Kamala Harris famously bypassed Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate for her presidential run, and we all know how that turned out. Her eventual choice, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, was a bumbling gaffe machine and certainly contributed to her overwhelming loss to Donald Trump. Many pundits opined that she skipped Shapiro because he’s Jewish, and she didn’t want to stir up the antisemites in her party.
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Shapiro showed Monday, however, that he is a far more skilled politician than Walz, and whether you’re a fan or a detractor, I think it’s fair to say that Shapiro appeared much more like someone to be taken seriously than Walz ever could. He spoke at a news conference regarding the capture of the suspect in UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s assassination on the streets of New York on December 4.
As we’ve reported, the suspect, 26-year-old former Ivy Leaguer Luigi Mangione, was nabbed Monday at a McDonald’s in Altoona, PA.
To those like twisted “journalist” Taylor Lorenz and other lefties who are seemingly celebrating the cold-blooded assassination, Shapiro had strong words:
Brian Thompson was a father to two. He was a husband. And he was a friend to many. And yes he was the CEO of a health insurance company,” Shapiro told reporters.
In America, we do not kill people in cold blood to resolve policy differences or express a viewpoint. I understand people have real frustration with our healthcare system, and I have worked to address that throughout my career.
But I have no tolerance, nor should anyone, for one man using an illegal ghost gun to murder someone because he thinks his opinion matters most. In a civil society, we are all less safe when ideologues engage in vigilante justice.
He ended his remarks with the crux of the matter:
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In some dark corners, this killer is being hailed as a hero.
Hear me on this: he is no hero.
They’ve lost their humanity: The Hate Actually Emanates From the Left—’Journalist’ Taylor Lorenz’s Despicable Take on CEO’s Murder
Later during the conference, Shapiro was asked follow-up questions, and he rightfully pointed out that not only did political violence have no place here, but it was also unacceptable in Butler, PA, where a deranged would-be assassin came within millimeters of ending Donald Trump’s life in July.
Violence can never be used to address political differences, or to address a substantive difference, or to try and prove some ideological point. That is not what we do in a civilized society.
That was true in Butler, it was true in New York City, and it’s true anywhere. That is not how you make progress in this country.
Shapiro is still a Democrat, and he’s made some highly questionable moves in the past, like enabling the attempted stealing of a Senate seat in November, as my colleague Teri Christoph reported. (He eventually changed his tune after the state Supreme Court weighed in.)
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So no, I’m not suggesting we should suddenly start a Josh Shapiro fan club, but I will say that on this matter he is one hundred percent correct. While other Democrats run around calling everybody who disagrees with them “Hitlerian,” Shapiro at least seems to be trying to reason with the haters and bring down the temperature. He may not be on our team, but he certainly comes across in this case as less of an extremist than the many violence-inciting, hate-filled leftists that are on the Democrat side.