Josh Shapiro doesn’t take Bill Maher’s ‘bait’ about a presidential bid

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro was cagey about his presidential aspirations in an appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher Friday night, but he spoke like someone who has his eyes set on 2028.

“What is the story with always writing a book when you’re running for president?” Maher asked to begin Shapiro’s interview about his new memoir.

The Democratic governor skirted the question and answered instead by going into sales mode about his recently released book, Where We Keep the Light.

"I wrote a book to try and highlight the people that bring light in my state, the people I see every day doing good things. Because our politics don’t match the goodness of what I see on the ground every day," he said.

But Shapiro couldn’t resist a bit of campaign speak. He branded himself a “GSD [Get S— Done] Democrat”, and said people feel cynical and frustrated about politics because “they don’t see many of their elected leaders putting points on the board for them.”

Shapiro pointed to his administration’s speedy repair after part of I-95 in Philadelphia collapsed in 2023 as evidence that breaking through bureaucracy and getting things accomplished was a way to deliver hope. Maher said his responses sounded like Shapiro was on his way to the 2028 Democratic nomination.

“I refuse to take any of your bait here,” Shapiro said jokingly.

Maher brought up the rise of overt antisemitism around the nation and the world, including the Thursday attack on a Michigan synagogue. He asked Shapiro, should he run for president, if he could appeal to voters when his Jewish faith is a key part of his identity.

“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 … because I’m proud of who I am. I’m proud of what motivates me to serve, and I’m proud of my faith,” Shapiro said, referencing his gubernatorial campaign.

» READ MORE: Gov. Josh Shapiro condemns attack at Michigan synagogue as ‘unacceptable’

Shapiro called upon leaders of both parties to call out when antisemitism is present. He said hatred toward Jews has united both extremes of the political spectrum, and people have allowed antisemitism to fester by looking away from the problem.

Maher ended the interview asking Shapiro about the war in Iran, and how he would have handled the situation if he were president.

Shapiro declined to answer the question that way, but sharply criticized the Trump administration’s lack of clarity as to why it attacked Iran in the first place, what its goals were, and how it planned to get out of the conflict.

“We have a commander in chief and his sidekick, Pete Hegseth, who are acting like a bunch of 8-year-olds playing with toy soldiers. We’ve lost 13 American soldiers in a war that the American people … [have] no idea why the hell we went there in the first place,” he said.

However, the governor said his critiques of the war should not be taken as having nuanced feelings about the Iranian regime, reiterating his stance on the country’s leadership.

“They chanted for five decades, ‘Death to America,’” he said. “… And I am not shedding a tear for them being killed.”

With no immediate end to the Iran war in sight, Shapiro said, Trump has a responsibility to tell soldiers in harm’s way and Americans at home what his plan is for the conflict.

“The president has yet to look the American people in the eye and explain that, and that is a failure of leadership,” he said.