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Condemning political violence should be 'universal', but Donald Trump 'cherry picks' which to criticize, Josh Shapiro says

Fallon Roth, The Philadelphia Inquirer on

Published in Political News

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said President Donald Trump “cherry picks which political violence he’s going to condemn,” after the president delivered remarks on the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk Wednesday.

“I think we need to be universal in condemning all political violence,” Shapiro, a Democrat, told ABC News in an interview Thursday.

Trump, in his remarks Wednesday evening, cited various instances of political violence from recent years, including the attempt on his life last year in Butler, Pennsylvania, to say “radical and political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives.”

He did not mention attacks against Democrats, including the assassination of a Democratic Minnesota lawmaker or the politically motivated arson on the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion this year.

“I think that’s a responsibility of all elected officials, Republicans and Democrats. We cannot allow any political violence to be viewed as acceptable,” Shapiro added.

Kirk, a Trump ally and the founder of Turning Point USA, a youth conservative movement, was fatally shot Wednesday while holding a large outdoor event in conjunction with his “Prove Me Wrong” tour at Utah Valley University. The suspected shooter, Tyler Robinson, is in police custody.

His death has been widely condemned by politicians on both sides of the aisle, including Shapiro. The governor said he’s seen “dark rhetoric either celebrating (Kirk’s) death or dark rhetoric calling for vengeance against our fellow Americans.”

“The talk of celebrating this man’s death, no matter how profound a disagreement over a policy should be, he left behind a wife and two children,” he said. “No one should be celebrating that. No one. I think that kind of rhetoric is unhelpful on every level.”

In accordance with a proclamation from Trump, Shapiro ordered flags in Pennsylvania to be flown at half-staff until sunset on Sunday in honor of Kirk.

 

Political violence has been rising in the United States in recent times, Johns Hopkins University reported in June.

Shapiro said in the interview that he worries about what will happen to the U.S. without the curbing of political violence.

“It makes us all less safe, it makes it harder to achieve the things that we all want to achieve in this nation,” he said. “It makes it harder for us to make progress.”

In April, an arsonist set the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion aflame while Shapiro and his family slept, having just celebrated Passover at the historic residence the night before. The state’s first family was able to escape to safety.

The arsonist, Cody Balmer, said Shapiro, who is Jewish, was a “monster” and that Balmer would “not take part in his plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people.”

And in a politically motivated attack in June, Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman, a Democrat, and her husband were assassinated at their home. Another Minnesota Democrat, state Sen. John Hoffman, and his wife were injured at their residence.

Shapiro said Kirk’s death “is yet another example of the sad reality of rising political violence in our country.”

“We have seen this play out all across this great nation, and it needs to end. This violence is leaving scars,” he said.


©2025 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Visit inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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