A defiant Stephen Colbert blasted CBS on Monday for killing an interview with a Texas Democrat, blaming arcane rules being enforced by the Trump administration.
“He was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network’s lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast,” Colbert said of State Rep. James Talarico, who is running in the Democratic primary for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas.
CBS issued a statement claiming they didn’t prohibit him from running an interview.
“The Late Show was not prohibited by CBS from broadcasting the interview with Rep. James Talarico,” the statement read. “The show was provided legal guidance that the broadcast could trigger the FCC equal-time rule for two other candidates, including Rep. Jasmine Crockett, and presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled. The Late Show decided to present the interview through its YouTube channel with on-air promotion on the broadcast rather than potentially providing the equal-time options.”
The decisioncomes down to something known as the equal-time rule, a federal requirement put into law in 1934 that requires broadcast stations like CBS to provide comparable airtime to political opponents during an election. Cable networks like Fox News and Comedy Central, home to The Daily Show, are not bound to those rules, allowing them to be as partisan as they choose.
News programs on broadcast TV (such as Meet the Press and Face the Nation) are exempt from the rule, and the Federal Communications Commission has not enforced it on late-night shows since 2006, when it ruled then-California gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger’s appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno qualified as a “bona fide news interview.”
The move was criticized by FCC commissioner Anna Gomez, a Democrat appointed by former President Joe Biden, who called it “an escalation in this FCC’s ongoing campaign to censor and control speech.”
Colbert said CBS prohibited the interview with Talarico from airing Monday night. Instead, it was posted in its entirety on Colbert’s YouTube channel.
“At this point, [Carr has] just released a letter that says he’s thinking about doing away with the exemption for broadcast for late night. He hasn’t done away with it yet,” Colbert said. “But my network is unilaterally enforcing it as if he had.”
Talarico told Colbert that Trump and Republicans ran against cancel culture during the last election, but now the current administration is “trying to control what we watch, what we say, what we read.”
“And this is the most dangerous kind of cancel culture, the kind that comes from the top,” Talarico said. “Corporate media executives are selling out the First Amendment to curry favor with corrupt politicians.”
Bill Carter, who covered late-night television for decades at the New York Times and currently writes for the website LateNighter, called CBS’s capitulation “shameful,” especially since the FCC has not moved yet to enforce the rule.
“Trump’s intention is to mute free speech of his critics, and he’s found the rule in the FCC and decided he can do this,” Carter said. “And he’s got the broadcasters cowed a bit.”
“Let’s just call this what it is: Donald Trump’s administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV, because all Trump does is watch TV,” Colbert added.
How was Josh Shapiro able to appear on Colbert’s show?
Governor Josh Shapiro announced his re-election campaign weeks before appearing on Colbert’s show last month.
Shapiro was able to appear not only on Colbert’s show, but also on ABC’s daytime talk show The View, which has also found itself a target of the FCC under Carr.
“I think it’s worthwhile to have the FCC look into whether The View, and some of these other programs that you have, still qualify as bona fide news programs and therefore are exempt from the equal opportunity regime that Congress has put in place,” Carr said in a September interview with conservative CNN commentator Scott Jennings.
It’s also why U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff’s forthcoming interview with Colbert is still slated to air on the network Wednesday. While Ossoff (D., Ga.) has announced he is running for reelection in Georgia, the window for candidates to officially file paperwork for their primaries does not open until March 2.
Neither CBS nor Ossoff’s campaign has commented on the interview.
The equal-time rule also applies to radio broadcasts, where conservative talk shows are among the most dominant formats and regularly feature Republican candidates for office during election years. Then-candidate Trump did multiple interviews on 1210 WPHT in Philadelphia during the 2024 election.
Carr has said he does not plan to enforce a stricter equal-time rule on radio stations the way he has for television networks, claiming in a news conference last month there wasn’t a similar bona fide news exemption “being misconstrued on the radio side.”
A new lawsuit filed by a group of conservation and history organizations is challenging President Donald Trump’s executive order to remove historic information from national parks.
It comes a day after a federal judge ordered restoration of the slavery exhibits at the President’s House in Philadelphia and marks the latest chapter in a showdown between historical transparency versus censorship.
On Tuesday, the National Parks Conservation Association filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts federal court against the Department of Interior, challenging Trump’s 2025 executive order that forced national parks to change or strip displays tied to topics ranging from slavery and racism to LGBTQ+ rights and climate change.
“Plaintiffs are organizations committed to protecting the national parks, preserving history, promoting access to high quality scientific information, and providing high quality interpretive materials — including exhibits, signs, brochures, and other educational materials — that bridge the gap between physical objects and human understanding for park visitors,” the lawsuit says.
“They and their members — including avid users of national parks and historians whose research is being erased — have been injured by these actions and seek to ensure that the administration does not wash away history and science from what the National Park Service has recognized is ‘America’s largest classroom.’ ”
The coalition, which includes the American Association for State and Local History, the Association of National Park Rangers, the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, the Society for Experiential Graphic Design, and the Union of Concerned Scientists, is asking the court to declare Trump’s executive order unlawful and to order removed materials to be restored.
“In filing this litigation together, we are taking a stand for the soul of our national parks,” Alan Spears, senior director of cultural resources at the National Parks Conservation Association, said. “Censoring science and erasing America’s history at national parks are direct threats to everything these amazing places, and our country, stand for.”
In Philadelphia, U.S. District Judge Cynthia M. Rufe issued a ruling Monday requiring the federal government to restore the President’s House site to its original state. The removed exhibits paid tribute to the enslaved people who lived in George Washington’s home during his presidency.
The plaintiff’s group for the Massachusetts suit is being represented by Democracy Forward, a progressive nonprofit that challenges government actions it views as harmful.
“You cannot tell the story of America without recognizing both the beauty and the tragedy of our history,” Skye Perryman, Democracy Forward’s president and CEO said in a statement. “The president’s effort to erase history and science in our national parks violates federal law, and is a disgrace that neither honors our country’s legacy nor its future.”
Beyond Philadelphia, the lawsuit also mentions other examples of Trump’s executive order in action, including the removal of an interactive display mentioning climate change at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, short films on labor history being scrapped at Lowell’s National Historical Park in Massachusetts, and the removal of displays discussing negative impacts tourists, settlers, and cattle ranchers have on the Grand Canyon National Park.
The lawsuit goes on to point out the irony of Trump’s executive order aiming to avoid “disparaging Americans,” despite the president’s own new signage at the White House, which takes jabs at former President Joe Biden and others along his West Wing “Walk of Fame.”
The parties are asking a judge to order that national parks must be allowed to present the full historical and scientific picture without censorship and for their court costs to be paid for.
I was cranking out the newsletter in Tuesday’s predawn darkness when we learned that the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., who’d been our greatest living bridge to the civil rights heroics of the 1960s and ‘70s, had died at age 84. Covering his groundbreaking 1984 campaign as a cub reporter at the Birmingham News is still a career highlight four-decades-plus later — a memory that was reinforced recently listening to Abby Phillip’s excellent new book on Jackson. He leaves us right when his victories for African Americans in arenas such as corporate hiring and college admissions are under attack, and it challenges us to fight to preserve them. RIP to an American original.
How ICE protest by ‘an average Joe’ from Haddon Heights went viral
“I never want to see a child run away from our own government again,” said this self-described first-time protester, Joseph Zobel from Haddon Heights, at a rally in Lindenwold, N.J., the day after children ran from a school bus stop after ICE appeared to conduct an operation in the area.
Last Friday, “an average Joe who grew up in Haddon Heights” named Joseph Zobel was at work when he saw a viral video from the nearby South Jersey town of Lindenwold that shocked the nation, and shocked him.
The clip from a Ring doorbell camera showed a gaggle of fourth and fifth graders running in a panic, screaming, “ICE! ICE!” as masked federal immigration agents had approached their morning bus stop the day before.
“I just thought, ‘How can that be happening here in the United States?’” Zobel told me Monday in his first media interview, conducted by email. When he got home from work, he saw online that the group Cooper River Indivisible was holding an “ICE Out” protest at the Lindenwold municipal building at 4 p.m.
He looked at the clock. It was 3:58.
“Something inside of me said, ‘Go up there and stand with these people,’” said Zobel, a 36-year-old school coach who said he’s never been to a protest before in his life. “I wanted to stand for what is right.” As he dashed out, Zobel also grabbed one thing — the American flag he flies in front of his house most of the time (except during football season, when an Eagles flag replaces it).
As many as 300 people were at the protest, as Indivisible organizer Amber Clemments asked the flag-bearing Zobel if he’d be willing to film a video. Zobel’s raw emotion, choking back tears as he said, “I watched fourth- and fifth-grade kids run away from our own government,” soon ignited across social media over the long Presidents Day weekend.
By Tuesday morning, the 47-second clip of Zobel had been watched an astronomical 2.9 million times on TikTok — and liked by some 709,000 viewers — even as it also went viral on Bluesky, X, Threads, and other social media platforms.
It’s not hard to understand why. Zobel, who described himself as a patriotic regular voter but never very political, instantly became the bearded, baseball hat-wearing, anguished face of a new American majority — an Everyman shocked into action by the horror of immigration raids, wondering how best to protect his neighbors.
The two South Jersey viral videos — the one depicting the raid itself and Zobel’s raw reaction — revealed how both the terrorizing tactics of masked immigration cops and the powerful reaction from often nonpolitical Americans, dubbed “neighborism,” are spreading far beyond the Minnesota tundra where this battle was initially met.
Indeed, local activists say Lindenwold — last stop on the heavily traveled PATCO line, just over 15 miles southeast of Philadelphia — has been under a relentless siege from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal agents since last spring, not long after Donald Trump became president. The transit hub has become a magnet for immigrants in recent years, with a local school population that is just under 60% Latino.
Craig Strimel, a leader of Cooper River Indivisible, a local chapter of the group that organized the large “No Kings” protests, said activists first learned of the ICE activity when a Lindenwold immigrant couple escaped agents last year by taking refuge in the local high school, where the principal blocked the feds at the doorway. Since then, Strimel said, ICE watchers have seen frequent activity in and around a cluster of five apartment complexes with large immigrant populations, but few known arrests.
“It was becoming apparent early on that this was all about creating terror,” said Strimel of the frequent ICE sightings. Some local residents stopped leaving their apartments, he said, and a once-popular restaurant in Lindenwold just closed its doors amid rumors that the couple that owned it has returned to Mexico.
All of this set the stage for last Thursday, when masked federal agents wearing tactical gear arrived early in the morning at Lindenwold’s Woodland Village Apartments just as 44 elementary school kids were waiting for their school bus. The sighting triggered a panic that saw some kids running away and others frantically hustling onto the bus as the driver arrived. No one was apprehended or reported hurt.
On Monday, U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials said the agents went to the complex hoping to arrest a Honduran immigrant who’d once been convicted of aggravated assault. The man was not taken on Thursday and remains free.
Although some outlets reported the large protest was in response to the high-profile raid — which has been covered by the CBS Evening News, MS Now’sMorning Joe, and elsewhere — that took place just a day and a half earlier, the rally actually had been in the works for several weeks.
It had been organized by a young woman from Lindenwold named Tatiana — a 20-year-old business major at Camden County Community College who spoke with me Monday on the condition that I not use her full name — who’d been seeing the ICE activity in her hometown and felt it was time local people spoke out.
Tatiana told me that the idea behind the Lindenwold protest was “to give the community a voice — to be able to say, ‘No, we don’t stand for this.’ That’s the most important thing for me. It’s just bringing community together and deciding we’re not OK with this at all.” But she agreed the bus stop raid had given the event a boost from residents believing “that children should not be scared of federal law enforcement.”
Zobel was one of those neighbors. In the email interview, he described himself as “just your average Joe who grew up in Haddon Heights.” He did volunteer that he’s voted in every election since he turned 18, and that his first ballot was cast for Barack Obama, “and I felt proud walking out of the booth that day.”
Fittingly, Zobel sounded somewhat Obama-esque when he described his dismay over America’s bitter partisan divide. “We as a nation are so angry with one another, and that makes me so sad,” he said. Not surprisingly, he’s as stunned as anyone at the millions of views for Friday’s video, and somewhat concerned about the impact, saying, “I just hope this video does not divide people.”
But Zobel’s words and teary-eyed emotion went viral because it was such a shot of hope — that in a moment when hate is on public display in the streets of the United States, “your average Joe” who’d once stood on the sidelines is now grabbing the American flag and taking the field to fight for their neighbors. An authoritarian movement dependent on rage simply never counted on the brotherly love that sent this nonpolitical Eagles fan to his first protest.
It might not be his last. “I am always happy,” he said, “to help support humanity.”
Yo, do this!
With several inches of snow still on the ground, it might shock you to hear this, but American soccer is back! The Philadelphia Union — despite winning the 2025 Supporters Shield and boasting Major League Soccer’s best winning percentage in the 2020s — radically shook things up during the offseason. With new strikers Ezekiel Alladoh and Agustín Anello looking to amp up their attack, the Union’s quest for the CONCACAF Champions Cup begins Wednesday in Trinidad against Defence Force FC at 6 p.m. on FS2. Saturday night at 7:30 p.m., it’s back to the chillier climes of Washington for the MLS opener against DC United on Apple TV (with no need in 2026 for an additional Season Pass subscription, as in past years).
In the quest for what’s new in American popular culture, sometimes we take for granted the established jewels in our midst. I’ve long felt that MS Now’s 9 p.m. (now just on Monday nights) host Rachel Maddow is our best TV commentator because of the way she weaves the historical past into the headlines of America’s tortured present. But since last summer, she has upped her game. Maddow’s coverage of two stories underreported in most of the mainstream media — grassroots resistance to the Trump regime, and now the push for a nationwide network of warehouse concentration camps — has created appointment television every Monday.
Ask me anything
Question: What is your take on the latest CBS censoring of [Stephen] Colbert? — @bcooper82.bsky.social via Bluesky
Answer: Another Tuesday morning breaking story on deadline: The CBS overseers of Late Night with Stephen Colbert — the top-rated talk show that’s nevertheless ending this year in what critics see as genuflecting to the Trump regime that the program frequently mocks — would not air a recorded interview with Texas state lawmaker and Democratic Senate primary candidate James Talarico. The backstory here is that the Federal Communications Commission has long exempted late-night talk shows from its equal time rule about political candidates on licensed broadcast outlets, but last month, FCC chair Brendan Carr — a pro-Trump MAGA pit bull — said this is changing. That apparently was enough for CBS’s new Trump-friendly management, which would not broadcast the interview (available on YouTube, now certain to get more views than if it hadn’t been censored). This new flap just highlights what a perilous moment this is for the First Amendment and American democracy writ large. Government limits on what viewpoints you can see or hear are a sign of dictatorship, full stop.
What you’re saying about …
Last week’s question about a winning Democratic strategy for the 2026 midterms drew a robust response, and almost all of the replies were thoughtful and nuanced. If there was a consensus, it was that Democrats should tailor their candidates to the divergent views of the congressional districts they hope to win. As Naomi Miller stated, “I think progressive candidates should run in progressive districts, and mainstream democrats in mainstream, purple, and red districts.” Still, a number of you think America’s bad experience with MAGA extremism means a sharp left turn is warranted in response. “I’d like for the Democrats to become more progressive and combative toward Trump than they already are,” wrote Benjamin Spohn, voicing an opinion many share these days.
📮 This week’s question: Tuesday’s passing of the Rev. Jesse Jackson is one more reminder that many icons of America’s tumultuous 20th century are disappearing. So who do you think is the current greatest living American, and why? Please email me your answer and put the exact phrase “greatest living American” in the subject line.
Backstory on the main reason the media is not trusted
Exterior images of CNN headquarters in Atlanta and the New York Times Building in Manhattan.
It’s rare these days to write something that everyone can agree on, but here goes: Public trust in the media has never been lower than it is today. How low? A Gallup poll last fall found that public trust in the ability of newspapers, TV, and radio to fairly and accurately report the news had plunged to 28%, the lowest ever recorded. Why? It’s complicated. The people’s faith in every major institution has declined in the 21st century, after all. And it’s clear that in a deeply divided America, rage against the media machine looks different from the left than it does from the right.
This weekend, in a New York Times piece largely about the broken promises of one media-mogul billionaire — Washington Post owner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos — columnist Lydia Polgreen put forth an explanation for sinking media trust that jibes with a lot of what I’ve witnessed since graduating into full-time journalism back in 1981. I believe it’s not the only reason — but the biggest, and maybe the most misunderstood.
Polgreen noted that the common theory for the public turning against Big Media — that journalists grew more partisan and biased after the tumult of the 1960s and ‘70s — doesn’t comport with the bigger reality. The era that peaked with the publication of the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate scandal launched a decades-long golden era of profitable news organizations spending big on investigative and accountability journalism — exactly what viewers and readers claimed they wanted.
Yet, trust declined as that happened. Polgreen cited a study in the late 1990s that compared then-contemporary media to 1960s newspapers and found the earlier times were “naïvely trusting of government, shamelessly boosterish, unembarrassedly hokey and obliging.” Polgreen wrote that moving “away from deferential stenography and toward fearless investigation … led to declining trust in the news media. Aggressive, probing and accountability-oriented journalism held up a mirror to American society — and many Americans didn’t like what they saw.”
I think this explanation is spot on, but before readers jump all over me, let me quickly add a couple of caveats. Starting way back in Ronald Reagan’s 1980s, there was also a response to the growing backlash — especially in elite, Beltway journalism — that resulted in too much groveling to authority, and thus stenography around government lies like the 2003 Iraq War. This has only gotten worse with the current wave of billionaire owners like the Post’s Bezos. This means many liberals now also distrust the media, but not for the same reasons as conservatives, who’ve long loathed journalism for probing America’s inequities around race or gender.
The explanation offered by Polgreen jumped out at me because it fit with what I explored in my 2022 book, After the Ivory Tower Falls, which looked at Americans losing trust in another large institution: colleges and universities. The liberal ideas that were nurtured on campuses in the postwar college enrollment boom — including the civil rights movement — triggered the same grievance-filled, largely white working-class backlash as did journalism about social injustice. Today, the only road back for the media is to hold the powerful to account — and understand that not everyone is going to like it.
What I wrote on this date in 2022
People can’t say they didn’t see America’s current crisis coming. On this date four years ago, I expressed my shock and amazement that little more than one year beyond Donald Trump’s attempted coup to stay in power, the right-wing’s creation of a political fantasy world was spiraling out of control, with lies about Hillary Clinton spying on Trump’s 2016 campaign and Joe Biden giving out free crack pipes (?!!). I wrote, “[Historian Ruth] Ben-Ghiat told me that the failure of the Jan. 6 insurrection only forced the GOP to double-down on embracing alternate realities, because ‘they have to reckon with the fact that [Trump] lost, that he’s no longer the leader.’”
There’s been no rest on themass deportation beat. In my Sunday column, I looked at the out-of-control lying from the Trump regime, with unbelievable fictions about everything from shootings and rampant brutality by masked immigration officers to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s whoppers about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. I argued that government lying is fundamentally unconstitutional and that the perpetrators need to be punished, including prison time. Over the weekend, I wrote about how, while Minneapolis was a victory for the forces resisting American authoritarianism, that won’t stop Homeland Security from putting thousands of new officers on the street and expanding its concentration camps. The fight for the soul of the nation has only just begun.
What was I saying higher up in this newsletter about accountability journalism? Ever since Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society push in the mid-1960s, community nonprofits have been a valuable source of urban renewal, yet aresometimes dragged down by waste, fraud, and abuse. It’s a problem that sadly persists, as shown last week by a major Inquirer investigation into Philadelphia’s NOMO Foundation, one of the best-funded nonprofits attacking youth violence and crime. Ace reporters Ryan W. Briggs and Samantha Melamed found that the foundation has received more than $6 million in public funds in recent years, but faced an IRS lien and eviction lawsuits while it was forced to close its housing program. This is why we have a First Amendment, so that a free press can report on the problems a corrupt or inept government refuses to deal with. Subscribing to The Inquirer gives you access to this type of essential journalism, and you’ll also feel good about supporting this vital work.
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The race to fill Philadelphia’s open congressional seat is the marquee election in the city this year, but with less than four months left until primary election day, it has yet to attract much money from political action committees or donors outside the region.
Most of the campaign thus far has been funded by big checks from individual donors, and several of the top contenders to represent Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District — the most Democratic in the nation — have raised most of their money from people who live in Pennsylvania.
That’s according to an Inquirer analysis of recently filed campaign finance reports that break down contributions to each candidate between October and December.
The filings, coupled with previous financial reports, provide a snapshot of who is contributing to each Democrat’s campaign heading into the election year, and how capable each contender is of powering their operations and advertising.
While money is not the only factor in a political campaign, fundraising prowess can be used as a predictor of viability, and it can persuade other donors to contribute. Ten candidates announced they are running for the seat held by retiring U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans, but it’s likely that not all of them will make it onto the May 19 primary election ballot.
However, the two physicians in the contest, Ala Stanford and David Oxman, have each dedicated six-figure loans to their own campaigns, and progressive State Rep. Chris Rabb is expected to draw donations from left-leaning groups.
Physician Ala Stanford (right) arrives at a forum hosted by the 9th Ward Democratic Committee Dec. 4, 2025. She is a Democratic candidate running to represent Philadelphia’s Third Congressional District.
Interest from outside Philly will also likely rise as the primary election draws near.
If national political figures weigh in on the race, they can lean on their vast networks of donors across the country to keep their preferred candidates’ campaigns afloat.
And deep-pocketed special-interest groups with their eyes on influencing Congress may seek to sway the race in its final months.
Not much PAC money — yet
Under decades-old campaign finance law, corporations cannot give directly to candidates for federal office. But their executives, board members, and employees can fund PACs that are used as vehicles to prop up their supported candidates.
As the role of money in politics has drawn scrutiny over the years, so has the reliance on so-called corporate PACs. That is especially true among some Democrats who see accepting money from them as a litmus test of their working-class bona fides.
Rabb has hammered the issue in public forums and debates. He says he has never accepted corporate PAC money since his first run for office in 2015, and has repeatedly called on the other contenders to refuse corporate PAC funding.
None of the candidates for the 3rd District has thus far leaned on corporate PAC money, according to the campaign finance reports.
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However, PACs associated with labor unions have gotten involved.
Street raised about $40,000 in the last period from PACs associated with labor groups. He is backed by the deep-pocketed Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Council, an umbrella organization of unions that endorsed him last fall.
In the past, the trades have also funded super PACs, outside spending groups that can raise unlimited amounts of money but must follow strict rules largely barring them from coordinating directly with the campaigns they support.
Ryan Boyer, head of the Philadelphia Building & Construction Trades Council, was one of the first to speak at Cherelle Parker’s election night party at the Sheet Metal Workers Local 19 on Nov. 7, 2023.
But no such super PAC has materialized so far, according to campaign finance reports. Rather, the bigger financial factor in this race — at least through the end of last year — was candidates lending money to their own campaigns. Stanford put up $250,000 on Dec. 31, the last day of the reporting period. And Oxman has lent his campaign $175,000.
Small vs. big-dollar donors
While the candidates relied largely on donations from individuals, the size of the checks they brought in varied. Under campaign finance limits, individuals can give up to $3,500 to a candidate per election.
The average contribution to State Rep. Morgan Cephas since she announced her campaign was $596 — about half of Street’s and Rabb’s average contributions. Individual donors gave the most to Stanford, on average, with the average contribution to her campaign totaling $1,737.
That analysis includes only donors who contributed more than $200 through the course of the year. Campaigns are required to itemize only contributions above that threshold.
State Rep. Chris Rabb at a forum hosted by the 9th Ward Democratic Committee Dec. 4, 2025. He is a Democratic candidate running to represent Philadelphia’s Third Congressional District.
Small donations, or contributions under $200, have made up a tiny fraction of the money brought in by the top contenders so far, according to the latest filings. About 11.5% of the money Rabb raised was from small-dollar donors. Such contributions made up less than 5% of all funding for Stanford, Oxman, and Street.
The one outlier was Pablo Iván McConnie-Saad, an ex-Treasury Department official under former President Joe Biden. His campaign has been somewhat low-profile so far; however, small-dollar contributions made up a quarter of his total of $119,000 raised.
His campaign said in a statement that the filings are evidence that his run is “entirely people powered.”
Stanford’s campaign manager, Janée Taft-Mack, noted that the pediatric surgeon has been campaigning for a shorter amount of time than several of her opponents. She announced her campaign in October, several months after Street and Rabb.
Taft-Mack added that the range of donors “underscores a coalition that crosses income levels, neighborhoods, and communities.”
Where the money came from
While every candidate vying for Evans’ seat has touted grassroots support, it appears that Cephas and Street raised the most money from donors who live in Philadelphia.
About half of the individual donors who gave more than $200 to Street and Cephas are city residents. Both candidates have also raised the most money from donors living in Pennsylvania.
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Street, who formerly led the state Democratic Party and has connections to donors across Pennsylvania, raised 81% of his individual contributions, or about $488,000, from in-state residents. For Cephas, the share was 78%,or about $162,000.
Anthony Campisi, a spokesperson for Street, said the latest finance report “highlights the entire point of our campaign.”
“Sharif is running to represent Philadelphians from across an incredibly diverse district,” he said, “and is building the coalition needed to both win and effectively serve in Congress.”
Cephas’ campaign manager, Salvatore Colleluori, said her fundraising within the city shows she has a “broad base of support, especially in Philadelphia.”
“She has been a champion for Philadelphia in the state House, and people know that,” he said. “They want to support that work.”
Rabb, a progressive who has support from left-leaning organizations and activists outside the region, had among the lowest share of contributions from Philly-based donors, according to The Inquirer’s analysis.
He said in a statement that when small-dollar donations are accounted for, he believes he will have “more Philly donations than any of the establishment candidates.”
Rabb said he will soon be rolling out endorsements from progressive organizations “that will significantly grow our donor base.”
Staff writer Sean Collins Walsh contributed to this article.
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt on Wednesday rejected President Donald Trump’s false claims about voter fraud in the stateas Trump targeted Philadelphia in his push to nationalize elections.
The state’s top election official said Trump’s proposal would violate the Constitution, which he noted clearly gives states exclusive authority to administer elections.
“Pennsylvania elections have never been more safe and secure,” said Schmidt, who served as Philadelphia’s Republican city commissioner in 2020, when the city was at the center of Trump’s conspiracy theories.
“Thousands of election officials — Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike — across the Commonwealth’s 67 counties will continue to ensure we have free, fair, safe, and secure elections for the people of Pennsylvania,” he said in a statement.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday in the Oval Office, Trump cited Philadelphia, Detroit, and Atlanta as examples of where the federal government should run elections. He singled out three predominantly Black cities in swing states but offered no evidence of voter fraud or corruption to support his claims of a “rigged election.”
“Take a look at Detroit. Take a look at Pennsylvania, take a look at Philadelphia. You go take a look at Atlanta,” Trump said.“The federal government should get involved.”
Philadelphia has been a frequent target of Trump’s false claims of election fraud for several years, going back to his efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 election. City and state officials have persistently pushed back on those claims, and there is no evidence that elections in the city have been anything but free and fair.
Trump is advocating for taking control of elections in 15 states, though his administration has not named which ones.
“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over,’” Trump said in December. “We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many — 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”
But, Pennsylvania officials and experts noted, he lacks the power to do so unilaterally.
“The president has zero authority to order anything about elections,” said Marian Schneider, an election attorney who was Pennsylvania’s deputy secretary of elections during the 2016 election.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed to reporters early Tuesday the president was referring to the SAVE Act, legislation proposed by House Republicans require citizens to show documents like a passport or driver’s license to register to vote.
But Trump didn’t mention the legislationTuesday.
Trump will face an uphill battle in nationalizing elections as even some Republicans in Congress are already pushing back. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) told reporters Tuesday he disagreed with Trump on any attempt to nationalize elections, calling it “a constitutional issue.”
“I’m not in favor of federalizing elections,” Thune said.
Still, Trump’s comments raised alarm as his administration continues to sow doubt in the nation’s elections.
“This is clearly a case of Trump trying to push the boundaries of federal involvement in election administration because he has a problem with any checks on his power, democracy being one of them,” said Montgomery County Commissioner Neil Makhija, an attorney and a Democrat who chairs the Montgomery County Board of Elections.
Trump’s comments came a week after the FBI seized ballots and voting records from the 2020 election from the Fulton County election hub in Georgia. In a statement, Fulton County Commissioner Marvin Arrington Jr. said the countywill file a motion in the Northern District of Georgia challenging “the legality of the warrant and the seizure of sensitive election records, and force the government to return the ballots taken.”
Lisa Deeley, a Democratic member of the Philadelphia city commissioners, who oversee elections, accused Trump of trying to distract from federal agents killing two civilians in Minnesota last month.
“We all know the President’s playbook by now. His remarks on elections are an effort to change the conversation from the fact that the Federal Government is killing American citizens in Minneapolis,” Deeley said in a statement.
Trump has been making similar claims since 2016, when he erroneously blamed fraud for costing him the popular vote.During a debate with his 2020 opponent, Joe Biden, Trump said, “Bad things happen in Philadelphia, bad things,” viewed at the time as an attempt to sow doubt about the election results and mail voting during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite losing to Biden in Pennsylvania in 2020 by a little more than 80,000 votes, Trump has repeatedly claimed he actually won, lying about mail-in votes “created out of thin air” and falsely stating there were more votes than voters.
“Every single review of every single county in the commonwealth has come back within a very small difference, if any, of the results reported back in 2020,” Kathy Boockvar, who served as Pennsylvania’s secretary of state during the 2020 election, told The Inquirer in 2024.
State Sen. Sharif Street maintained his financial advantage. Physicians Ala Stanford and David Oxman have turned to self-funding their campaigns. And State Reps. Chris Rabb and Morgan Cephas are low on cash — but one might be getting help soon.
The crowded Democratic primary for Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District is beginning to come into focus after the candidates this weekend filed new campaign finance reports. The filings cover the last three months of 2025, providing insights into the candidates’ resources as the campaign heats up.
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Fundraising will not be the only factor that determines the outcome of the May primary election, which will ultimately be decided by voters. But the 3rd District candidates need money to pay staff and buy advertisements to spread their message, and the beginning of an election year is often a pivotal time for campaigns to prove their viability.
Map of Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District.
After U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans (D., Philadelphia) last year announced he would not seek reelection to the nation’s bluest district, more than a dozen candidates tossed their hats in the ring. It’s likely some will not stay in the race long enough to appear on the May 19 primary ballot.
The 3rd District includes all of Northwest and West Philadelphia, as well as parts of Center City and North, South, and Southwest Philadelphia.
Street led the field by raising about $347,000 from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31 of last year, according to his report. His campaign spent $193,000 during that period, and he had $527,000 in cash on hand at the start of 2026.
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Campaign manager Josh Uretsky said Street’s fundraising totals “demonstrate that our strong track record of progressive leadership — from lowering health care costs to leading the fight to legalize recreational cannabis and reform our justice system — is resonating in every corner of the district.”
State Sen. Sharif Street speaks in front ofthe engraved names of nine enslaved people who lived and worked at President George Washington’s home, as the 15th anniversary of the President’s House exhibit in Independence National Historical Park is celebrated Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025.
Street has benefited from contributions from the deep-pocketed building trades unions, which endorsed him last fall. In the past, those unions have also funded outside spending committees, or super PACs, to support their preferred candidates, and it’s likely they’ll do the same for Street this spring.
Street collected more than $40,000 from labor groups in the most recent reporting period.
First-time candidates Ala Stanford and David Oxman turn to self-funding
Last month, it appeared that Stanford,a pediatric surgeon, was raking in cash when her campaign released a statement saying she had raised more than $467,000, a significant haul for a first-time candidate. The campaign said at the time that her fundraising prowess “solidifies [her] leading role” in the race.
But it turns out that more than half of the money the campaign brought in came from Stanford herself. The new report showed that Stanford lent her campaign $250,000 on Dec. 31, the last day of the reporting period, bringing her total cash on hand to about $392,000 at the end of the year.
Physician Ala Stanford at a forum hosted by the 9th Ward Democratic Committee Dec. 4, 2025.
In a statement Monday, Stanford emphasized her humble upbringing in North Philadelphia public housing, saying she “never imagined being in this position, but this city has given me so much.”
Her campaign noted that she also invested her own money in her nonprofit organization, the Black Doctors Consortium, to bolster the city’s COVID-19 testing and vaccination programs during the height of the pandemic.
“I’ve stood up and led during a crisis before — and spent my own money to do it — so I’m going do whatever it takes to fight for our city,” Stanford said. “I’m incredibly grateful that in just the first few months of our campaign, that commitment has been matched with amazing grassroots financial support, too, and we’re just getting started.”
Stanford is not the only doctor self-funding their congressional campaign. Oxman, another political outsider and physician, brought in just over $107,000 between October and December — including $75,000 that he lent to his own campaign.
Oxman, an intensive-care physician and professor at Thomas Jefferson University, has lent his campaign $175,000. At the end of the year, he had $357,000 in the bank.
Physician David Oxman at a forum hosted by the 9th Ward Democratic Committee Dec. 4, 2025.
In a press release Sunday, Oxman emphasized that he was not accepting corporate PAC donations.
“You cannot fight for the health of the people of the 3rd district while you are taking money from nursing home companies and health insurance PACs,” Oxman said. “The corporatization of medicine is just a piece of a larger corporatization of American life that is hollowing out our economy as well as our democracy.”
Chris Rabb and Morgan Cephas enter 2026 low on cash
Both Cephas and Rabb raised less money in the fourth quarter of 2025 than in the opening months of their campaigns, and they both closed the year with roughly $100,000 in cash on hand.
Cephas, who represents a West Philadelphia district and chairs the city’s delegation to the Pennsylvania House, entered the year with about $109,000 in cash on hand.
State Rep. Morgan Cephas at a news conference Sept. 3, 2025.
“The residents of the 3rd Congressional District are more concerned with the skyrocketing cost of living, fewer health care options, and making sure their communities are safe than who raised the most money,” Cephas campaign manager Salvatore Colleluori said. “Rep. Cephas has only one priority in this race, the residents of Philadelphia’s 3rd Congressional District.”
“I’m incredibly proud of the thousands of people in Philly and across the country fueled by a movement so much bigger than electoral politics,” Rabb said. “Our momentum is undeniable. We always knew we wouldn’t outraise the corporate-backed and self-funded campaigns — and we don’t need to.”
Pablo McConnie-Saad, a 39-year-old South Philly resident who worked in Biden’s administration, entered the race to represent Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District.
Meanwhile, Pablo Iván McConnie-Saad — a Bella Vista resident who worked in Delaware politics before serving in the Treasury Department under former President Joe Biden — brought in a fundraising haul similar to the sitting state representatives last quarter despite his campaign largely flying under the radar.
McConnie-Saad collected $119,000 in contributions last quarter, and he had $69,000 on hand at the start of the year.
In a statement, campaign field director Matt Cárdenas said McConnie-Saad offered voters a “different choice.”
“This campaign is entirely people-powered,” he said. “No corporate PAC money, no AIPAC, just everyday people investing in a different kind of politics. We’re proud of what we’ve built so far. Politicians have failed us, and Washington won’t change unless we challenge it.”
The Democratic Socialists of America’s Philadelphia chapter recently endorsed him, as did two liberal wards in South Philadelphia. And Reclaim Philadelphia leaders are recommending that its members back Rabb in the progressive group’s internal endorsement process.
The Working Families Party of Pennsylvania, which often funds super PACs to back left-leaning candidates, has not yet weighed in.
Candidates (from left) State Reps. Morgan Cephas, and Chris Rabb; and physician David Oxman appear at a forum hosted by the 9th Ward Democratic Committee in Mt. Airy Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025.
“We’re still going through an active endorsement process, but we’re confident that we will land on a progressive who will fight for working people, not billionaire donors, big corporations, or special interests,” said Nick Gavio, a spokesperson for the party.
Additionally, the Justice Democrats, a national group founded by operatives from Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, may also get involved. In the past, the PAC has backed candidates with similar platforms to Rabb’s.
Justice Democrats “will likely come to a decision with news to share in the very near future in support of a candidate we can be confident will represent the values of the everyday people in this district,” spokesperson Usamah Andrabi said.
Data reporter Joe Yerardi contributed to this article.
New Jersey and Pennsylvania are poised to regain roughly $244 million in federal funding for electric‑vehicle charging stations after securing a legal victory over the Trump administration.
New Jersey announced this week that it expects $73 million to be reinstated.
Pennsylvania had planned on $171.5 million in EV‑charging funds last year, according to Alex Peterson, a spokesperson for Gov. Josh Shapiro.
“This ruling guarantees that these obligated funds cannot again be interrupted,” Peterson said.
On Friday, a U.S. District Court sided with 20 states that filed suit last year demanding restoration of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program (NEVI). New Jersey and Pennsylvania were among the plaintiffs.
In her decision, Judge Tana Lin, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, prohibited the Department of Transportation from withholding funding for approved state EV‑charger deployment plans.
Lin concluded from Seattle that the Federal Highway Administration (FHA) overstepped its authority by halting funding already authorized by Congress. She described the agency’s action as arbitrary and capricious.
“This win puts New Jersey back on track for $73 million in funding unlawfully stripped away through the Trump Administration’s illegal actions,” Jennifer Davenport, New Jersey’s acting attorney general, said this week in a statement. “New Jerseyans want sustainable transportation options.”
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware were among plaintiffs in the suit against a Trump administration freeze on the $5 billion. It’s unclear whether Trump administration officials will appeal.
The states’ legal challenge stemmed from an executive order President Donald Trump signed on his Inauguration Day to eliminate EV mandates — which the suit states never existed.
Regardless, the suit stated, the administration used the order to “immediately pause the disbursement of funds” for EV infrastructure appropriated through the Inflation Reduction and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs acts signed by Biden.
Other states that joined the suit included Washington, Colorado, California, Arizona, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
Davenport called the Trump administration’s refusal to spend funds approved by Congress “unlawful.”
This story has been updated to include newer figures on Pennsylvania’s plan to fund EV charging infrastructure.
On Thursdays at 7 a.m., Laura Carlson is by the iconic granite and bronze sculpture of an open book on University of Delaware’s Mentor’s Circle.
As the new university president, she invites faculty, staff, students and community members to join her there and run a five-kilometer loop through campus. Typically 10 to 20 people show.
“Rain or shine, we run down to the track on South Campus, loop the track and come back,” said Carlson, 60, who began the treks as interim president last summer and is continuing them in her permanent role, which started earlier this month.
University of Delaware president Laura Carlson (right) goes on one of her Prez Runs in Mobile, Ala., where the Blue Hens won a bowl game, defeating Louisiana-Lafayette 20-13 on Dec. 17, 2025.
The “Prez Run” is just one way the psychology scholar — who plans to run her 15th Boston Marathon in April — is building relationships on campus, with alumni and with the community and state. She also runs with alumni, employees, and students during events in other cities.
“I’ve heard that the alumni association is going to put it on their bucket list of 10 things to do before you graduate,” she said.
Carlson, a Dartmouth alumna who got her doctorate in cognitive psychology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, is focused on strengthening relationships with state and local governments and internally with faculty. Finding new revenue streams to plug holes from terminated federal grants and recruiting students in new national markets also are on her list.
The Massachusetts native previously served as provost for three years, having come to Delaware after 28 years as a faculty member and administrator at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. She’s the first internal candidate to get the presidential appointment in about 50 years.
She follows Dennis Assanis, who resigned in June and is now chancellor of the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Laura Carlson, president of the University of Delaware
Carlson is visiting classes each semester, including elementary organic chemistry and mechanical engineering.
“I want to make sure I don’t feel distant from the rhythm of the academic year,” she said. “Anything we value, we should put attention on it.”
When building a team, she asks participants to pick their top 10 values, such as family, world peace, humor, and authenticity, and rank them. Her top value is always purpose.
University of Delaware president Laura Carlson talks to fellow runners during one of her Prez Runs in Mobile, Ala., where the football team won a bowl game.
“I want to live a life of purpose,” she said.
Partnering with state and local government
She’s attempting to change the way the partnership with the state is viewed.
“We lead with what does the state need from us, as opposed to what do we need from the state,” she said.
Southern Delaware, where the university has a campus in Lewes and Georgetown, has housing, healthcare, education and workforce development needs, and the university can help, Carlson said.
She said she can envisiona public-private partnership for new housing in Lewes, she said,or a classroom building with event space for the community.
Laura Carlson, president of the University of Delaware, discusses her priorities.
“If we are a university for the whole state, we need to show up in the whole state, and we need to be responsive to the needs across the state,” she said.
She’s also looking at the possibility of more residential space for the main campus in Newark — possibly a “sophomore village” — through a public-private partnership. The university has about 7,100 residential beds in Newark.
“That would take some of the pressure off the city,” she said, noting the tight rental market, and adding that parents and students may prefer on-campus housing options.
She also wants to help Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer with his plan to bring medical education to the state. Delaware remains one of few states without a medical school. The idea is not to build one from scratch but to partner with an existing medical university, she said.
“We’ve been in conversations with Thomas Jefferson” in Philadelphia, which has a nonexclusive memorandum of understanding with the state to explore a partnership, she said. “What we offer is the classrooms, the lab space, and so on to do kind of the first part of that medical school type of training.”
Dealing with the federal government could be more challenging. The university has lost 41 grants worth $33.9 million since President Donald Trump took office last year. Those span engineering, biological sciences, arts, and sustainability, she said, and impact 117 graduate students and 27 postdoctoral students.
In total, $1.1 million in salaries and $2.1 million in stipends have been lost, though the university has been working to find other funding through foundations and industry, she said. No one has lost their job, she said.
“I’ve been really working hard on … kind of strengthening those relationships with our business community,” she said.
The school also has experienced a 19% decline in international graduate students following Trump’s pause on student visas and other policies, and the school lowered its doctoral admissions by 19.5% last year amid concerns over federal funding. What will happen with doctoral admissions this year is unclear.
“Each college is sort of looking strategically program by program and trying to figure out what is the right size for their doctoral programs,” she said. “If they’re compressing their number of students coming in, it’s because they’re trying to prioritize funding for their existing students.”
The school’s overall enrollment of more than 24,000 rose last fall and applications are up 10%, she said. But as another drop in high school graduates begins this year, the university has found success in new recruiting areas such as Colorado and Wake Forest, N.C., where the football team played as part of the school’s entry into Conference USA, she said.
“We’ve been very strategic about putting marketing in there, convening alumni and really using that as a way to establish ourselves more nationally,” she said.
Biden Institute — and a conservative counterpart
She said the university is on course to build Biden Hall, an academic building named for former President Joe Biden, a Delaware native. It will house the school’s Biden School of Public Policy and Administration and the Biden Institute on government theory and practice. The design phase likely will begin this spring.
Fundraising is also continuing for Siegfried Hall, which will include the Institute for Free Leadership and Enterprise. The donors, Robert L. Siegfried Jr., a certified public accountant and his wife, Kathleen Marie (Horgan) Siegfried, have said they wanted to bring a “conservative” vision and offer a balance to the Biden Institute.
Carlson said she doesn’t view the halls as conservative and liberal, but rather places where ideas can be vetted. She noted the Biden Institute is nonpartisan.
“Siegfried is a think tank on conservative economics, but part of that building will be also to sort of question the limits of those policies,” she said. “That’s what we do in any discipline.”
Personal life
Here are a few fun facts about Carlson, whose husband, Robert West, is a professor of psychological and brain sciences at the university.
Last book read: Chris Whitaker’s All the Colors of the Dark.
Favorite band or musical group: Bruce Springsteen.
Favorite food: Indian. Greek.
Favorite vacation spot: “I spend so little time at my house. Some of my best days on break are if you don’t even get out of your pajamas.”
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro questioned whether he was being unfairly scrutinized asthe only Jewish person being considered as a finalistto be Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate — and briefly entertained his own run for the presidency — according to a copy of his upcoming book obtained by The Inquirer.
Shapiro, a popular Democratic governor long rumored to have future presidential ambitions, even briefly entertained a run shortly after then-President Joe Biden unexpectedly dropped out of the race in July 2024, according to his book. The Abington Township resident is now seen as a top contender for the 2028 Democratic nomination as he seeks reelection in Pennsylvania this year.
But before Shapiro ended up in the veepstakes for Harris’ running mate, he wrote in his book that there was a moment right after Biden dropped out of the race where he considered whether he should run for president.
“Well, now what?” Shapiro wrote. “Maybe there would be a process the party would engage in to replace him? Did I want to be part of that?”
He called his wife, Lori, who at the time was out of the country with their two younger kids. “I don’t think we are ready to do this,” Shapiro recalled his wife saying from a Walmart in Vancouver. “It’s not the right time for our family. And it’s not on our terms.”
After that call, Shapiro wrote that he quickly decided he didn’t want to run and would back Harris, as Biden also endorsed her for the top of the ticket.
Once the field cleared for Harris, Shapiro recalled seeing his face on TV as her potential running mate, before he was asked by her campaign manager to be formally vetted.
In the days that followed,Shapiro contended with increasing national scrutiny as he emerged as a front-runner. Some pro-Palestinian protesters began calling Shapiro “Genocide Josh” online, he wrote. And top Democrats questioned whether a Jewish running mate would deter voters from supporting Harris, as Shapiro had been outspoken against some pro-Palestinian campus protests that year.
What was unknown: Whether those same questions — and some even more extreme — were circulating within Harris’ camp, Shapiro wrote in his most detailed retelling of his experience vying for the vice presidency to date.
Gov. Josh Shapiro at a rally for Vice President Kamala Harris at Wissahickon High School in Ambler on July 29, 2024.
Just before he went to meet with Harris at the vice president’s residence in the summer of 2024, Shapiro received a call from Dana Remus, former White House counsel for Biden who was coleading the vetting process for Harris.
“Have you ever been an agent of the Israeli government?” Remus asked, according to Shapiro’s memoir.
“Had I been a double agent for Israel? Was she kidding?” Shapiro wrote in his 257-page book. “I told her how offensive the question was.”
According to the memoir, Remus then asked if Shapiro had ever communicated with an undercover Israeli agent, which he shot back: “If they were undercover… how the hell would I know?”
“Remus was just doing her job. I get it. But the fact that she asked, or was told to ask that question by someone else, said a lot about some of the people around the VP,” Shapiro wrote.
In high school, Shapiro completed a program in Israel that included service projects on a farm, and at a fishery in a kibbutz, as well as at an Israeli army base, which he once described in his college student newspaper as “a past volunteer in the Israeli army.”
Harris’ office could not be reached for comment Sunday evening. Remus also could not immediately be reached for comment Sunday.
Shapiro, more broadly, recalled getting the feeling from Harris’ vetting team that she should pick Shapiro — a popular Democratic governor in a critical swing state — but that they had reservations about whether Shapiro’s views would mesh with Harris’.
In one vetting session with U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D., Nev.), former Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, former associate Attorney General Tony West, and former senior Biden adviser Cedric Richmond, Shapiro wrote that he had been questioned “a lot” about Israel, including why he had been outspoken against the protests at Penn.
“I wondered whether these questions were being posed to just me — the only Jewish guy in the running — or if everyone who had not held a federal office was being grilled about Israel in the same way,” he wrote. (Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who is Jewish, was also vetted to be Harris’ running mate. Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, is also Jewish.)
In his book, Shapiro recalled the whirlwind two weeks as an awe-inspiring window into an opportunity — but ultimately it was one he knew he didn’t want.
When Shapiro finally sat down with Harris in the dining room at the Naval Observatory, he said it became clear that she had a different vision for the vice presidency than what he wanted. He would work primarily with her staff and couldn’t say whether he would have access to her. In her own experience as vice president, she saw the job as mostly to make sure that you aren’t making any problems for the president, he wrote.
Shapiro noted his own relationship with his No. 2, Lt. Gov. Austin Davis. The role in itself has few powers, but Shapiro views Davis as a governing partner and is one of few people who can walk into his office unannounced at any time, he wrote. He wanted the same relationship with Harris, he said, noting that he knew he would not be the decision-maker.
“If we had door A and door B as options, and she was for door A and I was for door B, I just wanted to makes sure that I could make the case for door B,” Shapiro wrote.
But Harris was “crystal clear” that that wasn’t the kind of president-vice president dynamic she envisioned, he said.
In her own book released last year, 107 Days, Harris recalled the meeting differently. There, she wrote that Shapiro had “peppered” her with questions and “mused that he would want to be in the room for every decision.”His ambitions, she said, didn’t align with her view that a vice president should be a No. 2 and not a “copresident.”
Former Vice President Kamala Harris speaks with Dawn Staley (left), while promoting her new book “107 Days,” at the Met on Sept. 25 in Philadelphia. The event was held in partnership with Uncle Bobbie’s Coffee & Books.
As Shapiro tells it, the friction with Harris’ team didn’t stop there.
Shortly after meeting with Harris, Shapiro in his book recalled another unpleasant conversation with Remus, in which he wrote that she said she “could sense that I didn’t want to do this.”
According to the book, Remus said it would be hard for Shapiro to move to Washington, it would be a strain financially for his family who “didn’t have a lot of money” by D.C. standards, and that Lori would need to get a whole new wardrobe and pay people to do her hair and makeup.
It was then that he decided to leave the apartment where he had been asked to wait until Harris could come and talk to him again, he recalled.
“These comments were unkind to me. They were nasty to Lori,” Shapiro wrote. “I hold no grudge against Remus, who I know was doing the job she had to do, but I needed to leave.”
Shapiro went home, he said, and went over the day’s events with Lori at the edge of their bed.
“On one hand, I was still tugged by the prestige of it all. It’s an honor. It’s a big title. But that’s never been enough for me,” he wrote. Still, he struggled with what it would mean to withdraw, concerned about not playing his part in a high-stakes election and letting his supporters down. Ultimately, he decided that it was not his race to win or lose, he wrote.
“People were going to cast their votes for her, or they weren’t,” he added.
Vice President Kamala Harris, Democratic nominee for president, and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, address a rally to kick off their campaign at the Liacouras Center in Philadelphia, Pa., on Tuesday, August 6, 2024.
He decided that day he did not want the job, and toyed with the idea about publicly releasing a statement withdrawing himself from the running. He said he also tried to tell Harris he did not think it would be a good fit, but wasn’t able to reach her.
“I was wrung out. I just wanted to be home with my family, to take a walk with Lori, and just be,” he wrote.
Gov. Josh Shapiro takes the stage ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz at a rally in Philadelphia’s Liacouras Center on August 6, 2024.
But when it was time for him to take the stage ahead of Walz and Harris, he was long-applauded by his home city and gave a speech “from my heart” about how he took pride in his faith and his support for Walz and Harris.
Shapiro’s memoir will be released Jan. 27 and is a reflection on his decades as an elected official, including as Pennsylvania attorney general, as well as the firebombing of his home last year. He will tout the book in Philadelphia on Saturday at 3 p.m. at Parkway Central Library. He will also discuss the book at upcoming book tour stops in New York and Washington.
There are many things Donald Trump could regret about the aftermath of the 2020 election.
Perhaps it could be his nonstop lying about voter fraud, or how he was recorded asking Georgia election officials to “find” him the votes he needed. Maybe he has remorse about inciting the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol, violence that led to seven deaths and more than 100 injured law enforcement officers.
But no. What the president “regrets,” as he told the New York Times recently, is not ordering the National Guard to confiscate voting machines in swing states he lost.
If the idea of military reservists marching into Philadelphia polling places and walking out with the pesky will of the people seems far-fetched — just another of Trump’s rambling musings — then consider that he and his enablers are already laying the groundwork to undermine future elections.
With the midterms less than a year away, local and state officials must remain steadfast in their defense of free and fair elections, and voters must demand thattheir rights are protected.
The administration’s assault on the franchise began in March, when Trump issued an executive order seeking to exert control over election law that the Constitution does not grant the president, including demanding states avoid counting mail ballots postmarked by Election Day but received after.
The courts have so far stopped the order from taking effect, but it is worth noting that a new U.S. Postal Service rule changes when a piece of mail is postmarked — no longer when it is dropped off, but when it is processed. That means procrastinating voters in states where a ballot counts if mailed by Election Day can no longer take for granted their vote will be tallied.
Rioters try to break through a police barrier at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump has claimed he will target mail-in ballots and voting machines as part of his effort to “help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections.” He has also threatened election officials who oversaw the 2020 election with prosecution while pardoning the Jan. 6, 2021, rioters who sought to interfere with the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory.
Meanwhile, starting in May, the U.S. Department of Justice demanded that states turn over their complete voter registration lists. Many states have declined to comply, including Pennsylvania, and are being sued by the government. This is sensitive data that includes Social Security numbers, dates of birth, and home addresses.
Along with privacy concerns, there are fears that the Trump administration may seek to cast doubt on voter eligibility and pressure states to purge people from voting rolls. Already, there are examples of people being falsely identified as noncitizens by federal databases.
It is sadly not much of a leap to imagine Trump claiming widespread voting by noncitizens requires U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents be stationed at polling places. Of course, noncitizens can’t vote, but one does not need to be an immigrant to be intimidated by gun-toting masked forces who have shown they will fire first and expect no questions later.
The president has also successfully lobbied some Republican-controlled states to remake congressional maps to favor the GOP, regardless of their potential illegality. In Texas, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed 2025 redistricting maps to be used for the upcoming election, even as a legal challenge moves forward over racial gerrymandering. The high court’s conservative members are also likely to strike a blow against the Voting Rights Act this term, further emboldening voter suppression efforts.
The administration’s unprecedented machinations have fortunately run into the wisdom of the founders, who charged the states with running elections, not the federal government. The same decentralization that sometimes frustrates widespread election reform and the implementation of best practices also limits a wholesale takeover.
State election officials — Republicans and Democrats — have shown they take their charge seriously and are honor-bound to do their duty. Still, as Trump continues to consolidate power in the executive and stoke fears of widespread fraud, ensuring free and fair elections will require keeping the federal government from overstepping its authority.
