Hypocrites rarely admit their own hypocrisy — and Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro may be no exception.
In an interview Tuesday, Shapiro criticized Vice President J.D. Vance for not using the specific words “Jews” and “Nazis” in a Holocaust Remembrance Day post on X, according to NBC News. He argued that accurately naming victims and perpetrators is essential to honoring the truth of what happened.
“Part of never forgetting is making sure that the facts of what happened are recited, are remembered,” Shapiro said. “The fact that JD Vance couldn’t bring himself to [acknowledge] that 6 million Jews were killed by Hitler and by the Nazis speaks volumes.”
But critics quickly pointed out that Shapiro’s own public statements on Holocaust remembrance have often avoided those same terms.
On Tuesday, Vance posted a message on X reflecting on the Holocaust and the need to ensure “never again.” His post read:
“Today we remember the millions of lives lost during the Holocaust, the millions of stories of individual bravery and heroism, and one of the enduring lessons of one of the darkest chapters in human history: that while humans create beautiful things and are full of compassion, we’re also capable of unspeakable brutality. And we promise never again to go down the darkest path,” Vance wrote Tuesday on X.
While Shapiro faulted Vance for not explicitly naming “Nazis,” Vance’s post included four photos of him and his wife, Usha, visiting the site of the Dachau concentration camp — an image choice many saw as an unmistakable reference to Nazi responsibility. Supporters of Vance argued that accusing him of “obscuring” the perpetrators, given the context of the photos, was a stretch.
Shapiro’s critique drew a sharper response once White House Principal Deputy Communications Director Alex Pfeiffer highlighted the governor’s own record.
“Wow,” Pfeiffer wrote on X. “Josh Shapiro must be really offended by his statements issued this year and last year, neither of which mentioned ‘Jews.’”
Pfeiffer attached screenshots of Shapiro’s posts recognizing Holocaust Remembrance Day in consecutive years. In Tuesday’s post, Shapiro reportedly did not mention Jews or Nazis by name — though he did reference “antisemitism.”
Similarly, on Apr. 24, Shapiro marked Yom HaShoah — Holocaust Remembrance Day on the Hebrew calendar — with a post that referenced Pennsylvania founder William Penn but, according to critics, did not explicitly mention Jews or Nazis.
That comparison fueled the broader backlash: if naming Jews and Nazis is the standard Shapiro demands of others, why didn’t his own statements meet it?
Some observers framed the dispute as political positioning ahead of 2028. A spokesperson for Vance leaned into that interpretation while blasting Shapiro for what they called an attempt to redirect criticism.
“After he faced criticism for not mentioning Jews in his post on Holocaust Remembrance Day, Josh Shapiro desperately tried to shift blame to the Vice President,” a Vance spokesperson told Mary Margaret Olohan of The Daily Wire. “This is next level hypocritical deflection from Shapiro, a misguided plea for attention from a political lightweight.”
Whether Shapiro is truly a national contender remains to be seen. But if he hopes to compete on a larger stage, critics argue he will need a sharper approach than attacking an opponent over wording his own posts allegedly also avoided.
Beyond campaign speculation, Shapiro’s comments struck many as the kind of double standard that can repel swing voters — especially when the receipts are only a few clicks away.
And regardless of politics, one point stands apart: the Holocaust should never be reduced to a messaging fight. The hope is that by 2028, the forces turning Holocaust remembrance into a partisan weapon will have faded into irrelevance.
