Pennsylvania’s Jewish attorney general is getting into it with Trump on Twitter
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.”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30