Pa.’s new attorney general won’t be suing President Trump. What you need to know about Republican Dave Sunday’s quest to be a ‘boring AG.’

Pennsylvania’s new attorney general, Dave Sunday, has a desire that few top prosecutors would ever say out loud in today’s hyperpolarized political environment: He wants to be boring.

Attorneys general have played an increasingly important role in national politics in recent years. They have become the first line of defense against new federal policies, challenging each presidential administration — from Republican attorneys general thwarting former President Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan to Democratic attorneys general filing lawsuit after lawsuit in President Donald Trump’s first two months in office to challenge Trump’s many executive orders.

So Sunday, a Republican elected as part of November’s “red wave” election — where the GOP in Pennsylvania swept all three statewide row offices, the presidency, and the open U.S. Senate seat — has a noteworthy ambition to avoid the limelight and politicking.

“Too much in society, people are desperate for a social media hit. They’re desperate to get a bit of attention that day,” Sunday said last week in an interview in the attorney general’s Philadelphia office in Center City. “I want to be a boring AG. I’m focusing on my job and what I’m supposed to be doing.”

In the interview about his approach to his job and Trump, Sunday said he has no plans to use his office for political reasons or to become an “activist” attorney general.

Sunday has faced criticism from some Democrats for declining to challenge the Trump administration thus far in his tenure as the state’s top prosecutor, most notably when he chose not to challenge Trump’s federal funding freeze that caused chaos in Pennsylvania and across the country. Pennsylvania’s attorney general has wide-ranging powers to represent the state’s interests nationally in civil court in lawsuits against both the federal government and major corporations. Unlike Democratic attorneys general, including New Jersey’s Matthew Platkin, who have repeatedly sued Trump, Sunday has declined to legally challenge any of the president’s policies.

Sunday made this clear in the Inquirer interview: You won’t see him sue Trump.

For one, Democratic attorneys general — who in the last two months have led the charge in filing lawsuits against the Trump administration on issues ranging from the dismantling of the Department of Education to the firing of federal workers — traditionally do not allow their Republican counterparts to join their suits, and vice versa, Sunday said. Not that he would want to join Democrats’ suits anyway, “for a million reasons,” he added.

Sunday, 49, is towering in stature, and the light in the Center City conference room bounces off his bald head as he restlessly bobs around in his seat. The former York County district attorney and central Pennsylvania native cannot sit still, and lasts only a few moments in his suit jacket before rolling up his dress shirt sleeves.

“The federal government has a right to cut fraud, waste, and abuse,” Sunday said about Trump’s dizzying first few months in office. “They have every right to do that. And whether we agree with how it’s being done or not, that’s their right, and that’s my position.”

» READ MORE: Republicans now lead all three of Pa.’s row offices, as Dave Sunday is sworn in as state attorney general

You won’t see him join suits filed by Republican attorneys general from other states, either, declining so far to join lawsuits such as one against a New York climate law.

That’s not his style, he said, adding that lawsuits should be a prosecutor’s last resort and that he has found working behind the scenes to negotiate more successful. He is focused on the “core competencies” of the office: protecting seniors and consumers from scams; ensuring public safety; and a personal desire to expand the addiction, mental health, and reentry initiatives that he worked on as a career prosecutor in York County to smaller, under-resourced counties across Pennsylvania.

“There will be times where I agree with my Republican colleagues … and we’ll do things together,” Sunday said. “There will be times where I agree with my Democrat colleagues. There’s times, I hope, where we all can come together and do things.”

When Sunday declined to sue Trump last month after more than $2.1 billion in federal funds already approved by Congress were frozen or placed in an indefinite review process, Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat and former state attorney general himself, stepped over Sunday to file a federal lawsuit against the administration in his capacity as governor. Those funds were unfrozen less than two weeks after Shapiro’s suit was filed — in part due to his visit to the White House last month, Shapiro said — but the lawsuit is still pending.

» READ MORE: All of Pa.’s federal funding is now unfrozen by the Trump administration, Gov. Josh Shapiro says

Sunday’s view: Lawmakers make — and change — the laws. He was elected to enforce them. It’s not up to him to try to change the law through lawsuits, Sunday said; it’s up to the legislators. He made the same assertion on the campaign trail.

He has been concerned, though, by some of Trump’s actions, even though he believes them to be legal. In those instances, Sunday said, he has chosen to work behind the scenes, rather than wield his legal powers.

For example, Sunday said, he has spent significant time speaking with the top leaders of Pennsylvania’s research universities to understand the impact of federal cuts to the National Institutes of Health on each of them. He has gathered that information and shared it with Pennsylvania’s U.S. senators so they can use it in their advocacy for the schools when addressing the Trump administration.

“I understand the critical nature of medical research, I understand the critical nature of clinical trials. I understand the impact of it, how important it is,” Sunday said. “And I also understand that there are some things that the executive branch can do that even we may disagree with it, but they can still do it. It’s that simple.”

Meanwhile, a coalition of Democratic attorneys general, including New Jersey’s Platkin, approached the federal cuts to NIH by successfully suing to temporarily block the funding cuts in their states.

Pennsylvania’s attorney general is tasked with investigating corruption and enforcing the state’s laws, among other duties. The position is also seen as a springboard to higher office, with two of the state’s last three governors, including Shapiro, having previously served as attorney general.

For now, Sunday has no desire for higher office, already ruling out a run for governor in 2026. Rather, he said, he is focused on his new job as attorney general.

He says he will meet with anyone who asks — he was in Philadelphia earlier this month for Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s annual budget address to City Council, after she invited him — and has been trying to build relationships with “every single person as humanly possible that’ll work with me to achieve public safety goals, to achieve behavioral health outcomes, to work on addiction.”

The career prosecutor climbed the ladder from assistant district attorney to assistant U.S. attorney to York County district attorney before his election as attorney general in November. On the campaign trail, Sunday boasted of a 36% reduction in gun violence in 2023 over 2022 in York, a small city 45 minutes north of Baltimore, and an 80% drop in gang-related violence that officials credit to a gang violence intervention program under Sunday.

Pennsylvania’s attorney general is also the state’s chief law enforcement officer, responsible for overseeing consumer protections, drug investigations, charities and nonprofits, and the impaneling of grand juries, among other things.

Sunday stepped into that role quickly after taking office, thrown into the battle over the potential closing or sale of Crozer Health, whose private equity owner, Prospect Medical Holdings, is in bankruptcy. He has been involved in negotiations to try to keep its two Delaware County hospitals open, as they serve as a critical safety net in one of Pennsylvania’s most populous counties, with the county’s only trauma center, burn unit, and inpatient psychiatric center. Those negotiations are ongoing, and Prospect Medical Holdings is to announce whether it will sell Crozer Health at a bankruptcy hearing next week.

”This has been a tale of keeping hospitals open,” Sunday said. “I got a crash course in areas of the law surrounding health care, operations of hospitals, understanding the dynamic with hospitals, and understanding the impact of private equity.”

He also spent his first few weeks familiarizing himself with how the attorney general’s office works. He went line by line through his office’s budget ahead of testifying at budget hearings before the state House and Senate earlier this month.

He said he has been impressed by the work of the joint city-state Gun Violence Task Force and wants to see its continued support from the state.

Sunday also said he would like to shore up his office’s consumer protections and resources for seniors at risk of falling for scams as artificial intelligence makes such unscrupulous efforts more sophisticated and harder to identify.

”I will fight to the end of days for crime victims, for citizens being scammed,” Sunday said. “I will operate within the confines of my job duties and I will put my heart and soul, literally every day, into doing that.”