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Gov. Josh Shapiro on antisemitism and Trump's 'sanctimonious B.S.'
00:36:54
The home of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) was firebombed two months ago today. In a new interview, Shapiro, widely considered a potential 2028 presidential contender, opens up about the attack, antisemitism in the U.S., and how the president is politicizing violent acts.
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- [00:01]
Colby Yakowitz
It was two months ago today when the home of Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro was violently attacked. A man scaled a fence around the governor's residence. He broke in and he set off explosives in the state dining room. The extent of the damage, it was shocking. Shapiro, his wife Lori and their children, they had been asleep upstairs. A local man, 38 year old Cody Balmer, was later arrested. He was charged with attempted homicide, arson and terrorism. Ballmer said that it was Israel's treatment of Palestinians that was a motivation for his attack on Shapiro, who's Jewish. He said he harbored hatred for Shapiro and that he had intended to kill him that night. Bahmer also he has a history of mental health issues. When I saw the news of the attack on Shapiro's home, I was stunned. I am from Pennsylvania. I'm from a town not too far from the state capital of Harrisburg. I have known and followed and covered Shapiro's career for more than a decade. I am also Jewish. Since the attack, there's been more high profile violent acts of anti Semitism in the United States. I knew I wanted to have this conversation with Shapiro. I wanted to better understand what happened that night. But I also wanted to understand how he was making sense of it. And so earlier this week, I went to the State Capitol to talk to the governor. From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. I'm Colby YAKOWITZ. It's Friday, June 13th. Today I bring you my conversation with Governor Josh Shapiro. We talk about the attack on his home and the rise of antisemitism in America. We also discuss Israel and Gaza, though we had this conversation before Israel attacked Iran. On Thursday night. We talk about President Trump sending troops to California. And because he is often talked about as a 2028 presidential contender, I, of course asked him about his political future. Just a note, he does swear just a few times in this episode. And we have left those unbleeped. Now, here's our conversation.
- [02:23]
Josh Shapiro
Governor, thank you so much for having me in Harrisburg.
- [02:25]
Good to have you back. Thanks for coming.
- [02:27]
Yeah, it's good to be home.
- [02:28]
Yes.
- [02:28]
Colby Yakowitz
So, Governor, I want to start with.
- [02:30]
Josh Shapiro
The night, or I guess it was the early morning of April 13th. You and your family had just finished Passover Seder. You were asleep upstairs when troopers came banging at the door.
- [02:41]
Yeah.
- [02:41]
Tell me what happened next.
- [02:44]
We had concluded an amazing Seder where we had family, friends, community all together. And like most meals in our household, you know, they just kind of kept going and going and going. We had retired to another part of the Governor's residence until, you know, basically midnight. I remember that time because our 14 year old kind of came running by us. I was like, dude, dude, you gotta get to bed.
- [03:13]
Yeah, that's late for a 14 year old. Yeah.
- [03:15]
Yeah. So we all retired to the living quarters, which is upstairs, and, you know, had just sort of fallen to sleep, like barely to sleep, when I heard, you know, loud footsteps kind of running down the hall and a bang on our bedroom door and said, governor, get up, get up. There's a fire first lady, let's go.
- [03:40]
Yeah.
- [03:41]
And, you know, we were. It was jarring. But honestly, at that moment, I just assumed there was some accident or, you know, a candle fell, there was some issue in the kitchen. So my worry was really just focused on getting our kids and the dogs just safely out of the house. And we got ourselves organized, ran down the back hall and ran out to safety as firefighters were rushing into the house. As we exited, I really did not have an appreciation for the scope of the fire nor the extent of the damage. I was just thankful that we were all outside safely and you guys were.
- [04:34]
All standing outside at this point.
- [04:36]
Yeah. And we're all like in T shirts, shorts, sweatpants, whatever. And we were just standing outside following the directions of the state police and the firefighters who were there to keep us safe and put out the fire. And I think I just remember in those initial few moments thinking, just thank God everybody's safe, we're going to be fine. And assuming it was just all an.
- [05:02]
Accident, at what point did you find out that it was a targeted attack and the extent of the damage?
- [05:09]
We were outside for, you know, just maybe short of an hour until directions were given to us as to where we were going to go to be safe. And just before we left, the fire chief from Harrisburg Bureau of Fire invited me to come back into the residence to see the damage. And as I walked through the residence, unlike when we had come out in those first, you know, the first moments of fire, you could not only smell the smoke, you could see it, and it kind of burnt your eyes and your nose. And as I made my way down the hallway into the state dining room, where we had concluded our seder, you know, four hours earlier, three hours earlier or something like that. I mean, it literally looked like a bomb went off. And there were a number of firefighters in there who were kind of standing at attention as I came in there. Fire was out, but there were still a few hotspots that they were dealing with. And it was not. It's not Atypical for law enforcement fire to, you know, kind of stand at attention when you walk in a room. And I appreciate that. I respect the hell out of them, but it felt to me like they. Like they had something to say that they didn't want to say to me. I asked the fire chief, and, hey, what happened here? And he said, well, Governor, you'll. You'll be briefed on that shortly. And that's when I realized, okay, something might be awry. I left the room, ran back, you know, walked back to the cars where everybody was assembled. And, you know, my. My main focus there was just getting our kids safe, getting them in a place where they could go to bed, and figuring out how to deal with all this. It wasn't until 15 or 20 minutes later that I learned from the head of the state police that they believed it was a targeted attack by an arsonist. And then, of course, as the minutes went on, we learned a lot more.
- [07:27]
Yeah, I want to talk about the motivations for this attack, but I also want to play a clip of what you said that morning. I watched it live. What I got from it, knowing you as long as I have, is that you were feeling quite angry, but we didn't know very much yet. But you did kind of wonder aloud if the attack had happened because you were Jewish.
- [07:49]
Yeah.
- [07:50]
So let me just play that for you, if that's okay.
- [07:52]
Sure. If he was trying to terrorize our family, our friends, the Jewish community, who joined us for a Passover Seder in. In that room last night. Hear me on this. We celebrated our faith last night proudly. And in a few hours, we will celebrate our second Seder of Passover again, proudly. No one will deter me or my family or any Pennsylvanian from celebrating their faith openly and proudly.
- [08:33]
So your instincts were correct. We found out later that the alleged assailant had said he harbored hatred towards you. He referenced violence against Palestinians as a motivation. You know, we know there's been a spike in anti Semitism in the United States since the war in Gaza. I wonder how it feels to know that your Jewish identity, maybe your past.
- [08:58]
Colby Yakowitz
Support for Israel, was a motivating factor.
- [09:01]
Josh Shapiro
For violence against you and your family.
- [09:04]
Obviously, the prosecutors and the courts will sort out what the motivation was. But as you correctly pointed out, he cited that in his own words and his own voice. I don't really dwell on how it impacts me. I think what I was trying to convey there, and I had not planned to say that I just kind of spoke from the heart, what I think is important is making sure Pennsylvanians of all walks of life, all faiths, know that I'm not going to be deterred, and therefore they shouldn't either. I'm not going to be scared, therefore they shouldn't be either. We have to confront anti Semitism, hatred, bigotry in all forms, but we can't be deterred from living our lives. In my case, serving as governor. And I wanted to make that very, very clear to folks. What you don't know from that clip is what I did just prior to walking out there was to call Lori, who was with our kids, somewhere else, and say, hey, you gotta figure out how, but we gotta get food. We gotta have another Seder. Like, we can't let our own family, you know, be stopped in celebrating our faith. Like, we've got to not just talk the talk, but walk the walk here. And she was already way ahead of me in figuring that out. But it was important to me both in my personal life to show I would not be afraid and we'll continue forward. And it was important to me to set that as an example for all Pennsylvanians.
- [10:44]
After the attack, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, another probably next to you, one of the most prominent Jewish politicians in America said it should be investigated as a hate crime. You at the time said you didn't think it was helpful to have outsiders weighing in. In the last month, we saw a couple killed outside of a Jewish event in D.C. we saw Jewish activists brutally attacked in Boulder, Colorado. I wonder after those two attacks, if it's made you make maybe rethink what happened to you at all in the context of what happened in those other instances.
- [11:21]
I think it is all connected in that the crimes, these heinous crimes, obviously to varying degrees. You lost two people in Washington, D.C. two people killed. Thank God my family was safe. So I don't in any way want to equate the two, but they all seem to be motivated by a similar hatred, and in this case, a hatred directed toward Jews. There have been other crimes that have been motivated by hate, not toward Jews, but we have sadly seen a rise in antisemitism. I do think it has caused me to see these events a little bit differently, and maybe not the way you were asking your question, but let me explain. I think Laurie and I felt, particularly in those first, like, 72 hours after the firebombing of the residents, the attempted attempt on my life, that we became sort of part of a story that was spinning out of control because others were injecting their opinions. Others were injecting their views onto it, you know, to. To suit their narrative. It's one of the reasons why I got frustrated with Senator Schumer for doing that. And so what I've tried to be very careful of is opining on this, because we found there were a bunch of folks who opined on our situation at the governor's residence who didn't have facts, but were really using it for their own narrative. And I think that that's unhelpful.
- [12:54]
So you're not ready to say it was a hate crime or that it was an act of anti Semitism.
- [12:59]
You're talking about the governor's residence. I mean, look, clearly this person said what motivated him. I've been careful for a reason. And you may find this to be, you know, sort of, you know, silly or what have you, but I want to explain why I've been a little careful. You know, I was a prosecutor for six years. I was the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and prosecuted a number of violent crimes. And I always tried to follow the evidence. I always tried to apply the law and never try to just sort of placate what is a public narrative around that. You gotta follow the evidence. And so I wanted to leave space for District Attorney Chardo, who's the local District Attorney here in Harrisburg, and Attorney General Bondi, the United States Attorney General, as the prosecutors, to be able to gather the evidence and apply the law to the facts as they found them. And in this case, I wasn't the prosecutor, I was the victim. And so I just wanted to be careful on that. Obviously, we now know what this person said. We know that that was clearly part of their motivation. And as I said at the time, and I still feel two months later, I've got faith in the prosecutors to see this case through and make sure this person is punished to the full extent of the law.
- [14:16]
You know, I've been thinking a lot as an American Jew myself. We both grew up in Pennsylvania, me in a more rural part of the state, in Lancaster, you in the Philly sub. And like, growing up, sure, there were anti Semitic tropes, but largely antisemitism felt like something that happened in the 1940s. It didn't feel like something that was relevant in my present life. And now it suddenly is. When I talk to Jewish friends and family, they're scared. They're scared to talk about being openly Jewish. They're scared to be in Jewish spaces. I wonder what you say to them.
- [14:50]
What I said in that clip you showed Me, I want them to know that in the role that I have, I am not deterred from practicing my faith. I am not scared. I am mindful that we're seeing a rise of anti Semitism and hatred and bigotry in our communities. But I do not want them to be scared. And I want them to know, regardless of their fate, their governor loves them and they want them to feel safe here.
- [15:18]
Do you hear from people in your life that are afraid?
- [15:20]
Yes. Yeah, yeah, I do. I'm sure you do as well. And again, I think, you know, you have to lead by example. I've also heard many of them say, my gosh, if you and Lori can live out your lives this way openly and proudly and unafraid, then certainly I can do that as well. We hear that a lot. And, you know, I am by no means, you know, the most practicing of all, you know, Jewish people. I don't judge how other people practice. I know there are people that do a lot more than me. But I'm damn proud of my faith and I hope that the way I live my life and choose to live my life openly like this inspires others to not be afraid.
- [16:08]
I think it's hard right now to talk about and antisemitism in the United States without also referencing the wider conflict with Israel and Gaza. And you've said, you know, you've been critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
- [16:23]
Colby Yakowitz
You'Re supportive of a two state solution.
- [16:26]
Josh Shapiro
You've said you mourn the devastation in Gaza. And I wonder, and what happened on October 7th as.
- [16:34]
And pardon me, I'm sorry, I want to hear your question. I think it is also, we cannot lose sight of the fact that I have been critical of, of Netanyahu, but there is no comparison to Hamas, which is a terrorist group as defined by the United States of America. So I want to be clear. There's not like a moral equivalency there. I've got policy differences with the Israeli government, but on the other side, you're dealing with a terrorist organization. I'm sorry to interrupt.
- [16:56]
No, no. I just. I wonder, as an American Jewish person who, you know, has previously supported Israel, how do you grapple with those, you know, competing realities of what's happening in the Middle East?
- [17:11]
I don't know. It's hard as a Jewish person to articulate that. I do think it's just hard for anyone to process all of this. The atrocities that occurred on October 7th, you know, and mourning the loss of life there, wanting these hostages to be returned home. You know, grieving for the women that were sexually violated in the most brutal ways, I carry that. I also have the capacity to feel the pain for the women and children who are not part of Hamas who have been killed in Gaza. I don't think that carrying that pain should be mutually exclusive. And I also don't think that that's unique to being a Jew. I think you can be someone who believes in Israel, wants Israel to exist, would like to see at some point. I don't think it's possible now, as you noted, a two state solution where Palestinians, after renouncing violence against Israel, can live peacefully side by side with Israel. I want to see that. I think that that's common sense. I think that's good for Israel's future. And it's clearly not happening now because you've got Gaza still in the hands of Hamas, a terrorist group. And I think, as I've said many times, Israel is on a dangerous path because of its leader. I'm not trying to create a moral equivalency between Hamas and the Netanyahu government by any stretch. So please don't take my comments out of context. But I just think we're in a really dark place right now. But I don't think it should be hard for anyone to be able to carry around emotion and a feeling of sadness for lives lost on both sides of the boundary.
- [19:10]
I think it can be hard, though, as a Jewish person to talk about Israel right now when there is again so much devastation in Gaza. It's like people want you to be an absolutist on one side or the other of that issue.
- [19:26]
You're raising a really good point. Right. I think we should be absolutists, but it should be on condemning antisemitism. There should be no room for that, no excuse for that, no pass given to anybody on that. When it comes to the policy issues in the Middle east, as you're talking about, that's full of nuance, as most geopolitical issues are. And they're complex and they're challenging. And so we have to create space in our politics and in our civil society for dialogue about differences on the Middle east, but never use that as an excuse for antisemitism.
- [20:04]
Antisemitism has become like a cause of President Trump's. He talks about Vice President Kamala Harris, who had been the Democratic nominee for president last year. He accused her of anti Semitism for not picking you as her vice presidential candidate. He talks about protests on college campuses. Is it helpful to have President Trump be the most, maybe one of the more outspoken people on anti Semitism.
- [20:33]
I think it's helpful to speak out on anti Semitism. It's helpful if President Trump does it. It's helpful if a Democratic politician does it. Here's what's not helpful. Politicizing the issue of antisemitism or any form of hatred and bigotry and using it as some wedge issue or whatever you political people would call is really dangerous. And I think it actually makes everyone less safe. And let's be clear, the president doesn't have clean hands here. I mean, this is a guy who is celebrating the folks who were marching in Charlottesville saying Jews will not replace us. This is the guy who, his first official act as President of the United States in his second term was to pardon the folks who broke into the Capitol on January 6, assaulted police officers, and many carried with them anti Semitic slogans and posters and T shirts. He pardoned all of them. So, like, you know, spare me here the sanctimonious bs.
- [21:39]
Colby Yakowitz
After the break, I asked Governor Shapiro about the protests spreading out across the country, how President Trump responded to them in California, and what Shapiro would do if it happened in Pennsylvania. We'll be right back.
- [22:03]
Josh Shapiro
Speaking of President Trump, I wanted to switch gears a little bit and talk about the big news this week, which is that he deployed the National Guard in California in response to protests over the ICE immigration raids in LA. He's also sent in 700 Marines into California. There were some protests in Philadelphia Tuesday night that resulted in some arrests. What are you going to do if President Trump sends the National Guard to Philly?
- [22:32]
Well, let's take a step back and analyze what's happened. Let me start with what happened in Philly Tuesday night. The police handled it very well. The municipal police did. They made arrests where people were violent, and in other cases, they ensured that those who were peacefully protesting had the opportunity to do so. Now, more broadly, I want to be very clear, violence has absolutely no place in protests. I don't care what you're protesting. You can't be violent, you can't loot, you can't burn cars, you certainly can't assault law enforcement, period. The question is, who is best equipped to address that in a protest setting, as we've seen play out on the streets of Los Angeles? I would argue law enforcement. They're specially trained for this, provided that there are enough law enforcement, which, according to the mayor and the governor in California, there was. Those are the folks that should be on the front lines dealing with this, I think it is dangerous when military personnel are used for domestic law enforcement purposes. And in some instances, it could violate the doctrine of posse comatitis, which was established to ensure that military is not engaged in law enforcement activities in our communities. The National Guard here in Pennsylvania is under my command. I'm the commander in chief, and I have deployed the Guard for domestic issues here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Think like after a terrible weather incident or something like that. I've also deployed our Guard as part of a federal mission. We've deployed Pennsylvania Guards people to the border, the southern border of the United States, as part of the mission that.
- [24:34]
There.
- [24:36]
If the Guard is going to be federalized, we have a legal process in place where the President of the United States has to consult with the commander in chief of the Guard, in this case the governor, and seek his or her approval first. The President of the United States did not do that here. And I think because he went around the governor, he created some real dangers. He brought people into a situation that maybe were not trained the way local law enforcement would be, created chaos in our communities, and query whether that had any effect on tamping down the protests or whether law enforcement on the ground were really the ones who did it because they were properly trained. Here in Pennsylvania, we have no tolerance for violence. I take very seriously my responsibility as commander in chief of the Pennsylvania Guard and my role leading the Pennsylvania State Police as well. We are coordinating actively with our mayors in our cities and towns, and we're coordinating actively with local government to make sure that we are prepared. Should there be protests that turn from peaceful to violent, and should the Guard be needed, it would be deployed at my direction, following a legal process, not the way it's been done in California, which I think has been really dangerous. The way the President has gone around, set legal precedent.
- [26:13]
But what if Trump tries to do it? What if he tries to go around you and militarize Philadelphia?
- [26:18]
I. I'm not going to get into that hypothetical. I could just tell you we are prepared. We are in close coordination at every level of government. And I think we here in Pennsylvania have shown ability over many, many years to create space for peaceful protest and make sure that if it gets violent, it gets addressed by law enforcement on the ground.
- [26:41]
Yeah. There is a sense that President Trump wants to put the military on the ground in blue urban areas run by Democrats. Louisiana being just the first of maybe many.
- [26:54]
Colby Yakowitz
Are you worried about that?
- [26:56]
Josh Shapiro
I think there is no question in everything this president does. He tries to inject chaos. He's injected chaos into the world order. He's injected chaos into our economy. He's trying to inject chaos into our streets. By doing what he did with the garden in, in California, we will be prepared to make sure people can peacefully protest and that we do not have violence in our communities.
- [27:22]
Do you think. You know, I've talked to a lot of Democrats, including in Pennsylvania, who feel like this time around, you know, there's not as much of the full throated opposition to Trump that maybe there was in the first administration and that there's, you know, you've filed several lawsuits when he has tried to cut federal funding from Pennsylvania and that is a form of resistance. But it seems like Democrats are clamoring for more from their leadership. And I wonder if, if there's a reason why you think maybe the Democratic response has been a little more muted this time around.
- [27:56]
You know, I think that's a question for folks like you to analyze. I don't mean that flippant. I have a lot of respect for you. Obviously. My job is to, you know, show, don't tell. Right. My job is to lead this commonwealth to be a governor for all Pennsylvanians to, as I say every day, get shit done. And when someone tries to stop me from delivering for the people of Pennsylvania, I will take them on. As I've taken on Donald Trump and won every single time in court, he tried to rip away billions of dollars from our students, from our rural communities, from our farmers. And I've sued him and won. And so anybody who tries to mess with a Pennsylvanian is going to have to come through me. I won't be afraid to stand up to him. What I don't sort of have a lot of time for is the performative nonsense and the yelling and screaming that doesn't accomplish anything. I've got a job to do. I'm doing it. I'm going to continue to make progress for the people of Pennsylvania. And if anybody, including the president of the United States, gets in my way, I'm going to run right through them to stand up for the good people of Pennsylvania.
- [29:04]
Well, we're gonna talk even more politics, which I know is your favorite. I know, I'm sorry. But I have to ask you, you were referenced in the book Original Sin, the book that's been written by CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios's Alex Thompson for people that don't know. It's a book about President Joe Biden's decision to run for a second term. In the book, they report that shortly after President Biden's devastating debate performance, that you had met with him and expressed some concerns and told him about polling in Pennsylvania and that the First Lady, Jill Biden, kind of abruptly ended that conversation. And I'm wondering what else you might have said or wanted to say to the president, had the first lady not kind of.
- [29:52]
Well, I haven't read the book, and I'm not sure I would characterize it that way.
- [29:57]
Okay.
- [29:58]
But, you know, just. Just to be very clear, I mean, I did say to the president, President Biden, that. That I thought things were not going well in Pennsylvania. I was honest with him about what I saw. I was honest with him about the numbers that I had, and I was also honest with him about what I thought was needed to. Course. Correct. Now, obviously, it was his campaign. He was going to make the decisions he wanted to make, but I thought it was my responsibility to be direct with him. And I was. I would not say that the first lady, you know, abruptly ended the meeting, but, you know, the meeting didn't go very long, and it ended, and they took that information back with them and, you know, processed it however they did. So I think, you know, if the conversation went any longer, it probably would have been more of the same. I might have, if I had the chance, offered some concrete suggestions on what he should do. But look, at the end of the day, it was his campaign. He was going to make the decisions he was going to make, and I was just worried at that moment the trajectory that the campaign was heading in. I thought I needed to be direct with him about that.
- [31:03]
When you met with President Biden that day, did you notice anything that worried you? There's a lot of talk right now about cognitive decline that people around him maybe weren't.
- [31:12]
Yeah, I didn't. And I mean, you go back and look at the commentary I offered. I mean, I wasn't sort of rushing on TV like others to, you know, frankly, say some things that were not, you know, maybe the most, you know, the most forthright. I was focused on the work he had done for Pennsylvania, getting him to, you know, continue that work and continue to deliver for Pennsylvania and work with me as governor. And in my dealings with him. He did that. He did that. Well, as for that particular meeting that day, I think we had coffee or something together. No, I didn't notice anything that was kind of out of the ordinary.
- [31:58]
Governor, I want to conclude with your absolute favorite topic. I've been covering you a long time, and I know this isn't your favorite so I'm going to try and ask it in a little bit of a different way.
- [32:08]
That's a heck of a run up to this question.
- [32:12]
Former colleague of mine, political analyst Aaron Blake, very recently put together a ranking of the 2028 Democratic candidates that would make the most sense. He ranked you as number one. I'm wondering why so many people say that.
- [32:28]
I don't know. I guess you'd have to ask Aaron Blake that.
- [32:31]
Why do you think that?
- [32:32]
I don't know. I mean, look, I think it may be fun for journalists to put those lists together. I don't pay a whole lot of attention to that. I'm focused on my work here in Pennsylvania. I will say I'm grateful that people are taking note of the work we're doing. I'm grateful that they see our GSD attitude as something that maybe others would be interested in outside of Pennsylvania.
- [32:59]
GSD being get shit done.
- [33:02]
And by the way, I think that's where my experience here in your home state, I think we can both agree. The ultimate swing state. I've been successful because we have not just support from Democrats, but Republicans and independents as well in really record numbers. There are a whole lot of ideological differences that exist even within the coalition that has helped elect me every time I've been on the ballot and continue to support me, you know, in a strong way as I do this work. I share that with you. Because the common thread, I think, throughout all of that, even with some ideological differences, is they see me as a guy who moves the ball down the field for them, who gets stuff done for them, who can help make sure i95 gets rebuilt in just 12 days. And at the same time, reforming our pharmacy benefit manager practices to save rural pharmacies in Pennsylvania and make sure people aren't getting screwed with higher drug prices and, and a whole lot of other stuff in between.
- [34:09]
I don't know if you remember this, but you and I first met in. You wouldn't remember this, but we first met in 2012 at the Democratic Convention and someone said, you've gotta meet the Montgomery County Commissioner because he's gonna be president one day.
- [34:22]
Oh, my goodness.
- [34:23]
Okay.
- [34:23]
Okay.
- [34:24]
This is what people around you say. These are what your friends and your allies say. Republican critics say he's running for president. You know, that's what their criticism of you. But then also your friends say, why does, why, why does. They've been saying this about you now for 20, I don't know, over a decade, maybe, probably longer.
- [34:45]
I don't know. I mean, look, I'm humbled by the fact people think we're doing a good job and they like our brand of governing and they like our brand of politics, which is focused on actually bringing people together, not like slicing and dicing our communities and creating division the way the president does. I think that's what we need more of in this country. So, look, I can't stop people from saying what they're going to say. I could just focus on doing my job every day, and that's what I'm doing.
- [35:16]
Governor, thank you so much for having this conversation with me.
- [35:18]
Thank you. Thanks for coming home.
- [35:20]
Yeah, love being home.
- [35:22]
Colby Yakowitz
That was Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. Since we had this conversation, there's been more news out of California. The state sued the Trump administration over his deployment of troops there. A judge ruled in the state's favor, saying Trump needed to return control of the National Guard to California Governor Gavin Newsom. But later on Thursday night, a federal appeals court overturned that decision. So the National Guard will stay for now. That's it for Post Reports. Thanks for listening. If you love the show, help other people discover it by leaving a rating on Spotify or or a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. If you like watching podcasts on YouTube, you can also find a full video of this interview there. Today's show was produced by Laura Benchoff and edited by Rena Flores. It was mixed by Sam Baer, who also edited the video. Peter Stevenson and Heo Jung Kim shot the video. Thanks also to Nick Bauman, Sean Sullivan and Ariel Plotnick. Our team includes Maggie Penman, Ted Muldoon, Lucy Perkins, Alana Gordon, Rennie Svirnofsky, Sabi Robinson, Emma Talkoff, Shawn Carter, Peter Bresnan, Tadeo Ruiz Sandoval and Renita Jablonski. I'm Colby Ikowicz. We'll be back tomorrow with more stories from the Washington.
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