At a campaign event held just in recent days for Vice President Kamala Harris as she moved forward in her new role as Democrats’ torchbearer for this year’s presidential election, Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro said he had a “message” for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
“I got a message to Donald Trump,” Shapiro said at the rally. “Stop shit-talking America! This is the greatest country on the face of the earth! Let’s start acting like it! I know that’s true! You know that’s true! He doesn’t know that’s true. He keeps talking us down. And he keeps trying to rip away our fundamental freedoms.”
Besides Shapiro’s arguments about the impacts of Trump’s wishes on the policy front, Trump also — quite consistently! — speaks in condemning terms about the current state of the U.S. as a whole. He takes the argument beyond a policy disagreement with the Biden administration and elected Democrats.
During the televised debate between Trump and Biden when the latter was still this year’s expected Democratic presidential nominee, Trump called the U.S. “failing” — again.
“Well, I said my retribution is going to be success. We’re going to make this country successful again, because right now it’s a failing nation. My retribution’s going to be success,” Trump told the moderators.
Biden addressed the sentiments that night.
“The idea that somehow we are this failing country, I never heard a president talk like this before,” the president remarked. “We’re the envy of the world. Name me a single major country president who wouldn’t trade places with the United States of America. For all our problems and all our opportunities, we’re the most progressive country in the world in getting things done.”
Shapiro, who won his current term as governor in 2022 against a Trump-aligned Republican opponent, leads what’s been a key swing state in recent presidential elections, moving from a Trump win in 2016 to Biden’s column in 2020.
