WASHINGTON — Gov. Josh Shapiro harshly scolded former President Donald Trump, telling him to “stop [expletive]-talking America.”
“This is the greatest country on Earth, and it’s time that we all start acting like it,” Mr. Shapiro said Monday on MSNBC, ticking off record job growth, record energy production and an economy outpacing China’s “for the first time in decades.”
“Now it’s time to continue this path of progress that Joe Biden has laid out and not go back to a negative time, not listen to the whining of the former president and instead focus on a positive future for all of us,” the governor said.
Mr. Shapiro, mentioned as a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate, said the 2024 election was a binary choice between Trump and President Joe Biden.
“Don’t let anybody tell you there’s other people on the ballot, a bunch of randos on the ballot who have no chance of winning,” Mr. Shapiro said.
As for Trump, recently convicted on 34 felony counts, “I’ll be doing everything in my political power here in Pennsylvania to ensure that he’s not successful,” Mr. Shapiro said.
The governor said that as attorney general, he compiled a 43-0 record against the former president and his allies, who sued the state 43 times to stop some Pennsylvanians from voting and to stop some votes from being cast.
The four-count, 45-page indictment announced in August by special counsel Jack Smith included several instances accusing Trump of trying to overturn the 2020 election in Pennsylvania. They included Trump’s false claim that there were “205,000 more votes than voters” in Pennsylvania, and efforts to form a fake slate of electors.
Mr. Shapiro said that the administration officials who reined in Mr. Trump during his first term won’t be there for the second term, and his loyalists now know a lot more on how to shape the bureaucracy to carry out their agenda.
“We have always been a nation that respects the rule of law, respects our institutions,” Mr. Shapiro said. “Donald Trump has tried to undermine our faith in one another and our faith in our institutions. We didn’t let him get away with it in 2020 and I hope and pray we won't let him get away with it in 2024.”
Mr. Biden and Trump are running neck and neck in Pennsylvania polls, even as just 33% of voters in an April Muhlenberg College survey said the incumbent deserved re-election.
"Joe Biden’s approval rating is underwater in Pennsylvania and Democrats know it," said Rachel Lee, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. "Despite their best attempts to gaslight voters, the Keystone State knows that failed Joe Biden is to blame for soaring costs, a spiraling border crisis, and staggering crime rates across the country.”
Jonathan D. Salant: jsalant@post-gazette.com or on X @JDSalant
First Published: June 11, 2024, 6:38 p.m.
Updated: June 12, 2024, 3:21 p.m.
