Josh Shapiro: ‘Donald Trump is obsessed with me’
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro greets the crowd before the start of a campaign rally with Democratic presidential candidate, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz at Girard College, Philadelphia, Aug. 6, 2024. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
(JTA) — CHICAGO — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said that Donald Trump can’t quit him. Or antisemitism.
Shapiro was asked Thursday about a social media post in which the former president and Republican nominee singled him out for being the “highly overrated Jewish Governor of the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” and for “refusing to acknowledge” that Trump is the Jewish people’s “best friend.”
Trump also wrote, “Shapiro has done nothing for Israel, and never will.”
Shapiro responded while meeting with state delegations to the Democratic National Convention at a hotel here.
“I think it’s clear over the last few years, Donald Trump is obsessed with me and obsessed with continuing to spew hate and division in our politics,” Shapiro said. “He’s someone who has routinely peddled antisemitic tropes like this.”
The exchange comes as both parties are increasingly accusing each other of antisemitism in a campaign for Jewish voters, who historically have favored Democrats by large majorities.
Trump posted his diatribe against Shapiro on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns, after Shapiro spoke at the convention on Wednesday night. It was not his first time talking about Shapiro. Trump has borne an animus against Shapiro since 2020 when, as state attorney-general, Shapiro fought Trump’s efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state. In 2017, Shapiro was part of the coalition of state attorneys general who filed suit against Trump’s efforts to ban entry to travelers coming from Muslim-majority countries.
This year, after Shapiro was not selected as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Trump echoed allegations that Kamala Harris opted against him because of his religion. “They turned him down because he’s Jewish,” Trump said at a rally. Trump has also said that Shapiro is a “terrible guy” and “not very popular with anybody,” despite majority approval ratings in his state.
At the beginning of the convention, Shapiro told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that antisemitism played “no role” in his losing the veepstakes, and added, “Donald Trump is the least credible person when it comes to speaking out against antisemitism, hatred, bigotry.” The Harris campaign has also rejected allegations that antisemitism played a role in the selection.
The White House in a statement also accused Trump of antisemitism.
“It is antisemitic, dangerous, and hurtful to attack a fellow American by calling out their Jewish faith in a derogatory way, or perpetuating the centuries-old smear of ‘dual loyalty’,” Herbie Ziskend, a White House spokesman, said. “President Biden and Vice President Harris believe we must come together as Americans to condemn and combat antisemitism – and hate and bigotry of all kinds.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
