>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made in late July 2024, when then Vice President Kamala Harris was vetting potential running mates.

One of the contenders was Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.

Some of the private interactions became public when Harris released her new book, and then Shapiro released his.

Shapiro says he was treated differently, in part because he's Jewish.

Here's how the Atlantic Monthly reported it.

Quote, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro was already irritated by what he describes as unnecessarily contentious questions from the team, vetting him to be Kamala Harris's running mate.

When a senior aide made one final inquiry.

Have you ever been an agent of the Israeli government?

The question came from President Biden's former White House counsel, Dana Remus, who was a key member of Harris's vice presidential search team.

End quote.

Shapiro then writes in his book, quote, had I been a double agent for Israel, was she kidding?

I told her how offensive the question was, end quote, Shapiro says.

Then he took his name out of the running.

Now Shapiro is preparing to launch his own bid for the presidency.

The historical odds are against him.

There has never been a Jewish American president, Republican Barry Goldwater is the only Jewish major party presidential candidate.

But Goldwater was a practicing Episcopalian.

Others have tried Republican Arlen Specter in 1996, Democrat Bernie Sanders several times, Senator Joseph Lieberman was a vice presidential candidate on Al Gore's 2000 ticket.

But as the New York Times notes, Shapiro has been haunted by something he wrote when he was just 20 years old and a student at the University of Rochester, writing for the Campus Times, published September 23rd, 1993, Shapiro said of the Palestinian people, quote, they are too battle minded to be able to establish a peaceful homeland of their own.

They will grow tired of fighting amongst themselves and will turn outside against Israel.

The only way the peace plan will be successful is if the Palestinians do not ruin it.

Palestinians will not coexist peacefully.

End quote.

Now, Shapiro has repeatedly disavowed those remarks over the years.

He's been calling for a two state solution for years.

He has defended the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state.

But he is a harsh critic of the Netanyahu government.

He came out last August and said that the United States, under the Trump administration, had to do a lot more to help the people of Gaza.

So how much will this affect the primaries?

Shapiro is one of the most popular governors in the country.

He leads one of the most important swing states in the country.

He is heavily favored to dominate his bid for reelection.

But can he win a Democratic presidential primary?

Today, we have the chance to talk to someone who knew Josh Shapiro during his days at the University of Rochester, someone who has become a friend over the years, and we're talking to a local elected Jewish leader about some of these issues as well.

Let me welcome our guests in studio now.

Dr.

Gerald Gamm is with us.

Professor Gamm is a professor of political science and history at the University of Rochester.

Professor, welcome.

Thank you for being with us.

>> You're welcome.

>> Thank you, and welcome to Dr.

Mitch Gruber, I presume.

I sometimes forget that you're a PhD as well.

Mitch Gruber, who is a member of Rochester City Council, senior vice president and chief impact officer at Foodlink, graduate of the University of Rochester as well.

Welcome back to the program.

Nice to see you here.

>> Thank you.

Proud Binghamton University alumni for my undergrad.

But I do have a PhD from the University of Rochester, Go Bearcats.

>> And Mitch is also a professor at the University of Rochester.

>> I appreciate you all for being here.

Thank you very much.

And I want to start.

There's a fist bump.

If you're watching on YouTube.

I want to start with asking Dr., just to to clarify for the audience that even though you didn't have my understanding, you didn't have Josh Shapiro in your classrooms, you knew him on campus, and you've gotten to know him well over the years.

>> Yeah.

So Josh and I basically showed up at the U of R about the same time.

When I arrived, he was beginning his sophomore year and had already been elected as a president.

He is, as far as I know, the only student in the history of the University of Rochester to have been elected student body president in his first year, and we got to know each other.

He never took a class with me, but he was doing the Washington semester program with Professor Richard Fenno, and he was in the political science department a lot, and I was very active on campus, even as a new professor.

So I knew him then.

We've kept in touch ever since.

I mean, Josh has been incredibly loyal alum.

He's come back multiple times to talk with political science students, to speak at our graduation ceremonies for political science.

And then he even returned after his election as governor to speak to the university wide commencement.

>> Would you say that you were impressed with him early on?

>> Yes.

I mean, Josh just stood out from the very beginning.

He tells this funny story about his freshman year.

He showed up at the U of R to do two things to play basketball.

And he was on the men's basketball team and to become a doctor.

His father was a doctor.

And so Josh was going to be a doctor.

And there was this single day, first semester, first year for for Josh when he got something like a four out of 156 points on a biology exam, and he was cut from the basketball team.

And he, he talks about that day and he writes in his book about that day as a turning point day in his life, because in this instant, he suddenly discovered he wasn't going to get to play college basketball.

And he made his peace with the fact he wasn't going to stay pre-med any longer.

And then later that day, somebody came around and said, hey, we need somebody to represent our residence hall and the student Senate.

Would you be interested in running?

And Josh is like, well, I have nothing else to do with my time anymore.

And so he very early on ran for student Senate and then started liking it and being good at it and listening to other students and became elected the student body president at the end of his first year.

you could tell there was something special about him.

I mean, he was he was enterprising and he worked hard and he was unusually outgoing and unusually careful and asking other people, what do you care about and what are you interested in?

So I could see that even when he was in college, but then over the years, initially lost sight of him.

He moved to Washington.

and went to night school to get his law degree as he was working on Capitol Hill.

then he and I started reconnecting when he was elected to the House of Representatives in Pennsylvania.

And it was then there's probably been 3 or 4 times that he's come back to campus.

And we've sat down and we've hung out.

>> There's an interesting distinction in the story that you tell there, because sometimes when a politician who's now in his 50s, he's going to be 53 this year running for reelection as governor of Pennsylvania, very likely running for president.

Sometimes when someone in that position has been running for office from the beginning and people say, well, you know, he probably showed up on campus just to run for office.

He had this long term plan.

What you're describing is something quite different.

This is someone who had a very different life plan.

When he showed up in Rochester and then pivoted, and it turned out he liked sort of representation and liked politics and was very good at it, but didn't come here with that as kind of the plan.

>> No, he's he is an accidental politician.

He was he was a basketball player first, and he was going to be a doctor.

And this politics thing was something that he discovered only after his first two plans came apart.

>> I want to say as well, if if listeners have questions, comments on this, this is one of those days.

I'm looking at the board.

I was just reminded we're doing all kinds of tech repair today.

You can communicate with the program as always via email Connections at wxxi.org.

I think we're still streaming on YouTube.

So if you want to join the chat on YouTube, you can do it there.

I just can't take any live phone calls today.

that's just going to be the case for both of these hours.

We expect that to not be the case tomorrow, but that's where we are.

But feel free to email.

We'll share some of your thoughts.

I already have some and we can share more as we, we talk about the, the story of Josh Shapiro and Rochester and him as a possible presidential candidate.

And we're going to be talking about some of the issues that he has to encounter if he's going to run in a Democratic primary.

So before I turn to to Mitch Gruber on this professor, let me just also ask you briefly.

Do you now sense that this is someone who, when he talks about when he's asked repeatedly about what he wrote on the on the the campus times in September of 1993, do you think that is fair to ask him that today?

Do you think he is frustrated with continually being asked about that by usually activists and people on the political left?

And do you think that issue is settled?

>> to answer your questions, I would say yes, it's fair to ask him.

Anything we've written at any point in our lives is fair game.

>> Okay.

Fair.

>> Yeah.

your second question.

>> Well, I mean, do you think he is frustrated by.

>> Yes.

And yes, I think he's frustrated because it's something he wrote when he was 19 or 20.

And frankly, if I look at politicians who are very active in the national realm at this point, there are things they do when they're 50 or 60 or 70 that we don't hold them accountable for.

I think we need to cut people some slack for what they're writing when they're a sophomore in college.

So I think he is frustrated to be asked this over and over and over.

Do I think it's settled?

No.

I think that as a general issue area, the question of Israel and the question of Palestine is going to be a major issue in the Democratic presidential primaries coming up for 2026.

And so I don't think the issue is settled.

Yes, it's fair to ask him.

Yes, I'm sure he's frustrated because it's something he wrote a very long time ago and he was very young.

But this issue isn't going to be settled.

I think this issue is going to rip through the primaries.

Whoever the candidates are.

>> Yeah.

And by settled, I mean, I. Do you think that there is now sort of a consensus on his opinion because I agree with you, this is going to be an issue in the primary.

I think all the polling indicates that on the political left.

And there's going to be a question on whether some on the political left feel like they can trust his answer now, which is his answer is he does not agree with what he wrote when he was 20 years old.

He feels strongly in defense of Israel as a Jewish state and the right to exist, while also being a sharp critic of the Netanyahu government.

He is someone who does not use the word apartheid, does not use the word genocide, but he is a critic of how the Trump administration, how the Netanyahu administration have handled Gaza.

So it's more nuanced than when he was 20.

But most of us are more nuanced in our 50s than we were in our 20s.

The question is, will the primary voters see it that way?

And I don't think we know the answer to that, do we?

>> so I don't think we know the answer, but I think Josh is going to be held to a different standard.

And this you talked about at the top of the show, it's part of the reason you brought me in, Mitch, together.

I think as a Jewish politician, for him to say that he believes Israel has a right to exist, I think he's going to be held to a standard that no other politician is going to be held.

>> To an unfair standard.

>> And I think it's unfair.

I think unless he comes out and identifies as anti-Zionist and says that Israel doesn't have a right to exist as a Jewish state, that it should be a binational state with equal rights for everybody, but not a Jewish identity.

Short of that, I think it's very difficult to disentangle anti-Zionism from anti-Semitism.

>> Mitch, do you think he is going to be held to an unfair standard?

>> I don't know that I can answer the question fair or unfair, but I think the the questions you're asking and Gerald's answers are pretty clear.

We know the standard he will be held to.

We know the types of questions that he's going to have to answer and the type of conversations going to have to have with the people who he's asking to vote him in, whether it's fair or unfair.

At some point, it's kind of immaterial.

It's just what he's going to have to, it's what he's going to have to deal with and contend with when he's running.

>> What did you make of some of what he wrote in his book, Mitch, when he made it very clear that he was offended by the Harris campaign, asking him if he was if he's ever been in an Israeli agent, if he ever worked for the government of Israel.

he thought that was entirely out of bounds.

He says he took himself out of the running after that.

there's no love lost between him and Vice President Harris.

What did you make of of that question?

Because I don't think the Harris campaign is disputed at all.

That particular part.

Sometimes these memoirs come out and people say, well, it didn't go didn't exactly happen like that.

The Harris campaign has essentially said, look, we were asking a lot of people a lot of questions.

That's what vetting is.

We weren't trying to offend anybody.

What did you make of the fact that Governor Shapiro was offended as a Jewish person there?

>> Well, I wasn't in the room.

I don't know exactly how the question was asked or what the context was, but it doesn't sound like a very nice question.

The other thing to the other thing to remember is that the Harris campaign was also working at a, at a speed and a pace that, you know, previous presidential candidacies did not have to deal with.

So I think there was I mean, frankly, I spent a lot of time and effort trying to help Vice President Harris get elected.

But so I say this with all due respect, it was a fairly fast and oftentimes sloppy campaign.

It felt that way when I went to Erie, Pennsylvania to sign up to knock on doors and brought a busload from Rochester, felt that way to me as a volunteer.

And it just sounds to me like the vetting process of vice presidents was maybe also a little bit hasty.

And I don't think they necessarily asked the right questions.

>> Well, and she has written in her book that her first choice would have been Pete Buttigieg, but her calculation was that maybe the electorate wasn't ready for a gay person serving as president or vice president, and she chose Tim Walz after, as you say, a very fast.

And it had to be a fast vetting process.

We all know what happened, but at the same time, she got a lot of criticism for not selecting Governor Shapiro.

The very popular governor of the maybe the most important swing state.

Do you think that was a mistake >>?

>> easy to say that now, in retrospect, for sure.

I think the thing that I would want to point to, though, is the reason why Governor Shapiro was popular at that moment.

which I think a lot of people I mean, even I've never met Governor Shapiro and you know, I'm curious how people like Gerald and others who knew him many years ago feel.

But, you know, from an outsider's perspective, it doesn't appear to me as though his, the the star on Governor Shapiro was inevitable.

There was one particular instance in 2023 when the I-95 bridge collapsed, and the way he navigated that, that was particularly, impressive.

And that showed people, wow, government can move quickly.

Government can abide by all the different all the values that we have in a, in a place like Pennsylvania.

And we don't have to watch and wait for two years as this bridge gets repaired.

>> I think it was 11 days or something like that.

>> Yeah, something.

>> Like nine days.

I mean, it was, it was like two weeks or less.

>> Yeah.

It used union labor and they did a really excellent job and they were communicating very well to people around them.

and it got fixed.

I mean, that's the point is that it takes we all know it takes government far too long to do things, even things that are obvious, like fixing a broken bridge.

And so I do wish that there had been a little bit less thought of the identity politics of whether it's Pete Buttigieg or Josh Shapiro or Tim Walz or anyone else.

They were vetting.

And instead of thinking about what the message is, and again, like Governor Shapiro is in the spotlight now, Governor Shapiro is going to probably run for president and certainly change the narrative, not because he is Jewish and not because he was a he has a decent mid range jumper.

It's because he helped to fix.

He helped make government work and really compelling and meaningful ways quickly.

And I just wish that that had been the narrative and not like what what box does someone check?

>> I knew you were going to criticize and critique his basketball game.

By the way, I want to say that about Mitch because Mitch is also a basketball player.

Go ahead Gerald.

>> So I was just going to jump in.

What's fascinating about Josh's book and I read it fast, but I think I read it all.

I don't think he talks about the repair to I-95.

>> That is remarkable.

>> And so I don't think that's I could be wrong.

And somebody can call in or email in and say, I missed it.

But that's not the main emphasis of his book.

And if he were sitting here, I think what he would say he brings, he would have brought to the ticket what he brings as governor is bipartisanship in an age of partisan polarization.

So the narrative he he shares over and over, he was the first Democrat elected to be chief commissioner of Montgomery County, which is an hundred 000 person suburban county, Philadelphia, first Democrat elected to chair that county commission in 150 years.

It was the first Democrat elected from that district to the House of Representatives in a very long time.

And he won election as attorney general at a time when other Democrats were losing statewide in 2020, I think.

And then he wins election to governor in a landslide.

And over and over, the examples he gives in the book are examples of working in bipartisan fashion at a time when that's really hard.

And in a state like Pennsylvania, where nothing will get done otherwise, because there's just a razor's edge that divides the two parties.

So he, he, we obviously have the example of the highway and bridge reconstruction.

but a centerpiece of his work as attorney general in Pennsylvania was to go after abuse in the Catholic Church.

And he even built partnerships with the archbishop, I think, in Philadelphia, who ultimately agreed to allow the grand jury report to be released.

he brought insurance companies together at a time that tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians were going to lose their health insurance.

So I think Josh would focus on those stories.

and just one other thing that I want to point out is when he talks about why he pulled out and told Kamala Harris he didn't want to run with her.

As you read his narrative, that last question and it was sent to him separately, it wasn't part of an interview.

>> There's agent thing.

>> Yeah.

They're just like, oh, we have one more question.

Are you an agent for Israel?

Even before he got that question, it's clear that he was realizing he really did not want to do this.

And it appeared that the thing that bothered him the most was that he was hoping, not that he could be a partner to a President Harris, but that he could at least be in the room, that she would see him as somebody to bounce ideas off of before she made a decision, the same way that he worked with his lieutenant governor, and she made it clear to him, no, if I have an important decision to make, there's no guarantee that I'm going to consult with you.

And I think that's what he found frustrating.

He's now an executive.

He'd been attorney general.

He's now governor.

And I think he found very frustrating the idea that major decisions would be made, that he would not even have the opportunity to discuss.

>> Do you think at this point, had they been able to heal some of that rift and build a relationship, and it would have been a Harris Shapiro ticket?

Do you think?

Professor, the election goes differently?

If Shapiro was on that ticket instead of Tim Walz.

>> I.

>> Don't know.

I'm really good at predicting the past.

I'm much I'm much worse at predicting the future.

>> They probably wouldn't.

Pennsylvania.

>> They probably would have won Pennsylvania.

He is a ferociously good campaigner and he would have had no trouble campaigning in Republican districts and in rural districts.

and what he points out is that Democratic presidential candidates did really well in Philadelphia and Philadelphia suburbs in Pittsburgh.

The way he won when presidential candidates lost was that he was getting the same votes as they were in Philadelphia, but he was also getting votes in rural parts of the state and small town parts of the state.

Maybe he would have been able to do that, not just in Pennsylvania, but in Michigan and Wisconsin.

But at the end of the day, I don't think so.

At the end of the day, this becomes a Trump Harris race.

And I don't think the vice presidential candidates, vice presidential candidates, are going to make enough of a difference to sway the race.

>> Although I will say I mean, Governor Wallace, who seems like a like a mensch did not have a particularly good debate against JD Vance.

And I have a sneaking suspicion that Josh Shapiro would have eaten his lunch.

Yeah.

>> That just as an observer political observer, that was almost a shocking debate.

The way Governor Wallace to approach that conversation on stage.

But that's political history.

Now.

Neither of our guests, by the way, are spokespersons for anybody there.

They're speaking on behalf of themselves.

So let's listen to some of what Governor Shapiro himself says about some of what is going to be sort of a central question in the Democratic primary this past weekend, he spoke to Bill Maher, and Maher asked him about anti-Semitism on the left, you'll hear that Shapiro doesn't disavow some of the premise, but he does talk more about, I think Professor Jam's point, his book does talk a lot about faith and how he sees faith as a central value for Americans of all stripes.

Let's listen to that exchange.

>> you're a Democrat running possibly for the nomination for reelection as governor of Pennsylvania, and you're Jewish.

Yeah.

And this is somehow maybe a complete deal breaker in the Democratic Party.

I mean, the speed at which anti-Semitism has gone to a place where I never imagined it would go.

I mean, just this past week bombings at synagogues in Toronto, Belgium, Michigan.

The guy drove a truck with explosives into the largest synagogue in West Bloomfield, Norway.

They arrested someone.

Suspicious behavior outside a synagogue.

Rotterdam.

in the Netherlands synagogue, I see a pattern here.

Yeah.

and somehow it got to one of the young people.

anti-Semitism got to be kind of cool.

Yeah.

you think you could if you did run for president, you could fight this and convince the Democratic Party that being Jewish isn't, like, the worst thing a person could be now.

So let me address both pieces.

The anti-Semitism and sort of the politics of, of being Jewish is, as you ask.

When I ran for governor, the first ad that I put on TV was something to sort of show who I am, what motivates me to serve, which is family and faith.

And the first ad was my family and I doing what we do nearly every Friday night, which was sitting around the Sabbath dinner table having a meal together, we ran that ad despite a whole bunch of political consultants saying, hey, don't run that.

They're going to know you're Jewish.

I'm like, I think they know I'm Jewish.

But Bill, I share that with you because after we ran that, I'd show up in North Philly and folks would tell me about their iftar after Ramadan.

They were excited to share that with me.

I'd show up in rural communities where I might increase the Jewish population by 100% when I get there.

And they tell me about what lunch is like after church on Sundays, the point I'm making is that I believe people are good and they are decent, and they want to know who you are at a deep level.

And when you are open with them, they're more apt to be open with you.

I won that election, got more votes than anybody in the history of Pennsylvania running for governor, because I'm proud of who I am.

I'm proud of what motivates me to serve, and I'm proud of my faith.

>> Professor, again, what do you make of that exchange?

>> there's a part of it that's really uplifting.

Governor Shapiro's faith that if he's open about celebrating holidays and open about his faith and open about his, the ethics that guide him, that people will respond in a really positive way.

And then there's a part of me that listens to it and worries that he's being naive, that when he ran those ads, that's now four years ago and that the world has changed profoundly in the last four years.

And maybe there's a kind of innocence and naivete when he says, I did it four years ago, I can do it now.

I think what it means to be Jewish in America now, and what anti-Semitism looks like now, is very different from what it was four years ago.

>> He didn't reject the premise that Bill Maher laid out, which is that the political left, parts of it have become pretty virulently anti-Semitic.

Do you agree with that premise?

>> So I didn't hear an emphasis on the political left, because there's anti-Semitism on the political left, and there's anti-Semitism on the political right.

>> Of course.

>> All I heard was there's anti-Semitism, that synagogues are being attacked, trucks are driving synagogues.

So I didn't hear that.

It's just on the left, it is on the left and it is on the right.

We're seeing anti-Semitism all over the political spectrum.

>> Dr.

Gruber, do you think it is worse on the left now than it was five years ago?

>> probably probably.

But I also don't think I, I think that that if there's one message I'd want, I'd want to provide to listeners of this show and to anyone in the Democratic Party who, who wants to listen, is that one of the greatest challenges that we have in terms of addressing anti-Semitism in this country is that for the past couple of years, everything has been defined as anti-Semitism.

And I think that is a huge problem.

When everything is anti-Semitism, nothing is anti-Semitism.

I myself actually grew up here, got bar mitzvahed here.

I belonged to a synagogue here.

I myself during the, the, I guess it was March or April of 2024 when we, like many other cities across the country, were debating and considering having ceasefire resolutions to share with the federal government.

I myself was called anti-Semitic.

People from the Jewish community said that my behavior was anti-Semitism.

And I think that if that's the place that we're going, where everything that you don't like is defined with these with that word, then nothing is.

So we really need to be mindful about how we're defining it.

I'm not sure I see the, the value in the exercise of, you know, is it is it more or less on in this particular place in the political spectrum or that particular place?

Look, the reality is we are having synagogues getting attacked all the time.

American Jews who want to go to their place of worship on a for a Friday night or a Saturday service, getting attacked or hurt or injured because of something happening on another side of the world is in fact, anti-Semitism.

There's no questioning or debating that.

How people choose to talk about these things.

The specific word choices that people have.

I understand a lot of people want to throw everything into the same pot and use the same kind of big, big brush words.

I don't think that's helpful to anyone in any side of the debate.

>> Well, I take that point.

So related to that, let me just ask one other question.

And then what we're going to do is we'll take a break.

We're going to come back.

We've got emails, and today the phones aren't working, but the emails are.

And I've got plenty of emails to share Connections at wxxi.org here.

I want to read from the reporting a month ago in the Hill, they spoke to a longtime Democratic donor who basically loves Shapiro and says, look at the polling.

If we get to an if he gets to a national election, he's going to win.

There's a lot of people who feel.

And the polling is, you know, there's probably a pretty good growing evidence here that if Josh Shapiro is the candidate for Democrats in 2028, that at least right now he wipes the floor with JD Vance and has a very good chance to beat Marco Rubio, the two top contenders.

But here's what the longtime Democratic donor, who didn't want to be named, told told The Hill, quote, he would be my top pick, but he's not getting through the primary.

and then went on to say that as an observant Jew, this person said, quote, it will be his biggest obstacle in the Democratic primary, no doubt.

End quote.

So your colleague Mitch says he hears the response from Shapiro in two lights.

It's it's uplifting and powerful.

And it's also maybe naive.

And this longtime donor says, that's the guy I want leading our ticket on the national stage.

I don't think he can get there.

Do you get pulled in either direction right now and thinking that's overly concerned, or it's naive to think that he can win?

>> Yeah, I'm not.

I'm not particularly good at the at the the prognosticating of this stuff, but I have a sneaking suspicion that in 2019, no one thought Biden was going to be the candidate.

And certainly that's fair.

When the debate started and when I started, nobody thought Biden was going to be the candidate.

And the Democratic Party coalesced in ways that I think people weren't expecting, and that's what happened.

So I don't think anything is is impossible in that space.

I think Josh Shapiro is a very smart guy with very smart people around him, and he probably wouldn't be pushing his chips in on this if he didn't feel like he had a pretty decent chance.

I'll also just share, as you said before, I'm not representing Governor Shapiro.

>> Of course.

>> I personally will not be deciding on who I'm supporting the Democratic primary until I see who is actually running in the Democratic primary.

Personally.

That's fair, but I'll just share my own personal perspective on this.

As you know, I'm certainly there's a couple other Jewish elected officials in our community like Michael Yudelson.

Rachel Barnhart.

but I'm certainly the only person who is elected citywide as Nate Salzman, I should add, as a Jewish person, the only person elected citywide.

And so it's just a different number of votes you have to consider and a different number of coalitions you have to build.

And I've, I just, I've not had a hard time engaging with our Muslim or Christian or non-denominational or atheist communities in Rochester.

And it's in part because, I mean, for me my, my faith and my spirituality is, is frankly, it's not what I lead with.

It's not, it's not, it's not what defines the kind of public service that I'm, that I deliver to folks.

And I understand that that's a little bit different about Governor Shapiro because as Gerald mentioned you know, faith is very much central to who he is.

And that's the brand he's building for himself, which I think is an interesting choice by him.

But for the most part, what people want to know is what kind of service are you going to provide?

What is your vision for government?

And again, I go back to the I-95 bridge.

And yes, he didn't write about it in his book.

But again, he is he is given the opportunity right now to have the national spotlight on him because of what happened in the I-95 bridge collapse.

And he handled it tremendously well.

He is a good public servant.

He he had lawsuit after lawsuit against terrible things that happened to the people of Pennsylvania when he was the attorney general.

He knows how to navigate this stuff.

And so the question is, when he wants to talk to people who are not Jewish or people who are maybe not particularly supportive of the state of Israel, will he be able to find common ground by talking about the things that they care about?

And I think the answer with him is pretty clearly yes.

>> Just briefly, I'll add to that before I turn to Professor Gamm.

I think you wouldn't mind me sharing outside of school here.

You know, Mitch, I think I think you texted me pretty soon after the bridge thing in 2023 is when it happened, right?

Because one of your critiques at the time was, and, you know, once in a while, Mitch would share like a podcast or a piece of political writing saying, if the Democrats are going to be confronted with any major problems right now, it's that they're not building things.

They're really struggling to to build and do big things, that everything gets so bogged down that even when you want high speed rail, when you want more housing, all of a sudden you can't do it.

And so here was this moment where a relatively unknown leader at the time, his star was rising, but he wasn't known like he is today.

Did you do it in 11 days?

It's like, who is this guy?

Like, what happened here?

And I remember, you know, getting that text and I didn't know much about Josh Shapiro at the time either.

But I understand why his star has risen.

And on a separate day, Mitch is going to come back and talk about the abundance movement, because that's something we haven't talked about on this program yet, and I'd like to do that soon.

>> Yeah, and the specific example, though, is like the the Biden administration passes the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act in, I don't know, was it 22 or maybe.

>> 1 or 2?

>> Yeah.

And, and by the time, by the time, unfortunately, Harris lost the election, almost none of that money was spent.

>> Especially on broadband.

I mean, like so many different things didn't get done.

>> The money's allocated.

The celebration happens.

Look at what we did by navigating the very complicated Senate, which we have the the national expert on the mechanics of the Senate right here and Gerald Gamm it's remarkable thing that that that they were able to do that.

But who cares if you pass a law if you don't spend the money afterwards?

And that is what Shapiro did.

And so I think that at the end of the day, if he runs a successful presidential campaign, it's not because he convinces people that one way or another about who he is or what his faith is, it's because he convinces people that he is going to be really capable of running a good government.

>> You want to add there?

>> Yeah, I. Mitch and I don't agree on everything, but I agree with Mitch completely.

So I need to say first, just to repeat what Mitch said.

I am also not here representing anybody, of course, but I do know Josh Shapiro.

And if he chose to run, it would be hard for me not to support him just because I've known him for so long.

but I'm not representing him.

And second, I actually agree with Mitch.

I think that Shapiro, if he runs, will be a formidable candidate in the Democratic primaries.

I think he's going to have trouble with people at the far left wing of the party.

But as Mitch said, if we look at who Democrats nominate, Democrats tend to moderate, nominate centrists.

I was thinking a lot about Jesse Jackson recently as he passed away, and Jesse Jackson lost the nomination to Michael Dukakis.

>> The safe choice.

>> Yeah, the safe choice.

John Kerry gets the nomination.

>> Over Howard Dean.

>> Yes, Bill.

Joe Biden gets the nomination over Bernie Sanders.

Hillary Clinton gets it over Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Party time and again has demonstrated that through its primaries.

Ultimately, people want a centrist candidate for the general election.

And so I think with all the trouble that that Shapiro will have, and he'll have some trouble that to run as a centrist, to run as somebody who will be bipartisan and to run as somebody who will be a formidable candidate in November, that often is a winning argument for Democrats.

>> Well, one thing Democrats do want right now is they want to win again.

That's that seems to unite Democrats, maybe more than anything after we take this very short break, we're coming back with your feedback, your emails for our guests right here on Connections.

Coming up in our second hour, we sit down with Chuck Collins, the author of a new book called Burned by Billionaires How Concentrated Wealth and Power Are Ruining Our Lives and Planet.

Collins writes that we are not focused enough on the effects of the billionaire class.

And he says it's not just about wealth inequality, although that's a big part of it.

He explains.

With us next, our.

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>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

All right, first email from Rick.

He says, Evan, what we wrote, what we said or even did when we were teenagers and young adults is meaningful only to the extent that it is consistent with what we do as adults.

And I agree that we need to allow space for people to grow and change.

After all, that is the point of growing up, isn't it?

Bottom line is this your actions speak louder than your words.

So I would judge Josh Shapiro like other politicians, by measuring his words and actions to decide how much confidence I could have in him as a political leader.

My question to your guests is what actions of Shapiro as a political leader in Pennsylvania matter and would help me understand him better?

That is from Rick.

It's a good question.

Professor Gam, what would you say about that one?

>> So I would say what what the actions that that I would emphasize that I would say matter in terms of Governor Shapiro, number one, bipartisanship.

This is increasingly rare in American politics.

He offers examples.

When he was on the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners in the state legislature, as attorney general and as governor, ways that he's worked very closely with Republicans.

He actually engineered the election of a Republican speaker of the House at a time when Democrats had a one seat majority in the House because two Democrats were defecting.

And he figured out a way to build a bipartisan coalition that would allow Democrats to retain majority control by cooperating with moderate Republicans.

I mean, he has example after example of that.

And then in terms of policy achievements, there's obviously the work on the highway in the bridge.

There's the work he did as attorney general, where he wound up prosecuting the Catholic Church and identified literally thousands of cases of children being abused and ultimately brought perpetrators to justice.

there was a case of a company with wage theft that became a statewide scandal that he, as attorney general, dealt with.

that there are those are the kinds of achievements that I think he'll talk about.

But mostly I think he will draw on his campaign as somebody who works with people across, across the aisle and is somebody who's very pragmatic and wants to listen to voters, figure out what are the issues that he's hearing from voters, and then how do you address those?

>> Okay, Mitch.

>> Yeah, I'll put a a bow on Gerald's comments about bipartisanship.

He is Pennsylvania is one of the only states.

I think there's only one other state in the entire country to have a split legislature.

So in their two houses, I forget which is which, but one of that one of the two houses is controlled by the Republicans, the other by the Democrats, and both of them, it's like 2 or 3 votes that separate them.

So he he literally cannot do anything without having some kind of bipartisan support.

It's simply not the case with this is not a slight on Governor Hochul or, you know, our governor.

the reality is that it's a different world when you have to navigate both parties.

And I think that he's done it and done it exceptionally well.

The other thing that I'll say, and this is a really small answer, but I think it's telling when the government shut down in November was starting, this is with I'm putting my Foodlink hat on for a second.

You know, there was all sorts of snap really did become the political football.

I came in this show to talk about it a couple of times, and I was really frustrated at the lack of good communication coming out from really any governmental entity about what was happening with the shutdown and snap, because remember, it was the snap shut down the government shutdown, married with the fact that all of the negative consequences of HR one were starting to come into focus at that exact moment.

And the, the, the, the state of Pennsylvania put out by far, unquestionably the sharpest, cleanest, simplest communication to the point that I was sharing it with every member of the New York State Office of Temporary Disability Assistance, who would listen to me and say, could you guys develop something kind of like this?

I just think that they do a very nice job as a state of Pennsylvania in terms of how they operate.

And certainly every, every legislator I've talked to in the two major cities of, of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh have been really appreciative of the leadership of government.

Governor Shapiro.

>> I will also say, Rick, I'm not an expert on Pennsylvania politics.

my understanding is, Governor Shapiro has said he and is trying to campaign to get a one party rule there because, I mean, look, you still want to win your elections.

You want to win with your party.

And there are issues that have been pretty intractable, for example, and fact check me on this team, if you could.

Pennsylvania had the lowest minimum wage or one of the lowest minimum wages for a long time in this country.

I don't know if that's still the case, but Governor Shapiro was frustrated with that.

and felt like that couldn't get through the legislature.

So that was one of the issues that he felt like was hard to move on.

A lot of other issues, they have worked in bipartisan fashion, and he's got people who have said kind things about him as a Republicans.

Rick.

So it's an interesting situation.

Now, Rick wanted to know about the history there.

Barry wrote in to say, what we need is a fire breathing progressive as the Democratic nominee, we don't need centrism.

So again, I'm not the expert on Josh Shapiro politics, but my guess is he probably is in the mind, in the mindset of I've been a governor, had to work on both sides, know how to get things done, know how to get things done quickly, less on the you know, I'm a, a populist.

Would you say that's fair professor game?

>> I would say if you want an incredible orator who can fire up a crowd.

Governor Shapiro is your man.

My, my nephew, who's like the least political person I know.

His name is Joey.

just had a birthday.

Happy birthday.

Joey.

Joey went to a rally in Philadelphia, probably in 2024. and he went because President Obama was going to be there and President Biden was going to be there.

It was a rally for Kamala Harris.

And Joey called me immediately after the rally and said, is it true, you know, Governor Shapiro?

And I said, why?

And he said, I thought the President Obama was going to give the best speech, and Governor Shapiro blew him away.

Governor Shapiro got me excited about politics.

So if you want that, Governor Shapiro is going to bring that to the table.

However, if you want a fire breathing progressive, that's not who he is.

And the question I think, is going to come down to that in the Democratic primaries, do we want somebody who can inspire crowds?

But fundamentally is a centrist who's going to govern from the middle, or do we want a fire breathing progressive?

And if we want the latter, that's not going to be Josh Shapiro.

>> Okay.

>> You know what I can't stop thinking of when you asked that question is the there's so many weird complicating narratives, especially when you think about Governor Shapiro and Senator Fetterman.

So Fetterman is certainly was when he was first running considered like the, the populist, the new era of populism for the Democratic Party.

Right.

And he ran, he won in terms of views on Israel in particular, he has lurched as far right as anyone could possibly go on any party.

And so when you look at the kind of what what you imagine to be the clean lines of populism versus centrist of, of fire breathing progressive, I mean, Fetterman, when he when he was running for the first time, was running on some really like, like core issues of what probably the, the author there was, would talk about with fire breathing, progressive issues.

And now everything has kind of flopped.

And just so folks know, there was actually just recently a very good article, I think it was the New York Times.

I forget exactly where there's massive tension between Fetterman and Shapiro.

Oh, yeah.

They served on a board together.

I think it was the parole board.

And they have pretty open disdain or contempt for each other.

And so you look at the kind of trajectory of this guy who's supposed to be a populist, but lurches far right on Israel, and then the guy who's supposed to be a centrist who has been pretty consistently critical of the Netanyahu government and some of the actions of the American government as it relates to Israel.

I don't know, they're just blurrier lines than I think people want there to be.

And maybe that's just because of Fetterman and Shapiro, but I just almost every question you ask me, I'm not blaming you for asking the questions.

I just don't have simple answers because I don't think any of them are simple questions.

>> No, I think those are very interesting points.

Go ahead.

>> Yeah.

And listening to Mitch I'm persuaded that there actually are fire breathing progressive elements to govern Josh Shapiro.

So what do I mean by that?

I mean, he has been one of the fiercest defenders of a woman's right to an abortion throughout his political career.

He was one of the first people in Pennsylvania to fight for the right of same sex couples to marry.

And in fact, as the commissioner of Montgomery County, he began issuing marriage licenses to same gender couples at a time when this still wasn't the law of Pennsylvania, and he dared the state's attorney general to sue him for doing it.

He's also somebody who, when he became governor, one of the very first actions he took was to end the rule that said you couldn't apply for a whole bunch of state jobs unless you had a college degree, because he saw lots of very hardworking, very capable people who were being shut out of state jobs because they didn't have four year degrees.

So if we look at abortion rights, if we look at LGBTQ rights, if we look at advocating for working class people and opening up jobs to people who don't have four year degrees, he has been on the front lines of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party for his entire career, and his and his Mitch's pointing out, even if you look at Israel, he has been relentless in his criticism of Netanyahu and the government.

So all of those things strike me as very progressive issues, socially progressive and economically progressive issues.

Bernie Sanders, progressive, and Bella Abzug progressive to take somebody from 50 years ago.

The one issue that I think he's going to get caught on is he will refuse to disavow his support for Israel's right to exist.

And if that becomes the only litmus test of progressivism, well, then he's going to fail that.

But on so many other issues, he is a very strongly progressive figure.

>> I've got to go fast here.

We've only got five minutes left.

And again, our guests are not here.

They're speaking for themselves and their professor Gam knows Josh Shapiro from his time on the University of Rochester campus, knows him pretty well today.

And as someone who's been in touch with him over the years, Mitch Gruber has never met Josh Shapiro.

But eventually I would assume you will, and he seems like you meet just about everybody at some point.

We'll see.

here's Kathy in Chile, she says due to Josh Shapiro unconditional support for Israel and his rhetoric about other state and non-state actors in the Middle East, he has no more chance than Harris of winning the presidential nomination.

That's Kathy again.

We've talked about this.

That's Kathy's view.

Our guests are acknowledged that it may be a challenge at times, but I think, Kathy, they feel like that's still an open question.

Fair enough for.

Okay.

>> Yeah.

Can I can I say one other thing about that?

I the there's a there was an insistence there of comparing Shapiro to Vice President Harris.

And I think one of the things that really was that really worked against Vice President Harris was she never really had an opportunity to articulate how she really felt about just about anything on that campaign trail.

She was the vice president for for President Biden for the vast majority of that campaign, and then had to pivot and make it her own campaign.

And I don't think she ever really had a chance to step into some a lot of views, which was so deeply unfair that we're judging her based on an incredibly almost impossible timeline.

I wonder, I wonder if it's different if you give if someone like Shapiro has the entire runway to articulate who they are, why they feel some type of way, and what that way is, maybe, maybe not.

But I don't think it's a fair comparison just because of timeline.

>> Yeah, and I don't think it is either because she had to carry the baggage of not having won the nomination through going through primaries.

Whoever wins the nomination, as much as pointing out, is going to have to go state through state, voter by voter to prove themselves.

>> All right, flying through the emails, Mike says, I want a real Democrat, someone who can champion something other than big donors.

So not Shapiro.

Okay.

Fair enough.

I don't know Josh Shapiro's relationship to big donors might seems to be concerned.

>> It would be lovely to get big money out of politics, but I don't think that's a Josh Shapiro issue.

That is the issue of our country, frankly.

>> and Herman and Brighton, would you compare Governor Shapiro to other presidential possible candidates?

Governor Beshear or Governor Whitmer?

You know, I, again, I don't know the records.

I mean, maybe Professor Gam knows the records of those three.

Those are those are three candidates kind of viewed pretty similarly.

They come from challenging places for Democrats, and they've done really well in those states, especially Andy Beshear.

So but beyond that, I don't know.

Anything you want to add there.

>> I was just going to say all all three of them are very effective, very popular governors.

So so is Governor Newsom.

And each of them is going to carry their own baggage.

Governor Newsom, do we think a candidate from California is going to do well, Governor Beshear?

Yeah.

You've governed in a heavily Republican state in Kentucky, but how is that going to translate to a national audience?

I think Governor Whitmer, just like Governor Shapiro, is going to have to deal with what is it like being Jewish and how do you make your case?

I think Governor Whitmer is going to have to deal with the failure of the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Kamala Harris campaign.

Are Democrats going to be willing to nominate another woman?

>> What a blessing it would be if we had all those individuals throwing their name in the hat for the Democratic nomination, and what a blessing it would be for us to be able to talk about what has happened in the Middle East in the last three weeks.

What a blessing it would be to be able to talk about how the Republican Party has stood up and said they were the party of peace and has actually started wars and abducted leaders from other countries in a way that is completely anathema to what they said they were going to do.

That is where the conversation needs to happen.

We need we need really good, qualified candidates to have that conversation with the American public.

>> Well, Senator Lindsey Graham said it.

The Republican Party now, their view is they're marching through the world to take out the bad guys.

That's not what they campaigned on.

But maybe that's what their electorate will want.

President Trump says whatever he wants is what Maga is, and Maga is shaped by whatever he is.

So we'll see.

That's a fair point, though, because there will be this discussion.

I'll read David's email to close David, and Ovid says, I'm reminded of the saying that goes something like this Republicans fall in line with their party.

Democrats need to fall in love.

People need to think deeper about the importance of voting and winning.

Someone close to what you want might be influenced to be more like your ideal, but failing to vote because the candidate is perfect or not perfect usually results in the very opposite of what you want.

So David is saying be more pragmatic, I think.

So we'll see.

I want to thank our guests for spending this hour with us.

It flies by and Dr.

Gan, will you come back?

Talk about your book sometime soon?

>> Absolutely.

>> That is an open invitation.

We'll follow up with Professor Gerald Gamm, professor of political science and history at the University of Rochester, and Dr.

Mitch Gruber, a member of Rochester City Council.

Senior vice president, chief impact officer at Foodlink.

Graduate of the University of Rochester.

Professor at the University of Rochester.

>> I teach local government every spring.

Thanks to Gerald.

It's a wonder.

It's a wonderful opportunity to work with some really smart young people.

>> I want to come back to talk abundance soon.

Sure.

That's an invitation as well.

All right.

Thanks very much to both of you.

More Connections coming up in just a moment.

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