Pennsylvania’s Jewish attorney general is getting into it with Trump on Twitter

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
On election day, Pennsylvania is shaping up to be a hotly-contested battleground, and a recent Supreme Court ruling has only made things more complicated in the swing state. However, Josh Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s attorney general who keeps kosher and was educated in Jewish day schools, is mixing it up with President Trump on Twitter.
Last week, the Supreme Court voted to allow ballots received up to three days past the election to be counted, as long as they were mailed beforehand.
Nonetheless, President Trump, who has repeatedly voiced his distrust of mail-in ballots, declared that he is already planning a legal battle in Pennsylvania on election night.
“As soon as that election’s over, we’re going in with our lawyers,” Trump told reporters in Charlotte, North Carolina on Monday.
Shapiro responded on Twitter.
“Our elections are over when all the votes are counted. But if your lawyers want to try us, we’d be happy to defeat you in court one more time,” said Shapiro who is working to make sure Pennsylvania’s election results, including the late ballots are unimpeachable.
FACT CHECK: Our elections are over when all the votes are counted.
But if your lawyers want to try us, we’d be happy to defeat you in court one more time. https://t.co/mj6d8WLwvK
— Josh Shapiro (@JoshShapiroPA) November 2, 2020
“A careful decision was made to try to stave off the anticipated legal challenges by Donald Trump and his enablers,” Shapiro told The Washington Post in an interview on Thursday.
To that end, the state of Pennsylvania, fearing that a challenge to the late ballots will be used to halt the counting of all mail in ballots in the state if they are mixed together, has publicly announced that the late ballots will be kept separate from all other mail-in ballots.
“We have a sitting president who’s actively trying to undermine this election,” Shapiro told the Post. “He’s doing that because he knows that if all legal eligible votes are counted, he’s more likely than not going to come out on the losing side here in Pennsylvania.”
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.

