PITTSBURGH — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro excoriated the recent spate of politically motivated attacks and killings during a speech to the Eradicate Hate Global Summit here on Tuesday, days after conservative activist and commentator Charlie Kirk was assassinated in Utah.
Shapiro, up for re-election next fall and widely considered a contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, has spoken out on political violence repeatedly over the last year following high-profile incidents in his state, including at his own home.
“As I have made clear each and every time, this type of violence has no place in our society, regardless of what motivates it or who pulls the trigger, who throws the Molotov cocktail or who wields the weapon,” Shapiro said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s coming from one side or from the other, directed at one party or another, one person or another, it is all wrong, and it makes us all less safe.
Shapiro’s speech comes less than a week after an assassin’s bullet struck and killed Kirk as he held an open debate with college students at Utah Valley University. The alleged shooter, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, was arrested on Friday after a dayslong manhunt. Other political killings this year included former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman, a Democrat who was killed in her home along with her husband in June, and two Israeli Embassy staffers who were gunned down in Washington, D.C., outside a Jewish museum in May.
The summit Shapiro spoke at was born out of the Tree of Life massacre, when a white nationalist killed 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018.
“During moments like this, I believe we have a responsibility to be clear and unequivocal in calling out all forms of political violence and making clear it is all wrong,” Shapiro said. “That shouldn’t be hard to do. Unfortunately, some from the dark corners of the internet all the way to the Oval Office want to cherry-pick which instances of political violence they want to condemn. Listen: Doing that only further divides us and it makes it harder to heal. There are some who will hear that selective condemnation and take it as a permission slip to commit more violence, so long as it suits their narrative or only targets the other side.”
Speaking with NBC News after the speech, Shapiro criticized the president’s response after the Kirk shooting.
“He claimed, in the wake of the killing of Charlie Kirk, that he wanted to heal this nation,” Shapiro said. “You don’t heal this nation by attacking your fellow Americans, by calling some of your fellow Americans ‘scum’ — his word choice, not mine. … The president using this as a pretext to go and undermine people’s constitutional rights, that is dangerous. It is wrong, and it needs to stop.”
In light of Kirk’s assassination, top members of the Trump administration have pledged vengeance, saying they will use every lever of power to target left-wing groups and activists they blame for the conditions that led to Kirk’s killing.
Speaking with Vice President JD Vance on Monday as he hosted Kirk’s podcast, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller described “left-wing political organizations that are promoting violence” as a “vast domestic terror movement,” while Vance urged people to call the employers of people who were “celebrating Charlie’s murder.” The administration has not provided evidence for left-wing organizations’ involvement in the shooting.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Political violence doesn’t know any boundaries. It impacts Republicans and Democrats,” Shapiro said in an interview when asked about comments from Vance and other Republicans. “It comes from one side and the other, and we have to be universal in our condemnation, cherry picking only certain types of violence to condemn that makes us all less safe.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi, additionally, said on a podcast that aired Monday that the Justice Department will target people who use “hate speech.”
“Sadly, we’ve even seen some on the internet openly celebrate political violence or issue calls for revenge in the wake of it, giving violence a pass or justifying it or looking the other way,” Shapiro said in his address. “It only deepens the divide. … We must reject the rhetoric of vengeance, and instead, focus, as you are today, on the work of healing. We need to create more opportunities for peaceful and respectful dialog, respecting each other’s fundamental rights as Americans. Censorship, using the long arm of government to silence people, silence businesses and nonprofits and restrict their right to free speech — that will not solve this problem.”
In his interview with NBC News, Shapiro said “no one should be celebrating” Kirk’s death. He added that he believes “it is dangerous” for the government “to become the thought police or the speech police.”
“I think we need freedom of speech in this country to be protected,” he said. “It is a foundational principle of this great nation. It doesn’t mean that we have to agree with the speech. Certainly, if speech is being used to incite violence that crosses a line, that’s not OK. But just sanctioning someone because you disagree with what they said, that’s wrong. It’s un-American.”
In April, Shapiro’s official residence was firebombed after a man broke into the executive mansion in the early-morning hours as Shapiro and his family were asleep, just hours after they gathered for a Passover seder. The man used molotov cocktails to set fire to two rooms inside the residence. Police said the man charged with committing the attack, Cody Balmer, would have attacked the governor had he found him inside the residence. Balmer himself dialed 911 soon after the fire and said he was angered by Shapiro’s stance on the war in Gaza, though his social media postings did not place him neatly into the left-or-right political spectrum.
“Not only was my safety threatened, but my wife, her children, and members of our extended family were all at risk,” Shapiro said. “I thank God every day we were able to evacuate safely that no one was physically injured or worse yet killed, that all the staff who worked at the residence, the brave police and firefighters and first responders who ran toward danger were OK. But understand it doesn’t mean that the attack hasn’t left emotional scars.”
“I can attest to that, especially as a father, father to four children, knowing that my life choices put them at risk,” he continued. “Violence in all forms is unacceptable. Political violence is particularly dangerous. Not only does it seek to injure, maim or kill. It seeks to intimidate and terrorize and silence. I’m here today to tell you that I will not be deterred in my work on behalf of the good people of Pennsylvania, and I sure as heck will not be silenced.”
Shapiro had to handle the aftermath of the attempt on President Donald Trump’s life last summer in Butler, Pa., when a would-be assassin struck the then-candidate in the ear at a rally and shot two others in attendance, killing one person. He also spoke in his state after Luigi Mangione, the man charged with killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City in December, was captured in Altoona, Pa. At the time, Shapiro said praise for Mangione online was “deeply disturbing.”
“But unfortunately, political violence and the hate that fuels it has become far too common in our society,” Shapiro said in his address, noting the aforementioned violence. “Different places, different people, different perspectives. One common thread, people using violence to settle political differences.”
In his interview with NBC News, Shapiro spoke at length on Mangione, saying no matter what someone thinks of the health care system, killing an executive was unacceptable.
“Mangione is not some hero, by the way,” he said. “The real hero is the woman in Altoona at that McDonald’s who called the police and made sure Mangione got arrested. We can’t celebrate these people that are taking lives in the name of trying to make some sort of political point or try and make progress. We need to reform our institutions so they work again to solve problems like a broken health care system, but violence is never the answer for being able to effectuate change in our communities.”
A YouGov survey published last week found that 87% of U.S. adults believe political violence is a problem. But the same poll showed larger numbers of younger and more liberal respondents saying that they thought violence can sometimes be justified in order to achieve political goals, though 72% of U.S. adults overall said violence was never justified. (Some academic research has cast doubt on whether public opinion research is accurately capturing support for political violence.)
In his speech, Shapiro said the deeper issue at the heart of the rise of political violence is that too many people feel alienated from U.S. institutions.
“They feel alone, ignored, shut out by a government that isn’t working for them,” Shapiro said. “This is particularly true of younger Americans. They feel unseen. They feel unheard. They feel unheard in the halls of government. They feel unheard in our elections, in the media, in our nonprofits, our businesses and within the law. Frustrated by a lack of progress and consumed by this feeling of hopelessness, they find refuge often in the dark corners of the Internet where righteous frustration is taken advantage of and used to foment hate.”
“It leads to a belief among some that the only way they can address their problems is through violence,” he continued. “They find online those who glorify violence and urge it on. What starts with cowardly keystrokes, too often, ends up with a trigger being pulled in our communities. That is dangerous for our democracy, and we need to turn the tide.”
Allan Smith reported from New York. Julie Tsirkin reported from Pittsburgh