trump should have done in the wake of that is acknowledge as the leader of this country that Charlie Kirk is sadly yet one more example of political violence. You know, roughly a month or so after the tragic killing of Speaker Hortman in Minnesota or the targeting of other elected leaders, I think what he could have done in that moment was condemn all violence. What he could have done is not made it a partisan exercise. What he could have done was. Is tried to heal this country and bring people together. Instead, he created more division, he stoked more outrage. And what he did was he used words of revenge, the rhetoric of revenge, instead of words of healing. And to me, that, that was not only a missed opportunity, but really dangerous for this country.
- [03:36]
A
Well, I guess, yeah, I'd really love to pick your brain on not only, I guess, what Trump is saying. I don't know if you watched any of the memorial yesterday, but when Stephen Miller was speaking, there was a lot of they, them, us. I didn't know if you had any specific reactions to that.
- [03:54]
B
Yeah, I didn't get the chance to see the full service, so it's hard for me to pine on every speaker. But I did see a snippet of what Stephen Miller said and, you know, as my wife would say about me with our four kids, oftentimes reminding me of the importance of demonstrating leadership to our kids. Speed of the leader, speed of the group. When you've got a leader like Donald Trump that's focused on pointing fingers and us versus them and creating divisions, well, it's no shock to me that one of his chief advisors subscribes to that viewpoint as well. I thought it was really dark. I thought it was really divisive, and I thought it made it much harder for our nation to heal and much more likely, sadly, and I hope and pray this never happens, but much more likely that we could see more violence, because what they're doing is stoking up our Fellow Americans, to try and take their anger and their frustration, which, by the way, oftentimes the frustration is righteous. Right. People have a right to be frustrated. But then when it manifests itself in the form of violence, egged on by the leader of this country and the people who work for him, that's really, really dangerous.
- [05:06]
A
Well, I guess, kind of with that, you know, politicians often say, you know, this is not who we are after political violence happens. But, I mean, I don't know, what do you think? When historically it has been and, you know, what do you make of people who say, yeah, it is. Political violence is a part of it, and this is not anything new. Does this moment feel new? I know that on a recent podcast, you know, I think it was maybe with Stephen A. Smith, there was a reference back to the 60s, and I know you said, you know, you didn't have the experience of that, but, I mean, do you think this is a unique moment that we're in right now?
- [05:41]
B
I think it is a sad and scary moment. I don't think it is unique right now. I don't even think you have to go back to the 60s where you had extraordinary events and political violence, the killing of the Kennedys, mlk, the list goes on and on and on. But just look at the recent history in the last five years in this country, the last year in this country, you're seeing a rise in political violence. What is, I think, unique is in all those other instances of political violence, you had a commander in chief, you had a president of the United States that sought to bring down the temperature, that sought to find ways to bring Americans together. And now you've got a leader of our country who is using these moments of political violence to further divide us. I think that is what is unique about this moment we find ourselves in.
- [06:34]
A
Okay, so if, if Donald Trump is doing that and you're saying we need to bring the moment down, but obviously those words, I imagine, are not, are not going to reach Donald Trump. I mean, what, what do you do? What, what, what, what impact can you have?
- [06:51]
B
You lead by example around him, and you don't reward him politically for this type of acerbic, divisive language that he's using every day. I mean, I saw a clip of him at the memorial service that you referenced earlier. He spoke after Erica Kirk, the widow, who seemingly was using words of healing and forgiveness. And he got up and made a point that he hates his enemies and he will never forgive his enemies. I'm paraphrasing, but I think you know, the reference that I'm making, I think what you have to do is not reward that type of behavior. And look, we're seeing more and more Americans being dissatisfied with this president's conduct. Both the chaos he creates every day. Yesterday was an example of that. A lack of healing in the wake of the Cillian Kirkus example of that, along with his policies that are making Americans worse off, the tariffs which are rising costs, the health care that he's taking away from millions of Americans, including hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians. I mean, he is directly making people's lives worse. So not rewarding him politically and working around him to show examples of where others can offer words of healing, expressions of our commonality and finding our better angels. I'll just. I'll share with you, Phil. You know, you referenced at the top how my family and I were victims of political violence. And I want to say at the top, I am not equating the violence that we suffered to what happened to Charlie Kirk last week. He's no longer with us. My family and I are physically safe. And I think that is a really important distinction. But I would just say that in this moment where we experienced such a trauma for our family, we showed here in Pennsylvania that we could take down the temperature. We didn't urge on violence against others. And what I saw back from my fellow Pennsylvanians was just goodness and decency and prayer coming from people of all different faiths and all different walks of life. And in many ways, Laurie and I and our kids were lifted up by the positive energy and the positive spirit of Pennsylvanians. Why do I share that with you in response to your question? Because if the President of the United States is not going to display the core decency that exists here in America, and what Laurie and I experienced, I think the best thing we can do is not reward his behavior and show that that's not the American way, that the American way really is decency and goodness and commonality and prayer and all of the things that the President is unable to demonstrate every day.
- [09:43]
A
I mean, couldn't that just be as far as your reaction and his reaction? Obviously, once again, it's not a one to one comparison. But isn't it very likely because you have different ends and goals in mind? I mean, is there potentially an argument that in encouraging rage against an enemy allows political will to be able to do crackdowns on enemies? Right. Isn't this. Have we hit the point where it's really just about just hard power?
- [10:15]
B
Right.
- [10:16]
A
We see it kind of internationally, an abandonment of soft power and working with one another and more the stick. And, I mean, I know that you were saying that's not who we are as Americans, and we get in kind of into those statements, but are we possibly just past that?
- [10:32]
B
No, I think that's a great point. Look, you said it right, like, the president and I have different goals. When we wake up in the morning, my goal is to figure out ways to bring people together to solve problems, to find common ground between, you know, Republicans and Democrats when I'm in, you know, when I'm. When I'm in this office doing this work. But also, you know, just when I'm out on the road finding common ground between my, you know, constituents in urban Pennsylvania and rural Pennsylvania, suburban Pennsylvania. I am constantly looking for ways to bridge the divide and bring people together. Donald Trump is looking for ways to inject chaos and rage and division into our lives every day. And he uses it for the purpose of then being able to justify his unilateral, oftentimes unlawful decisions to rip away funding from a particular area to send in the National Guard over the objection of a governor, the way he did in California over the objection of Governor Newsom and the way he's threatening to do in Illinois over the objection of Governor Pritzker. And so, to me, he stokes that division to try and create energy around his policies, which I think is really dangerous. I think a better way to get stuff done is to find that common ground and find ways to work together with other people and not stoke division, but find our common ground.
- [11:53]
A
When it comes to what we've seen maybe recently, whether it be Pam Bondi talking about hate speech charges, what we've seen, obviously a number of things are still playing out around Jimmy Kimmel, the Pentagon, press restrictions. What are your thoughts with what we're seeing from the administration there?
- [12:08]
B
Look, I think it is really, really dangerous how this administration is taking the long arm of the federal government and reaching into police. Your speech to try and get people knocked off the air because they don't like the jokes that they tell about them. The president's made clear that he wants to take away the licenses from television stations that have content on there that's critical of Donald Trump. Look, one of the foundational principles of this country here in my office, I'm looking up at a portrait of William Penn, who was one of the guys who started all of this, is the foundational principle of free expression. In Penn's case, the free expression had a lot to do with faith but it also had to do with speech. I think the First Amendment that came obviously years after Penn's time here, is really the core of what makes this nation free and what makes this nation extraordinary. And for the President of the United States to now use the power of the federal government to limit that, to say that if you on your show say something hateful about someone, he can knock you off of YouTube, he can take you off the air. We understand the difference in this country because we've had decades, centuries really, of jurisprudence around the notion of insightful speech, right? The typical example you get of going into a crowded theater and yelling fire. That's. That is there to incite an event that puts people's lives at risk. But going out and saying something critical of someone else, even hateful about someone else, you and I may not like it, but that's protected speech. And the president's now using the FCC and seemingly other branches of the government to go after people for their speech. That is dangerous, and that should scare everyone. And if you're someone who, who is watching this right now, who disagrees with everything you and I stand for and has a conservative viewpoint, believes everything Donald Trump says, you should still be worried about this, because at some point, the shoe is on the other foot. And if you try and regulate speech the other way and go after your particular viewpoint, all that is is a race to the bottom. It's a slippery slope. And what it means is less freedom. The last thing I just want to say on this is that the other thing, the political point here that I want to make is they are completely and utterly full of shit when it comes to talking about freedom and talking about patriotism and talking about protecting people's liberty. It was only a few months ago that Donald Trump took the oath of office and promised to bring back free speech. For the party that loves to cloak itself in the blanket of free speech freedom and preach about freedom, they're anything but. They're trying to restrict your voice. They're trying to restrict not only what you can say as a content creator, but what I can hear as a listener or watch as a viewer. So they're restricting my free speech by virtue of going after you or Jimmy Kimmel or anyone who is out there on the air. And so they are completely full of it when it comes to protecting freedom. They're the anti freedom party. They're restricting your right to speak. They're restricting women's rights to make decisions over their own bodies. They're restricting my right as a parent. To decide what vaccines I want to give my kid. They are not the party of freedom. They are the party of restriction. And they're trying to dictate to all of us what we're allowed to say, what we're allowed to think and what we're allowed to do.
- [15:41]
A
So this is possibly an update on, you know, the. The importance of speaking up and having big reactions. As we're recording, it looks like there's breaking news that Jimmy Kimmel is returning to abc. And there's a quote that they made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment of our country. It's a decision we made because we felt some of the comment comments were. And then it goes on. But. So it looks like if there was something at play, there might be a pullback because of public reaction. Do you have any thoughts there with what we're seeing?
- [16:13]
B
Obviously, you're catching me here on the fly. I think I want to. I want to know more about, you know, what the terms are of his return. I mean, if they're saying you can return, but you can only talk about this subject or that subject, you know, I don't know. I think we need to see exactly what the terms are for his return and whether or not he's choosing to come back and how he's going to conduct himself going forward. So I'm happy to answer any and all of your questions, but give me a little time to learn more before I give you a full answer on that one.
- [16:44]
A
Well, on the note of speech you might not like, and on the note of learning more, I know that in recent podcasts and interviews, you've said that you have not read Kamala Harris book One, do you want to book club it together? And two, apparently in one of the excerpts, Harris said that you were more focused on defining the role of VP for yourself instead of helping her win, and that you were already asking aides about artwork that you could put up in the Naval Observatory. Is that. Is that true?
- [17:13]
B
No. And listen, the only thing I was focused on was helping her win. And once she made the determination that Governor Walls was going to be a running mate. By the way, Tim's a really good friend of mine. Gwen, his wife's a really good friend, and my wife Lori's. And I can tell you we were genuinely happy for them. And then I worked my ass off in Pennsylvania and across this country to try and help him get elected. Traveling with Governor Whitmer, Governor Evers, to All the battleground states. Heck, I was showing up in rural communities in Pennsylvania where the Harris campaign never showed up. I was trying to do everything in my power to help her win. The only thing I was focused on was making sure she defeated Donald Trump. And, you know, with regard to our process that I had with the vice president, I mean, I said throughout the process, I thought she had a really deeply personal decision to make. And in the end, I'll just tell you, I had a deeply personal decision to make, too, and I was very pleased to be able to take my role as governor of Pennsylvania and campaign as hard as I could for her. And, Governor Walls, when you were saying.
- [18:14]
A
When you say that you had a very personal decision to make, are you saying that you maybe didn't think that there was a chance?
- [18:20]
B
I'm just saying that, you know, we both had a really honest discussion, and in the end, we. We both had a personal decision to make as to what was best.
- [18:29]
A
Right. And I think also in recent conversations, you've said that Harris had to answer, would maybe have to answer for her part in Biden's ability to serve. What did you mean by that?
- [18:41]
B
I was asked, I can't remember if it was Stephen, A. Someone asked me about, you know, claims about why. Why didn't she speak up? Why didn't she say something? And all I was saying, and I think it's true, she has to account for that. I mean, she was in the room. She has to account for what she said and what she didn't say. So I wasn't saying that as a point of being critical. I was saying it as a point of fact. I mean, she's the only one who can explain what her thinking was, and I presume she lays it out in her book.
- [19:10]
A
Well, so I guess with that, then, did you see Joe Biden struggle to do the job? Like, did you know or think that he was struggling?
- [19:17]
B
I didn't see him struggling to do the job. What I did see was a candidate who was struggling in his reelection. Again, you have to understand, I mean, my vision into him was not on a daily basis the way it was for others. I would see him when he'd come to Pennsylvania or engage with him there. And when I saw that I thought he had an electoral challenge, I was really direct with his staff about that. I shared data with them. I told them what I thought personally. I told them what my gut was. And then when I felt that they were not sharing with him all of the relevant information on the ground here, and I Mean, arguably the most important swing state in the country. I spoke directly to the former president at a coffee shop, actually, right outside the window here in Harrisburg. I spoke to him directly about my electoral concerns for him.
- [20:02]
A
Okay, so when you say that you spoke with him privately, it was more of an urge of, I think this is going to be a hard time. Maybe this is what you should do, or I think that you should drop out.
- [20:11]
B
No, I was very direct about the concerns I saw on the ground and the polling and the reaction I was getting from folks and just wanting him to understand the issues that were out there and urging him to address them.
- [20:23]
A
Okay, and then, Governor, before I let you go, just one light question. My producer just wants me to get you on the record to say it. Jalen Hurts or Josh Allen?
- [20:32]
B
Oh, come on, man. Why are you even thinking that? That's a question that would require me to give any thought. The answer is Jalen Hurts. And by the way, I think Jalen Hurts is consistently, you know, undermined in. In the media. I think he is consistently not ranked high enough. I mean, he's a Super bowl winning quarterback who's three and oh, on this season, when he needs to hand the ball off to Saquon, he does. When he needs to have a huge second half like he did yesterday, he does. This guy is a champ. Now listen, Josh Allen is very, very, very good. He's excellent.
- [21:07]
A
But just, just stick with your guy. Don't do this.
- [21:09]
B
I love Jalen Hurts. And there's just no question in my mind. The answer is Jalen Hurts. You want to keep going with this any more? This or that? I'm ready.
- [21:20]
A
No, I mean, do you? No. No, because it's. I know your answers. You're going to. I know you're going to. You might know my answer.
- [21:27]
B
I'll even give you the rationale for it. Go ahead.
- [21:30]
A
All right. Most. No, no. Okay. Most. Worst quarterback. Worst starting quarterback in the league right now.
- [21:42]
B
I mean, there's a few. I gotta say, I really like Russell Wilson, but he did not look amazing yesterday. He did not.
- [21:51]
A
Wow. Straights are rust.
- [21:53]
B
Yeah, I really like him too. And he, you know, when he was in Pittsburgh, he did some amazing work in the community. I really appreciate him and his wife, Sierra. But, you know, two weeks ago, man, the guy looked like he was 25 year old Russ. Yesterday. He looked like, not great.
- [22:11]
A
I don't know. Whenever I look at Russell Wilson, I'm like, you know what? I think that's still a man that's happy in life. That doesn't speak to him as a quarterback, but I'm just like, that guy seems like he's doing great. I think it shows you can take some Ls and still win in life.
- [22:26]
B
There you go. By the way, you mentioned Josh Allen. I would rank Josh Allen above Patrick Mahomes. I think Patrick Mahomes gets way too much credit in the meeting. He's ranked higher than he should be. He's top five.
- [22:39]
A
I don't know if that's a give. I don't know if that's a give in 2025. But also, I'm speaking to a man that said that Jalen Hurts is better than Josh Allen. So I know that I'm navigating a specific situation.
- [22:48]
B
Yeah, yeah. No question.
- [22:51]
A
Governor, I appreciate your time.
- [22:52]
B
Awesome to be with you. Thank you. Really good to be with you.
- [22:55]
A
But that, dear listener, is where your minisode ends today. Of course. Remember, if you haven't already, give it five stars on Spotify and Apple and give it a like YouTube. Also, you can leave a comment on what you agreed with, disagreed with or who you'd like to see as a guest next. And I'll see you next time, especially because I've got some fantastic guests lined up for the rest of the year.