Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is in a war of words with a local prosecutor, who compared U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to Nazis.
Larry Krasner, Philadelphia’s district attorney, called his fellow Democrat a “wimp” in an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer on Monday, after Shapiro hit back at his comments.
“These are people who have taken their moves from a Nazi playbook and a fascist playbook,” Krasner said of ICE. “Gov. Shapiro is not meeting the moment. The moment requires that we call a subgroup of people within federal law enforcement—who are killing innocent people, physically assaulting innocent people, threatening and punishing the use of video—what they are.”
“Just say it,” Krasner said. “Don’t be a wimp.”
Shapiro slammed Krasner in an interview on Fox News on Friday, after Krasner said at an anti-ICE rally in January that federal immigration agents were “wannabe Nazis,” who should be “hunted down.”
“That kind of rhetoric is unacceptable,” Shapiro said. “It is abhorrent, and it is wrong, period.”
Shapiro, who is Jewish, has staked out a moderate lane within the Democratic Party as a critic of U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, who has nonetheless made calls to “bring down the temperature” after the shooting deaths of anti-ICE protesters in Minnesota. (JNS sought comment from Shapiro.)
Krasner won a third term in November as one of the country’s most left-wing prosecutors. He is among the progressive district attorneys who have received backing from billionaire activist George Soros for his support of criminal reform efforts, including ending cash bail and drug decriminalization.
Monday’s interview was not the first time that Shapiro and Krasner, whose father was Jewish but who identifies as a Quaker, have clashed over Nazi analogies.
In 2019, Krasner said his staff joked that attorneys who left the DA’s office to join Shapiro were “war criminals” and called the state attorney general’s office “Paraguay,” in apparent reference to the post-war destination of choice for many Nazis evading justice.
Those jokes prompted a letter of complaint from the Anti-Defamation League office in Philadelphia over concerns that the comments from Krasner and his staff could “trivialize the Holocaust.”
“These comments, particularly when made in jest, also demonstrate a lack of sensitivity to this unique tragedy in human history,” the ADL wrote.
In his reply, Krasner wrote in his defense that he never explicitly used the word “Nazis” to describe Shapiro’s staff.
