Josh Shapiro called Donald Trump an existential threat. Now, he says he’s ready to work with him.

On the 2024 presidential campaign trail, Gov. Josh Shapiro frequently called Donald Trump an existential threat to American democracy. As Pennsylvania’s attorney general, he regularly boasted about suing — and beating — Trump’s first administration.

But this year, as Trump takes the Oval Office again and Shapiro eyes the 2028 Democratic presidential ticket, the Pennsylvania governor has a new, more amiable game plan: Work together — as long as it doesn’t compromise residents’ “fundamental freedoms.”

Shapiro is among a handful of 2028 presidential hopefuls who have taken early positions on how they will work with a second Trump administration, with some Democratic governors in blue states going on offense ahead of another Trump term and others, like Shapiro, in swing states taking a more reserved approach.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, of deep-blue California, quickly convened a special session of the state’s legislature to “Trump-proof” the state. In Illinois, another reliably blue state, Gov. JB Pritzker issued a warning the day after Trump’s win: “You come for my people, you come through me.” Meanwhile, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said he was ready “to push back on this new White House when necessary.”

But Shapiro, who will be up for reelection as Pennsylvania’s governor in 2026, has spent years building a brand as a moderate Democrat willing to work across the aisle. He has already signaled that he will not take as hard a stance against a second Trump term but, at the same time, says he is preparing to defend the state.

» READ MORE: Welcome to the 2028 presidential election cycle, where Pa. Gov. Josh Shapiro is a front-runner

Manuel Bonder, a spokesperson for Shapiro, said in a statement that the governor would focus on delivering results for Pennsylvanians through job creation, economic development, education, and public safety.

“The Governor has also been clear that he will never back down from defending Pennsylvanians’ fundamental freedoms,” Bonder added. “The Shapiro Administration is preparing for all scenarios and taking steps to safeguard our Commonwealth from potential federal actions that could be harmful to Pennsylvania families and communities.” Bonder declined to detail the scenarios for which the administration is preparing.

A source close to Shapiro said that ahead of Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, the governor has focused on securing federal funding — which makes up approximately half of the state government’s nearly $100 billion in annual spending — by working to draw down as many federal dollars for Pennsylvania as possible. Trump has promised to hollow out many of the nation’s federal agencies, such as the Department of Education, in his second term.

In the days after the November 2024 presidential election, Shapiro quickly accepted the results and said he would turn back to “getting stuff done” for Pennsylvanians.

“I know the pundits will analyze every aspect of this election, but for my part, I’m going to continue to listen to the good people of Pennsylvania, show respect for their choices, and find ways to bring people back together,” Shapiro said at the time.

It was a much different tone than the one he used on the campaign trail just days earlier, as he blasted Trump in support of Vice President Kamala Harris. And it’s different from his previous approach, as attorney general, in which he touted his numerous legal challenges of the Trump administration, boasting about beating Trump in court more than 40 times over his 2020 efforts to overturn the state’s election results.

Alison Dagnes, the chair of political science at Shippensburg University, said Shapiro’s more congenial tune may come down to a multilevel calculation: First, he needs to make sure Pennsylvania gets the federal resources it needs from the Trump administration. Second, he needs to strike a balance on his rhetoric about Trump to get reelected in 2026 in Pennsylvania, where Trump won by more than 120,000 votes. And third, Shapiro needs to set himself apart from the other potential Democratic 2028 presidential candidates, as the party’s primaries often require candidates to move left to be chosen as the nominee.

“He’s not going to play nice with Trump, but he’s not going to make Trump the boogeyman at all,” Dagnes said. “It’s not that he’s afraid, it’s because of the nature of Pennsylvania.”

“Josh Shapiro knows that he cannot act like Gavin Newsom of California or Kathy Hochul of New York,” she added. “He has to act in a way that he will be reelected in a state that is so sharply divided, and later elected in a country that is so evenly split.”

Shapiro isn’t the only Democratic swing-state governor in that precarious position.

Among the others possibly vying for the 2028 presidential ticket, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has signaled she would take a stance similar to Shapiro’s in Trump’s second term. The two 2028 hopefuls lead states that voted for Trump and this year will have to navigate a divided legislature, where one party controls the state Senate and another the state House.

The more-reserved approach toward the Trump administration marks a change for Whitmer, too, who during Trump’s first presidency was on the receiving end of his revenge after speaking out against him. In 2020, Trump bragged that he told then-Vice President Mike Pence not to take Whitmer’s calls requesting federal assistance to handle the state’s COVID-19 outbreak, including requests for ventilators and masks.

“Don’t call the woman in Michigan,” Trump said in a media call in late March 2020, as the pandemic continued to spread throughout the country, news site Michigan Advance reported at the time. “You know what I say? If they don’t treat you right, I don’t call.”

In another Trump term, Whitmer told Michigan Advance, she will work with the Trump administration but expects there to be issues where they don’t agree.

Trump’s unpredictability will also offer an opportunity for Shapiro, Whitmer, and others rumored to have higher office aspirations to claim they are only concerned about their own state when taking the president to task.

“[Trump] shoots from the hip and is occasionally unhinged; you really don’t know what he’s going to do,” Dagnes said. “Shapiro is going to be smart to keep his nose to the grindstone and repeat the words ‘I’m just looking after Pennsylvanians’ over and over and over.”

In some ways, Shapiro’s rise to power has been in tandem with Trump’s. The former Montgomery County commissioner first garnered national attention in 2016, when he won Pennsylvania in the same election cycle as Trump.

Elected to two terms as attorney general, Shapiro often joined other Democratic attorneys general in suing the Trump administration over federal policies on issues like reproductive access and the environment. (Shapiro left his position as AG in 2023, after he was elected to governor.) The role of the AG gave Shapiro a unique vantage — the position has become more nationalized in recent years, with attorneys general across the country serving as the main challengers to federal policies during the Trump and Biden administrations.

The two have publicly sparred over the years since. When Shapiro almost ended up on the presidential ticket as Harris’ running mate in August, he became a consistent topic of Trump’s Truth Social posts. After Shapiro gave a prime-time speech at the Democratic National Convention, Trump attacked the governor on his social media platform, calling him a “highly overrated Jewish Governor.” Shapiro quickly responded, accusing Trump of promoting “antisemitic tropes” and saying that Trump is “obsessed with me.”

But for now, Shapiro’s office says he is focused on Pennsylvania rather than the politicking of 2024.

“As Attorney General, Josh Shapiro worked to protect Pennsylvanians from actions that threatened everything from workers’ rights and their ability to keep their wages, to our clean air and pure water, to our voting rights and a woman’s freedom to choose,” Bonder, Shapiro’s spokesperson, said in the statement. “As Governor, he will keep working to defend our democracy, [and] defend our fundamental rights.”