How an anti-Trump crusader and a ‘boring’ Republican prosecutor forged an unlikely partnership
The two come from different parties and have vastly different approaches to their jobs — including their approaches to President Donald Trump. That hasn't stopped them from working together.
Right after Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday was sworn into office in January, he received a lunch invitation from across the Delaware River.
It didn’t matter that they came from different political parties, said New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin, a Democrat appointed to his post by outgoing Gov. Phil Murphy.
Platkin wanted to get to know his neighbor, and invited Sunday out to lunch in Philadelphia.
The two men could not have more different approaches to their jobs. In a hyperpolarized political era, where attorneys general play an increasingly important role in national politics, Platkin has become a face of Democratic opposition to President Donald Trump’s administration. He has led or joined dozens of lawsuits by blue-state attorneys general and governors in arguing that the executive branch is acting unconstitutionally on issues like birthright citizenship, withholding congressionally approved funds, and more.
In contrast, Sunday, a Republican elected last year, has largely avoided suing Trump and has said he strives to be “boring,” focusing his efforts on oversight of his own office.
Even their jobs are different, despite sharing a title. New Jersey’s attorney general is in charge of the state’s 21 county prosecutors, oversight of state police, and protecting consumers, among other duties; Pennsylvania’s attorney general has wide-ranging powers to investigate corruption, enforce the state’s laws, represent the state’s agencies and interests in lawsuits, and more.
Platkin, 39, is an ambitious lawyer who grew up in northern New Jersey and attended one of the best high schools in the state before attending Stanford University and Stanford Law School. He went on to work in private practice in New York and New Jersey before being appointed as chief general counsel to Murphy at 35 — the youngest person to ever hold the office.
Sunday, 50, grew up in a suburb of Harrisburg and has described his high school years as lacking direction. He joined the U.S. Navy after high school before attending Pennsylvania State University for undergraduate and Widener University Law School for his law degree, working at UPS to help put himself through school. He returned to south-central Pennsylvania for his clerkship, and was a career prosecutor in York County until his election to attorney general.
But over salads at the Mulberry, Platkin and Sunday found common ground. And ever since, the two said in a joint interview this month, they have worked closely on issues affecting residents in their neighboring states.
“Just because you may not see eye-to-eye on [Trump] doesn’t mean you can’t see or don’t see eye-to-eye on many, many other issues,” Sunday said.
“When we have an auto theft problem, [residents] don’t care if there’s a ‘D’ or an ‘R’ after your name,” Platkin added. “They just want to see us working to solve it.”
The two have since worked together on issues that stretch from criminal investigations and human trafficking cases to challenging Big Tech companies as artificial intelligence rapidly advances, Sunday said.
Earlier this month, Sunday and Platkin led national efforts of coalescing approximately 40 attorneys general across party lines on the issues they say are most pressing for residents. The group wrote a letter to Big Tech companies in mid-December, detailing concerns about the lack of guardrails for AI chatbots like those available from ChatGPT or Meta’s Instagram AI chats, and the potential harm they could cause people in crisis or children who use them.
In two more letters sent this month, the attorneys general also voiced support for a workforce reentry bill before a U.S. House committee and requested that Congress approve additional funding for courtroom and judicial security to protect the nation’s judges from safety threats. Platkin and Sunday said they were some of the first attorneys general to sign on to the letters.
“While the undersigned hold differing views on many legal issues, we all agree that the legal system cannot function if judges are unsafe in their homes and courthouses,” the group of 47 attorneys general wrote in a Dec. 9 letter to top leaders of Congress.
When it comes to lawsuits against the Trump administration and other litigation authored by partisan attorneys general associations, Sunday has largely avoided the fray. Earlier this month, he was elected Eastern Region chair of the National Association of Attorneys General, a nonpartisan group composed of the 56 state and territory attorneys general.
Platkin, on the other hand, has led the charge in pushing back against the administration’s policies in New Jersey, signing onto dozens of lawsuits such as ones challenging Trump’s efforts to end birthright citizenship and to withhold SNAP funding if a state does not turn over personal information about its residents.
Still, Pennsylvania has joined many lawsuits, including several challenging the federal government for withholding congressionally approved funds for electric vehicles and more, as Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, formerly the state’s attorney general, has signed on in his capacity as governor.
Platkin, who has served as New Jersey’s attorney general since 2022, will leave office when Murphy’s term ends next month, and Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill will appoint someone new to the post. Sherrill, a Democrat, earlier this month nominated Jen Davenport, a former prosecutor and current attorney at PSE&G, New Jersey’s largest electric and gas company, to be Platkin’s successor.
Sunday’s team has already been in touch with Davenport to forge a similar cross-state working relationship.
What’s next for Platkin? He said he’s a “Jersey boy” and will remain in the state but declined to say what his next move might entail.
And both Platkin and Sunday say they will maintain their bipartisan friendship going forward.
“It’s OK to say we don’t agree on everything. We shouldn’t hate each other,” Platkin said. “We should be open about the fact that we like each other. … I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”