Political violence is “a crisis” in America “that requires all of us to do better,” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, said on Tuesday during an appearance in Washington.
Shapiro, whose residence in Harrisburg, Pa., was firebombed during Passover and whose state was the scene of an attempted assassination of U.S. President Donald Trump in July 2024, appeared with Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican who was quick to condemn the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk in his state last September.
Their joint appearance was part of an NBC News series on “finding common ground” and was held at the Washington National Cathedral.
“We need to begin by saying that all leaders must condemn all political violence, not cherry-pick which violence to condemn and which violence to accept,” Shapiro said.
“I understand that there are ways to disagree forcefully on policy, but I think it is critically important that at the same time we leave no room for anyone to allow for violence and fail to universally condemn it,” he said. “That is what we need in this country, and I believe it starts at the top.”
A possible presidential candidate in 2028, Shapiro reserved his harshest words for Trump, who he said was pouring “gasoline on the fire, and that leads to greater violence” by refusing to condemn such violence on both the left and the right.
“When you’re a governor, when you’re a president of the United States, you are looked to for that moral clarity,” Shapiro said. “We have a president of the United States right now that fails that test on a daily basis. It should not be hard to see the Minnesota speaker of the House gunned down and mourn her loss.”
It also shouldn’t be hard to follow the “beautiful eulogy” of Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk, “with an ‘amen’ instead of saying, ‘I can’t do that. I hate my enemies,’ as the president did,” Shapiro said.
Cox’s signature initiative as chair of the bipartisan National Governors Association in 2023-24 was titled “disagree better.”
There’s an “exhausted majority of Americans out there who are discouraged by the ugliness of our politics today,” Cox said at the time. “The divisiveness undermines our success as a nation and hurts our relationships with friends and family.”
‘Violence is never the answer’
In a September Pew Research Center survey, 85% of Americans said politically motivated violence was on the rise, including 86% of Republicans and those who leaned Republican, and 85% of Democrats and those who leaned Democratic.
In the poll, 53% said left-wing extremism was a major problem, and 52% said the same thing about right-wing extremism. But the concern broke down along party lines, with 77% of Republicans saying left-wing extremism was a major problem and 76% of Democrats saying the same thing about right-wing extremism.
“Violence is never the answer, even if it’s coming from your political side or someone who agrees with you,” Shapiro said. “We need all leaders to stand up and recognize violence is not OK to change policy. Violence is not OK to settle our differences. Violence is not OK to call out people that you don’t like.”
Cox said Shapiro was the first person to call him after Kirk’s killing.
“He gave me some advice that changed what I was going to say when I stepped in front of that camera for the first time,” Cox said. “He told me to speak with moral clarity and to speak from the heart.”
“In that moment, we were two Americans who were deeply saddened and struggling, and I’m grateful that there’s somebody I can trust even though we disagree on a lot of things,” he said. “We agree on this thing.”
Shapiro said Cox’s speech after the Kirk shooting allowed the Utah governor to “create an opportunity for a dialogue that I think we sorely need in this country to try and lift everyone up, and get us out of the darkness of political violence that has fallen upon us.”
“This is a necessary conversation that has to happen in our country if we’re gonna get out of this,” he said.
