Josh Shapiro and Stephen Colbert talk Trump, arson, and his failed bid for student government

Gov. Josh Shapiro appeared on the The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Thursday night, less than a week after CBS announced the cancellation of the show, effective next year.

Colbert and Shapiro, both critics of President Donald Trump, spoke about the April arson attack on the governor’s residence in Harrisburg, fixing a rural gas pump after The Inquirer covered the issue, and connecting with Pennsylvanians who voted for the Republican president.

Colbert invited the Pennsylvania Democrat to come back at the end of the show, quipping “we’ve got 10 months.”

The decades-old late-night show will end in May 2026. Just days before CBS announced the cancellation, Colbert criticized a legal settlement between CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global, and Trump amid the president’s rising attacks on media organizations. CBS maintained that the show was canceled for financial reasons and not its content.

Shapiro, who has grown a national profile and is largely viewed as a potential contender for president in 2028, pursued various lawsuits against Trump as attorney general during the president’s first administration and called him a threat to democracy on the 2024 campaign trail. Shapiro signaled a willingness to work with Trump earlier this year but has gone back on the offense against the president as his term has progressed.

“We’ve never even met before; I’ve wanted to talk to you for a little while,” Colbert said as the segment began.

Here’s what they discussed:

Shapiro described how his family hosted a community Seder for Passover at the governor’s mansion earlier this year, “in the greatest country on the face of Earth, where you can celebrate your faith openly and freely and free of persecution,” which the audience applauded.

He said that when a Pennsylvania state trooper ran upstairs and told his family they had to evacuate about an hour after he drifted off to sleep, he thought it was an accident.

“There must be something in the kitchen or whatever,” he said. “We just got to make sure we got all the kids and the dogs out of the house.”

» READ MORE: The arson at Gov. Josh Shapiro’s mansion erupted within minutes. The impact lingers.

Then he learned it was a “deliberate act of arson,” he said.

“Someone had scaled the wall, broke into the house with a metal hammer, threw a bunch of Molotov cocktails around to destroy part of the home, and with that hammer, he was trying to make his way through the house to find me and beat me to death,” he added.

Shapiro said he felt supported by Pennsylvanians who came together to support him after the arson attack.

Shapiro, one of the most prominent Jewish politicians in the country, has long made his faith a tenant of his public identity and has previously spoken about how he has connected with people of various faiths because of it.

He said he prays daily but had never “had people praying for me like that, people from all different faiths, all different backgrounds.”

“And Steve, I know this sounds crazy, but I actually could feel their prayer,” he added. “I actually felt strengthened by their prayers, and that helped me and Lori and our four children heal.”

Shapiro has won nearly every election he’s run in: county commissioner, state representative, attorney general, and governor … but not all of them.

Shapiro said that in 11th grade he tried to impress a girl — now his wife, Lori — by running for student council.

“I got whooped,” he said. “There were three candidates, I finished dead last … did not impress the girl with that.”

That being said, he went on to marry that girl, who is now the first lady of Pennsylvania.

Colbert joked that Shapiro impressed her with his “resilience.”

Shapiro said the losing experience made him “less interested” in politics. He wanted to be a physician like his dad, he said, and was also into basketball.

“So you were torn between physician and NBA player,” Colbert said.

“No, no.” Shapiro answered. “I thought I could do both.”

Shapiro said he realized in college that his strengths didn’t particularly align with becoming a physician or basketball player. This time, he was elected to student government and “fell in love” with the work.

Shapiro and Trump both secured more than 50% of votes in Pennsylvania, and Colbert was curious about voters who supported both politicians.

Shapiro said they are “good folks,” who have “gotten frustrated over time because they saw governments just not solving problems for them.”

He said when he meets with those voters, most “aren’t thinking my team vs. yours, red vs. blue, left vs. right. They just want you to solve their problems.”

He mentioned his recent visit to Potter County after he read in the newspaper that a longtime gas pump on an ATV trail was no longer operational, as reported in The Inquirer, and secured funding to fix it.

» READ MORE: A rural Pa. general store gets a boost as the state helps reopen its only gas pump, following Inquirer report

Shapiro argued that the difference between him and the president is that Trump “talks a good game, and then when he gets to govern, he does the exact opposite,” like by cutting hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians off Medicaid.

“What Donald Trump has done with the power is turned his back on those communities that voted for him. He’s abandoned them, and he has made their lives worse,” Shapiro said. “My focus every day is on making their lives better.”