Josh Shapiro Is Calm but Not Cool

25:07One in Berks County, Pennsylvania, one in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. These are huge. and they want to convert them to ICE detention centers, house about 9 ,000 people there. They did this without consulting with local officials, certainly without consulting with state officials. And by the way, pissed off not just me, but a whole bunch of Republican elected officials in those communities as well. I met with local leaders about, now it's probably about a week or two ago at this point, and heard their concerns. Putting aside the fact that I think this is unjust, there are also very practical reasons why this won't work and why we're not going to allow it.

25:47At one of the facilities, they're trying to attach to a water system that serves 700 households in that community. That water system, through No Faults Are Own, can barely keep up with the 700 households. You go put 9 ,000 bodies on that water system, You will literally use up all of the water in that water system in less than 24 hours That means the homeowner won't be able to turn on their sink in the kitchen to boil a pot of water They won't be able to flush the toilet or take a shower. We're not going to allow that I made clear to secretary noem. I know is on her way out But at the time she was still the secretary Uh that we would not tolerate this that we would take steps to stop it And just a few days ago, I put them on notice that for them to be able to build these facilities, they require – I'm going to nerd out on you here, but it's important – they require a number of permits through the Department of Environmental Protection in the state and other state agencies.

26:45And based on the sort of general plans that they have, they would not qualify for receiving a permit in Pennsylvania. And I'm going to use every lever of power I have to hold it up. Did you talk to them directly about it? I communicated with her in writing about it. Uh, did you ever, ever get on the phone with her, have any direct contact with her while she was running the department? Uh, one time, uh, we missed each other and exchanged voicemails about a snowstorm that was coming. Uh, speaking of, uh, permits, uh, you're, you, you fixed on 95 in like, like two weeks, right? Was that it? Two weeks?

27:19I mean, 12 days. 12, 12 days. Who's counting? 12 days. That was amazing. Yeah. Honestly, that was, that was, look, you, uh, uh, in California, man. You just the just just to think about a bike path. You're talking about six months just to think if you have the thought you have to wait six months. How did you do it in two weeks, 12 days? And why is it that we can do fast construction in emergencies, but we struggle to do it outside of those moments? Well, we're doing fast construction, period, now. And I'll talk about that in a sec. First on 95, we had a big chunk of I-95 collapse when a fuel tanker exploded underneath.

27:59That roadway, which connects, by the way, Maine all the way to Florida, but is a big heavy artery from, say, like New York to D.C. and goes through Philly, about 200 ,000 cars and trucks every day. The road literally collapsed. Found out at 6, 7 a.m., something like that. Immediately went to the scene once the fire was out. and you're looking at like a gaping hole. And my immediate response, I am not an engineer, was fill the damn hole with a bunch of dirt, pave over it, get traffic moving again. Why do I share that with you? Because that sort of set the tone for how we approach this. Number one, I signed an executive order doing away with all the procurement headaches and all the deadlines and delays that typically would slow down a project so that we could get the project started, not within days or hours, but within minutes.

28:52So that was number one. Number two, we put the best team on the ground who had the expertise to do the work, and that is the Philadelphia building trades, union building trades, who know how to build roads, who know how to build bridges and do this work. Number three, we trusted them to do this work. So every time there was a question about something, they didn't have to like call back to headquarters and wait weeks to get an answer. Here's an example of that. Remember I said before, fill it with dirt, pave over it, what have you. Someone there had the idea that, and they said this to me very politely, I'm sure they wanted to be like, you don't know what you're talking about, but they were polite.

29:30They said, you know, Governor, we can't use dirt because dirt's really heavy and it'll take a long time for the dirt to settle before we can put asphalt over it. But there's this recycled material that's made of recycled glass, requires no time to settle and it's super light. We can put that as a foundation and then pave over it. They had this innovative idea that people write out in the community. Now I immediately thought this stuff's going to be in like New Zealand or something. It's going to take forever to get here. It was in Delco, Delaware County, right around the corner from where we were in Philly.

30:03We trucked that stuff in while the road that was there was being demolished, getting ready to fill it up. The building trades work 24-7, 365, right? We put it on a live webcam so Philly could watch. You literally go in a Philly sports bar and you'd see the Phillies on one screen and you'd see the I-95 workers on the other. It became a point of pride for us, which is the final point I want to make. It showed that we can do big things in this country. It shows that when we kind of put our shoulder to the wheel, we can accomplish big things and we do not need to be mired in the slowness that typically dictates the speed of government.

30:43From that experience, we made clear that we're going to be about getting shit done in Pennsylvania, about getting rid of the limitations on us and about performing at a fast and high level. And so we then set out to fix our permitting system in Pennsylvania. We went from roughly 48th in the country in terms of speed to permit to being first or second or third in the country on speed. The day I took office took eight weeks to get a simple business license. Now you get it same day. The big buildings that we're trying to build used to take years and years and years to get permitted through our Department of Environmental Protection.

31:17You're not going to permit in less than six months. We are faster than other states. And so we not only rebuilt I-95 in record time, we're building and constructing right now in record time. And as a result of that, We've got the only growing economy in the northeastern part of the United States. Our unemployment rate has been below the national rate for 32 straight months. We created more jobs than all but three other states in the entire country. We cut taxes seven different times and have an$8 billion surplus. We're making really strategic investments. The economy is growing. And a huge reason why is because our government is nimble and it is fast.

31:57I-95 may be the sort of example of that. exhibit A of that that folks noticed. But every day we're doing the blocking and tackling of governing that's getting the job done and getting it done quickly. Do you view that as a way in which the Biden administration just didn't understand the need to have that kind of mentality and executing? There's a lot of examples, electric charging stations, what have you. Is that a failure of Democrats nationally to understand how to kind of quickly implement? Look, I'm not here to like shit on anybody or trash anybody. I will just tell you, I think that we have a responsibility when we're governing to show our work, to put the points on the board that people can see.

32:40Because I think at the end of the day, what people really want is their elected leaders, particularly executives, right? Mayors, governors, presidents. They want them to be out there fixing something for them. And I think the things they basically want are good schools for their kids, safe communities to live in, an economy that creates opportunity for them and their communities, in communities that they can afford, right, kind of fits together. And I think they want their rights and their freedoms protected. And I'll tell you, John, when I'm on a farm in a county that voted for Donald Trump 80-20 or whether I'm in the city of Philadelphia that voted for Kamala Harris, you know, roughly 80-20, I hear the same thing.

33:19That's what people want. And so I think it's incumbent upon leaders to not just pass the bill, but then actually drive out the funding and get the construction going. To not just talk about something, but deliver on it in order to make people's lives better. Yeah, and I hear you. I'm not asking you to go back and just shit on the Biden administration. But I do think if there's a perception in the public that Democrats, Republicans are extreme, but Democrats, they're just kind of weak and can't move things forward. We've got to figure out why people have that perception and what are the ways Democrats have failed.

33:52And I'm wondering if you see any ways in which you think like national Democrats right now are not doing enough to signal that they're not just sort of saying the right things but can actually get things done for people. Well, look, nationally, Democrats, you're talking about Democrats in Congress, they don't have the levers of power right now. We need to make sure we get them back. And I'm hopeful that if we have a national referendum in these midterms on Donald Trump, we will win back the U.S. House at least and be able to have a check and be able to have some authority at the table to affect outcomes.

34:24I think, for example, if you go back and look a few years ago when Democrats were in charge in Washington, they did an extraordinary job of passing some of the most sweeping infrastructure laws our country's ever seen. And I commend President Biden and the Democrats who were leading Congress at the time for getting that done. I was also really direct with the Biden administration that once we pass it, that's step one. We got to get the dollars out and get the construction going. That's the important step, too, so that people kind of see with their own eyes the effect of sending congressmen so-and-so or President Biden to the job to deliver for them.

35:04And so I think that that is something, you know, again, I can really just speak for myself. That is something I focus on every day is not just passing the bill or advocating for the change, but showing how it's making a tangible difference in people's lives. Were there ever moments after those bills passed, you're the governor, where you're like, hey, where's the fucking money? Like we said, we passed this years ago. Like, why aren't we doing this? How do we get this done? Like, are you calling Buttigieg? Are you calling Kamala Harris? Are you calling to try to speak to the president? Like, what was it like trying to get things moving with the administration?

35:34Yeah, I mean, I was, and I would call them directly and say, hey, look, we passed this, but we've got to drive the dollars out. Or we're kind of held up in a regulatory process here. Can you release the money so we can get started on this? And I was very clear about that.

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37:25When you're just normal and seated at them, they're big and they're spacious. Classic desk height. Yeah, they're like well set up with the monitor and the cords and all that stuff. and then you press a little magic button and it raises up and you can stand for half an hour if you want to. Look, we got the uplift desks and I had no idea if we were going to use them or not. When I say that it's basically like, you know that game at the carnival where the mole pops up and you hit it with the hammer? That's what it's like in our office. We're just going up and down all day, all day. You look over, John's going up.

37:52Then that'll like remind one of the other, one of us to go up. Or like, you're like, time for lunch, I'm sitting. What you're describing is a game called Whack-A-Mole. Yeah, it's like Whack-A-Mole. We're like Whack-A-Mole. We're constantly like, you'll just be typing, and then you'll just look over to your left, and Tommy's just like, and he's up, and he's up. Whack-a-mole minus the concussions. Why sit still when you can stand out? The new Uplift V3 standing desk helps you move more and get more done. The V3 combines the best of Uplift's V2 and V2 commercial into one stronger, smarter frame. Redesigned feet and steel reinforcements make this the most stable standing desk yet.

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39:13All right, let's talk about Iran because obviously we're in the midst of a war with Iran. John, what is your view on the war right now, how it was launched, what the status is? Well, look, I mean, you absolutely cannot trust Donald Trump to wage this war. I mean, first he told us it was to go after their nuclear arsenal, which he also said seven months ago, six months ago, or whatever it was, that it was completely decimated. Then he said we went to war because if we didn't, Israel was going to strike first, and we had to, and Israel forced our hand. And then they kind of walked that back. Then it was to deteriorate their Navy.

39:52And then it was regime change. And now we're left with the son, who seemingly could be more dangerous than the father. The point I'm making here is that this guy's been all over the place. He's never once looked the American people in the eye, sitting in the Oval Office, where he should have been, not at his swim club in Florida, and said to the American people, this is why we have to do this. This is the imminent threat of which we've now learned there was no imminent threat. And so instead, the president engaged in a war of choice without being clear what the reason was for going in. Now, some might be watching this dismissing me saying, it doesn't matter why.

40:34They're bad guys. And by the way, bad guys indeed. The I-Tol is a bad guy. Largest exporter of terrorism around the world. Destabilized the entire Middle East. chanted death to America for five decades. These are bad people. Shouldn't be hard to say that. But if you don't know why you're going in, you don't know how the hell to get out. And what we're seeing more and more as the days go on are sadly the loss of American heroes' lives. We just lost six more Americans in the refueling accident. We lost six, seven, apologize, a week or so earlier. We are losing lives in battle when I think it's unclear why we were there in the first place.

41:24I also have a problem with the fact that the guy who is supposed to be in charge of this, Pete Hegseth, is wildly incompetent. He's like an eight-year-old playing with toy soldiers every day. His language is so fucking offensive. They talk about this in a way that doesn't respect the humanity in the region and certainly is disrespectful to our soldiers, of which there are Pennsylvanians who are engaged in this fight on behalf of a commander in chief who doesn't have a clue what he's doing. So this was a war of choice by the president. Wasn't clear why we went in. And it's unclear how we get out.

42:06I said the first day of this or within the first hours that Congress needed to act, which I know some people think is sort of processy or whatever, but it is actually the way the law of this country works. Sadly, Congress did act and they acted to give the president carte blanche here. They basically acted to be wildly weak and pathetic souls who are just going to give away their authority to this president. So this is the president's war he started, and now it's the president's war he's got to figure out how to get out of. And he's surrounded by an incompetent leader in Hegseth who I think really doesn't have a clue on what he's doing here.

42:42And right now we have a more destabilized situation. So I think that is dangerous for America. I think it is dangerous for the world. The last point I want to make, and thanks for letting me give a longer answer. I think our enemies are watching. And they are seeing weakness by Donald Trump. President Xi in China, who is calculating every day about when he's going to make his move on Taiwan, saw President of the United States not only not be able to rally the world around this cause, whatever the cause is, but couldn't even rally his own people, couldn't even rally the United States to be for this.

43:28Remember way back to George W. Bush. We know how it played out, but George W. Bush was the 85 % approval rating on the war when he started. Again, not suggesting what he did was right there, but he rallied the country around the response. And there was two votes in Congress, one vote to office in Afghanistan and Iraq. Exactly. So I think she is watching this, seeing that there's a weakness that the United States has. In addition, I think we've shown Xi we've got some military vulnerabilities by moving certain weaponry from one region of the world, one theater to another. I think they're seeing where there's some vulnerabilities.

44:06Second, I think Putin is watching this, realizing that we've now had to withdraw help from Ukraine. And by the way, at the same time, Putin is able to have more of his oil and more of his natural resources go into the flow of commerce as a result. So he's making more money and he's got a cleaner shot at Ukraine, which is unfortunate. So not only unfortunate, but dangerous, I should say. So I think it's bad because you can't trust this guy to prosecute the war. And I think it's bad because it is showing the rest of the world the weakness of Donald Trump and the weakness of this administration. And all of that combined leaves us worse off and leaves the world more destabilized.

44:50So it was genuinely surprising to see the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, basically say we had to act because Israel was going to go first. And they've tried to walk that back. that has fed into, I think, some of the kind of anti-Semitism you see on the far right, a bit of what you also see on the left that we're in this war because of Israel. It brought us back to this debate over Israel. Governor Gavin Newsom, when talking to John and Tommy on Pod Save America, he was referencing an article by Thomas Friedman, but he said that people are talking about Israel appropriately as sort of an apartheid state.

45:34And I'm wondering what your reaction is to that comment and what it tells you about how the politics on Israel have shifted. Well, look, Gavin should speak for Gavin, and I'm not going to weigh in on his commentary. I'll just say, look, I think that there are sort of foundational issues here that a lot of people are grappling with. And I think a lot of people are grappling with it from an honestly held view or concern. I'll come back to the comment about, or I'll come back to answering your question about apartheid, because I think that was the comment he made, if I'm not mistaken. But I sort of start this conversation around the notion of the question a lot of people raise now is, does Israel even have the right to exist?

46:15Should we sort of be viewing Israel as an ally? Should they even be allowed to exist? And I would argue as someone who is desirous for peace, as someone who for the last 15, nearly 20 years has been calling for a two-state solution, which I realize feels very far away right now. I get that. But the idea of Israel and a Palestinian state where both recognize the other's right to exist, both want to live peacefully and both recognize that the future for their children is going to be rooted and the foundational principle will be around this idea of peace because that will allow their children to grow up in a society where they can be whatever they want to be.

47:01I want peace. And for those who begin by suggesting Israel doesn't have the right to exist as a Jewish state, I think that is a recipe for permanent war. And so I want to see peace in the region. I also do think it's sort of interesting that you've got 46 nations around the world where the majority religion is Islam. 23 of them recognize Islam as the official state religion. One has the official state religion of Judaism, and that's the one we keep talking about here. That then leads to a broader question. You mentioned apartheid, right? Or that was the comment that was made. And I would just say as we engage in that, we should first address this fundamental question of what do we want in that region?

47:58And if we really want peace, and I believe you want that, then we've also got to be acknowledging that language matters here, that words matter. And then we've got to use words that are actually rooted in reality and are able to bring the temperature down to create a space for that, for that peace, for that opportunity. And so that's how I view this entire conflict. I would also say that it is really important that we create space, which you do, for dialogue that is thoughtful and dialogue that's rooted in reality and dialogue where we're precise with our words, where we're able to acknowledge there's a lot of nuance on these issues and we should debate them.

48:47And just because people have different opinions doesn't make them a bad person. And just because someone doesn't agree with the Netanyahu government, which I don't on many, many things, doesn't make him an anti-Semite. Just because I disagree with Benjamin Netanyahu doesn't make me an anti-Semite in as much as because I disagree with Donald Trump doesn't make me any less of an American patriot. So I just think we've got to be really thoughtful and careful and not just look for buzzwords and not just sort of follow, you know, what's going to get maybe some likes on Twitter. But we've got to be thoughtful about a debate that is really, really hard to have.

49:22And we've got to have it. Discussion, not debate. Yeah. So I'm somebody that, you know, I see that kind of blurry line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. It was genuinely shocking to see people defend Hamas or cheer the murder of Jews after October 7th. also horrified by what I view as ethnic cleansing that Israel engaged in in Gaza, the efforts to annex the West Bank, which are not only just wrong morally, but also put this idea of a two-state solution even further away, make Israel a pariah nation. I think there's a lot of Jewish people who feel this conflict. How do you think about that conflict, that sort of space between the Israel we were taught to believe in growing up and the Israel that we see and how it is conducting itself.

50:08I think, and I write about this a lot in my book, about the first trip I ever took to Israel, about how important that was for me, how it helped me get closer connected to my faith and closer connected to my girlfriend who ended up becoming my wife years later. I have profound differences with the policies of Netanyahu, who's largely dominated Israeli politics for the last two or more decades. I think he and Trump have politicized and poisoned the relationship between the United States and Israel. And I think at the end of the day, that makes America less safe and undermines our national security.

51:00I look through all of this through the prism of what's best for the United States of America. The hyper-politization of these kinds of relationships with Israel or with other countries in the realm of foreign policy, I think ultimately works to the detriment of American national security. I think it's fair game to criticize the Netanyahu government. And and I'm one who engages in that you mentioned the West Bank. Let me speak to that I think what is happening in the West Bank and I've spoken out quite a bit about this What's happening in the West Bank where settlers are taking farms of Palestinians are assaulting them We're in the case of a kid from northeast philadelphia a palestinian american killed him just a week or two ago.

51:49I've called on General Bondi to conduct a full investigation about the death of this American young person in the West Bank. I think that that is ultimately not in Israel's long-term interest. And I think the Netanyahu government has a responsibility to stamp that out, to stop that lawlessness. And I think the American government, the Trump administration, needs to speak up on this and needs to be more of a voice of clarity, moral clarity on this issue. Right. But those are two things that are simply not going to happen. Netanyahu wants to annex the West Bank and Trump and the ambassador to Israel for the United States, Huckabee, believes we're on some sort of biblical crusade.

52:35So those two things will not happen as long as Donald Trump is there and Benjamin Netanyahu is there. So then what is the value of, beyond just calling for them to become different people, what do we do? Well, these are the leaders that each country has chosen. I'm not going to speak to what the people in Israel chose. They'll have an election. They'll figure that out. Here in the United States of America, we need to have more of a check on this administration. That's going to start in these midterms. We've got to win the House of Representatives at least back. And that's why I think we need a national referendum on these policies, on Trump's policies, and encourage everybody, whether you're in a swing state like mine or a state that's maybe not as much of a swing state like yours here in California, to get out, to vote.

53:13to make sure our voices are heard, to change the makeup of Congress, and begin to put more checks in place.

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54:59With Grammarly, you never will. Download Grammarly for free at Grammarly.com. All right, let's switch gears. I want to talk about the book a little bit more, especially about when you were a kid. Were you a popular kid? Would you call yourself popular? My wife would say I was like one of the cool kids. Yeah. I think my coolness factor probably has gone down since then. Yeah, I think we'd have to have just based on this. Look, you're many things. I don't think you're cool. I don't think it's bad. I don't need cool. Well, the reason I ask is because so and it speaks to what we were just discussing.

55:34you and your mom were advocating for Soviet Jews who were trapped in the Soviet Union. You start this organization. You're advocating a Soviet Jew, a young boy manages to escape. He's at your bar mitzvah. You're speaking at your bar mitzvah. Your rabbi is praising you. All the other moms must have been just telling their sons like, boy, why wish you could be more like little Joshy Shapiro, right? You were like a star at that temple. It's a Frank Lloyd Wright temple. That's the, that's the cool. That was like the big prestigious temple. Come on. It's a Frank Lloyd Wright temple. You were the king of the bar mitzvah boys, weren't you?

56:13It was a pretty amazing moment. I mean, my mom taught me about the Soviet Union. I didn't know what the hell the Soviet Union was. I was like an eight year old kid when she's talking to me about it. She taught me about kids that were growing up without the kind of freedoms that I just literally took for granted as a, as a little kid here growing up. And she told me about this boy named Avi Goldstein, who was, you know, in this repressive regime being held basically captive. The family wanted to leave. And my mom said, we got to go to D.C. and we've got to advocate with our senators to see if they can do something about it.

56:47And I remember meeting with Senator Joe Biden. I remember meeting with Senator Arlen Specter, who was one of my senators from Pennsylvania. And they took me to meet with Senator Ted Kennedy. I guess he was the chairman of whatever the committee was that was relevant or something. I don't know. And through their work, through my advocacy of them and their work, they were able to secure the release of the Goldstein family just a couple days before my bar mitzvah and bring the kid to Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. We stood together, had our bar mitzvah together. I wish, John, I could tell you that was like my aha moment.

57:19I'm going to be a senator one day when I grow up. Man, I had no clue. Here's what you could. I believe you. I do believe you. However, look, I was an ambitious, smart Jewish boy, but I'm small, gay, and weird. So nobody said I was going to be president when I grow up, which is fine. I've accepted that. But I feel like you're handsome. You're speaking in front of your temple. You're traveling. You're smart. Weren't people saying like, boy, that Josh Shapiro, he's going to be president. I know how Jewish parents were. I don't know what the Jewish parents were saying, but if you would have asked my ninth grade girlfriend to go around our class and rank in order who would be governor at the age of whatever 50 i'd probably have been dead last because i was also you know a screw up and gotten some trouble and it was kind of a goofball and you know basically just focused on basketball your sister is here your sister's here she can attest to it was he really getting in trouble Come on.

58:18A little bit of a shrug. Come on. I think you were a good kid. I mean, I did write about how I got suspended that one time. What did you do? I locked a kid in this closet. Oh, you locked a kid and hurt his finger. I hurt his finger. And the principal told my parents that I could come back to school, but I had to make a decision. And she said it's the same decision her son actually had to make. Was I going to grow up to be a good kid or was I going to grow up to get in a lot of trouble? And I kind of decided to be the former, not the latter. And you've only lost one election in your life. It was your student council race.

58:51I'm still pissed about that. And now Jake Tapper is - I'm 12 and one, by the way. 12 and one. Jake Tapper actually ran and won, not in the same year, he ran and won his race. What are the qualities that Jake has as a leader that you do not have? By the way, Jake got in a lot of trouble too, his senior year of high school. I don't know if we want to get into that here, but I'm not sure. I guess Jake probably promised better soda in the machines than I did. Oh, you think he sort of told people what they wanted to hear? I think he probably told people what they wanted to hear. Okay. Okay. Now, freshman year of college, you run for student council president.

59:26Yeah. And you win at college at the University of Rochester. As a freshman, you're running for president. Man, accidentally, I sort of fell into it. I went to college to be a doctor like my dad because I saw my dad helping people growing up. I thought that was the most extraordinary thing, the way my parents helped people and my dad being the local like baby doctor, right? Every kid in our neighborhood went to see my dad and I wanted to be like him. I also was pretty good basketball back then. It was quick and it was good point guard. And so I'll tell you what, Jew, that's good at sports. Unicorn.

59:59Okay. Freshman year. Uh, I flunk out of pre-med same day later that day, I got cut from the men's basketball team. And that night someone knocked on my dorm room door and said, hey, Shapiro, we need somebody to run for student government. And I'm like, I remember that experience a couple of years ago. I'm not doing that. He's like, look, dude, you got nothing else going on in your life. You should give it a shot. I ran, I won for like our student Senate or whatever, and immediately fell in love with it. And we had a bunch of big issues that came up. I worked hard to resolve them. And then I thought as my freshman, into my freshman year, I'm like, I'll give it a shot.

1:00:34And I went around and knocked on a bunch of doors on college campus, became the first freshman to ever win. And I think that door knocking experience set me on this path. Well, cause there's, there's a strange thing we do in our culture where we like people to be ambitious, but we also want them to pretend that they just happen upon great success. There's something about, I don't know. It's the only people that are allowed to admit they want to be super famous and successful or real housewives. Everybody else has to do this all shucks routine. And, you know, you say in the book, like I didn't, I wanted to fish differently.

1:01:06I take an unconventional path, but you went from state rep to county commissioner to attorney general to governor. And I think that's a great path for an ambitious and a positive way, a person who wants to have more and more of an impact on their community, who believes they have talents and skills. And it seems to me like you're on a path to try to use what gifts you have to do as much good as possible, however high that can go. Is that right? Yeah. But what you didn't say was that there were several sort of whatever you call it, forks in the road or whatever, where the political class, where the conventional wisdom was, Shapiro should run for something else.

1:01:44First it was US Congress, then it was United States Senate. And what you didn't note when you were rattling that off is that I didn't choose those paths, even though that's where all the political folks thought I should go. Each step of the way, what I have tried to do is to choose a path where I could have the most impact, where I could serve the most people and where I could use, you know, whatever talent I have to make a difference in life. That was true when I called the vice president staff and said that I was not interested anymore in being considered for the vice presidency. It was true when I called Chuck Schumer and said, I don't want to run for the U.S.

1:02:18Senate. It was true when I decided not to run for Congress. I made some decisions throughout my career that I think the political class might look at and say, well, why did he choose that? That doesn't make any sense. but it was all rooted in kind of what you said in the crux of your question, which is how can I best serve? How can I best help? And yeah, I'm ambitious to get shit done for people. And I want to use the position that people have entrusted me with to deliver for them. You talked to Tim Alberta about the VP thing. And there's this moment where you just sort of said, she's trying to sell books and cover her ass.

1:02:53And then you're like, oh, I shouldn't have said that was too harsh. I should just be critical on the merits. And I was like, oh, that was a relief to me to say, like, because you know what? Maybe she is trying to sell books and cover her ass, and it's good that you can just say it. Clearly, there was like a real tension between in that process for VP. And I'm like, I'm curious. You talk about it a little bit in the book. I'm curious where your head's on it now, because when you first get the call, you're emotional about the possibility. And by the end, you're like, fuck this. It was unbelievably humbling and an honor to be considered in, I mean, really what was an incredibly truncated period.

1:03:35You went through it, obviously, with President Obama. You know, it was a long process and you know everything that occurred there. This was completely different, right? Just given the circumstances of the election. And I was humbled and I was grateful. And to this day, I'm really thankful to the vice president for the incredibly honest conversation that we had at her residence on that Sunday morning, sitting at a small table like this, just being really direct. And what was very clear to me at the conclusion of that very honest and direct conversation was that this was not the right fit and it was not going to be the best way for me to serve people.

1:04:18And I don't think it would have been the best way to serve her. And she deserved to have someone with her who would do it exactly the way she wanted. And that's why I telephoned that evening, which was roughly 48 hours before she announced her decision, just to say, look, you got some wonderful folks. I should not be in the mix as you consider this. And I'm going to be all in for whoever you pick. And as you know, and as I talk about in the book, when she announced Tim Walz, who's a really good friend of mine, that he was the pick, man, I showed up in Philly that night. I announced them to my hometown crowd and I campaigned all across the country for the two of them and worked my tail off to help them get elected.

1:04:56Wouldn't it be ironic if it turned out that Tim Walz was in Mossad? That'd have been crazy. What a twist that would have been. Yeah, that would have been a twist. You really think they did. You were that was it wasn't it like there's a is that just a box checking question? Do you really think you were being asked if you were an operative of Israel? We went through an entire process for whatever it was on a week or so where there are a lot of boxes being checked. This was a phone call to me roughly an hour before I walked in to meet with the vice president. And saying no is exactly what an agent of Mossad would say.

1:05:31something to think about. Before we let you go, rapid fire for Hanukkah. One big present for the kids or eight small presents? We do one. One big present? I like that. That's better. What do you do? We did, when we were very little, we had seven tiny, tiny gifts, like stickers, and then one. And then one. So like chalk, a little tiny thing. Similar deal. Yeah, yeah. Gefilte fish, yes or no? Disgusting. Really? Yeah. I think that's right. Yeah. It feels like there should be a way to fix it, but it never gets fixed. Yeah, I don't like judge people that like it. I just don't like it myself. You keep kosher.

1:06:02Do you have any non-kosher guilty pleasure snacks? No. No. And is there anything you want to try but can't try? Is there one thing? If you got a little note that said, you know, God's closing the, not looking for like, you know, sort of 20 minutes. What are we eating? A Philly cheesesteak at Angelo's in South Philly. Have you never had a Philly cheesesteak? No. You've never had a Philly cheesesteak? You also haven't had a pork sandwich from Danix. Yeah, that's right. That's a bummer. Do you eat kosher style at non-kosher places? would you get a sandwich from the next that wasn't pork or do you have to eat at a kosher establishment no no i eat at all kinds of establishment i just wouldn't eat pork or meat or things like that okay okay oh that's a shame i feel like we should get do you as a sister do you keep kosher wow wow just see if we can sneak you a pork sandwich by accident uh uh bagel order uh bagel egg and cheese get a little protein okay okay what kind of bagel um plain whole wheat sesame cinnamon raisin not a not a big everything guy okay yeah okay toasted or not toasted toasted it's got to be toasted no matter how fresh it is got to be toasted wow that's a horrible answer governor josh shapiro you wouldn't toast the bagel not if it's right out of the oven not if it's right out of the oven get a beautiful fresh bagel on your hands yeah but you kind of the little crispiness on top That might be just because you're in Pennsylvania and you're just sort of...

1:07:20Now you're going to knock Pennsylvania? Well, I'm just saying the quality of the bagels that are... Look, I mean, maybe it's a New York City thing that you would... Maybe the bagels do need a toast. Okay. Maybe they do in Pennsylvania. Maybe in Pennsylvania they need a toast. You're doing the... I'm just asking. I'm just asking questions. I'm just asking the question. I'm just asking questions. Governor Josh Shapiro, thank you for your time. Great to be with you. Really good talking to you. Thanks, John. All right, that's our show. Thanks, everybody, for listening. We will be back in your feed with a brand new episode on Tuesday.

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1:08:42you