Click here to watch the full interview.

PENNSYLVANIA – Today, Governor Josh Shapiro joined Higher Learning for a candid conversation about everything from his work to make Pennsylvania communities safer and deliver results for the Commonwealth, to combatting antisemitism, to his efforts to stand up to Donald Trump’s chaos, cruelty, and corruption. In a discussion with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay of Higher Learning, Governor Shapiro highlighted the importance of bringing people together and finding ways to get stuff done for all Pennsylvanians.

Despite the chaos and confusion coming out of Donald Trump’s Washington, Governor Shapiro is continuing to deliver results and move our Commonwealth forward.

See below for key excerpts from the Governor’s appearance on Higher Learning, and listen to the full interview here:

Question: When you look at America, where do you see the light right now?

Josh Shapiro: From the people, not the politicians. … I think he [Donald Trump] brings chaos and cruelty and corruption into our world every day. …we’re better than that, and the people do better than he does every day. And I want us to be defined by the people, not by the corrosive politics that we’re experiencing every day. … I got Republicans who lead the Senate by two votes and Democrats who lead the House by one vote. So, for me to get anything done, we’ve got to bring Democrats and Republicans together. And by the way, we do really successfully. I’m happy to get into it during the show in terms of what we’ve done. So I share that with you because I think we’re showing in Pennsylvania, we can actually find ways to come together and get shit done, whereas at the national level, it’s just corrosive. It’s toxic, It’s negative. And I would hope that our national politics can be fixed by some of the stories I share of the good people in this book, and politicians listening to them, not finding the sort of incentives on the edges of our politics that too often times define our world.

Question: How does one replicate that – what you’ve been able to do in the state of Pennsylvania – by bringing those diverse viewpoints and common ground together on a national level?

Josh Shapiro: What I try to do is sit down with the Republican leaders and say, “hey, look, what are the 10 things you want to do? I’ll tell you the 10 things I want to do.” And then, inevitably, yeah, there’s gonna be four, five, six, seven, you’re not gonna agree on, but there might be three or four or five that you do agree on. That’s where you have to hit the pause button, because in my state, the approach I take is all right, I’m not gonna obsess about the things we disagree on. I’m still gonna advocate for them, I’m still gonna believe in them, I’m still gonna speak out on them, but I’m not going to let that stop progress on the four or five things we do agree on. We work hard to hammer it out. At the national level, they seem to only want to focus on the things that they disagree on. … I think we’ve got this incentive structure that forces people to the extremes, when at the end of the day, what people really want is, if you’re occupying a position of trust, you’re trying to make their lives just a little bit better, fix their kid’s school, make their streets a little safer, make sure there’s a job in the community, protect their freedoms, and kind of stay out of their business in terms of the decisions they want to make over their own bodies or with their families or for their kids. That’s common sense stuff, but it’s not incentivized in our politics today. It’s working in Pennsylvania. It should be working at the national level.

Question: Pennsylvania is one of those places where crime has been dropping, particularly in Philly, which got one of the worst Gotham City reputations in the last couple years. How? Why is this happening?

Josh Shapiro: I fundamentally believe if you do not have a safe community, no one wants to live there. Kids are afraid to go out and play. Businesses aren’t going to locate there. It’s kind of the foundational thing. You’ve got to be safe in your community. … We’ve worked really, really hard to build trust between the community and the police to make sure our police look like the communities that they are sworn to serve and protect. Then we put a lot more money into training. By the way, when a police officer does something wrong, we hold them accountable, as well. The community needs to see that. I think the most important tool for law enforcement, not a gun or a badge or radio, it’s trust. If the community sees you as being a trustworthy steward of their safety, they’re going to respond well to that. … So to me, it’s about investment. It’s about building trust. It’s about making sure the community feels like those who were sworn to serve and protect you actually are doing that work, and that is why I think we’ve been able to reduce crime. We have worked in our state with our local mayors, including Mayor Parker in Philadelphia, to make sure that we are complementing what they do.

Question: Do you think that what my friend said is correct, that a Jewish man cannot be the president?

Josh Shapiro: … When I was running for Governor and we were putting our first ad out there, okay? You know, sometimes you run an ad about your policy views. Sometimes you run an ad attacking your opponent for their policy views. I decided I wanted to run an ad that was deeply personal, and that is to tell the people of Pennsylvania why I wanted to serve, what motivates me to serve. And to me, the central things that cause me to serve are family and faith. And so we ran an ad showing where I am pretty much near every Friday night, which is sitting around the dinner table with my family, celebrating our Sabbath, having our Sabbath. And there were a bunch of political folks who were like, “I don’t think you want to run that ad. People are going to know you’re Jewish.” And like, “I think they know I’m Jewish, right?” But I wanted people to know who I am and what motivates me. Here’s how I’m sharing that story with you. After we ran that ad, I’d show up in North Philly, and people would tell me about their Iftar after Ramadan and how special that was for them, and they loved reading about my family. I’d show up in some rural communities where there weren’t many Jews, and people would want to tell me what lunch is like after church on Sunday, tell me about their Christmas Eve traditions. Being open about yourself and your faith, I think, has the effect of actually allowing people to see you at a deeper level and then share of themselves at a deeper level than what you might normally share with your governor, with your mayor, or something like that. So it’s actually allowed me to connect deeper with folks. And not only did I win the election, I got more votes than anybody in the history of Pennsylvania running for governor, not just Democrats, but Republicans and Independents, as well.

Question: Do you think that Americans understand the rise of anti-semitism in the last few years?

Josh Shapiro: It’s really hard to not see it and know it’s out there. I think it’s beginning to be more understood, and sadly, I think it’s being more accepted as well. … There should be no room for anti-semitism, hatred, bigotry, racism, homophobia, any of that in our society, and when it rears its ugly head, we all need to stand up together and condemn it. And by the way, not just a Jewish governor, all governors, right? We all need to condemn it. … I also think it’s really important that the seeds that get planted that lead to incidents like this, that we sort of stop planting those seeds, stop giving a pass to different things, and call it out earlier on, before it reaches the point where there’s violence. Before it reaches the point where someone is gunned down, before it reaches the point where children’s lives are at risk just simply because they go to school at a synagogue.

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