Sen. John Fetterman raged at ‘f—ing a—hole’ Josh Shapiro, reveals why their relationship ‘never recovered’ in new memoir

WASHINGTON — John Fetterman blurted “f—ing a—hole” into a hot mic during a heated 2020 Zoom hearing involving then-Keystone State Attorney General Josh Shapiro as tensions between Pennsylvania’s two highest-ranking Democrats reached a boiling point, Fetterman’s new memoir reveals.

The then-lieutenant governor’s outburst came after Shapiro delivered a “very long-winded and unnecessary” speech justifying his decision to vote against commuting the sentences of Lee and Dennis Horton, two brothers who were convicted of second-degree murder in a fatal 1993 robbery and shooting.

Fetterman and Shapiro sat on Pennsylvania’s Board of Pardons together and Shapiro had expressed concern that transcripts from the siblings’ original trial were missing.

The now-senator was so outraged by Shapiro’s intransigence that Fetterman threatened in a private meeting to run for governor in 2022 and pull the then-AG into a bruising primary.

“I told him there were two tracks — that one and the one in which he ran for governor and I ran for the Senate (which was the one I preferred),“ Fetterman writes in his new book, “Unfettered,” as excerpted by The Philadelphia Inquirer

”I had no interest in friction, only in what I felt was justice.”

Soon after, Shapiro staffer Joe Radosevich reached out to Fetterman.

“He wanted me to retract things I had said and to deny the rumors about the private meeting taking place,” the senator writes. “That wasn’t going to happen.”

The board voted in December 2020 to commute the Hortons’ sentences, and Fetterman invited Dennis Horton to be his guest at the 2023 State of the Union address.

However, the relationship with Shapiro “never recovered.”

“I sincerely wish him the best,” Fetterman writes of the governor. “He is a credit to the state and may one day be a credit to the country. I remember fondly the days when we were nobodies trying to climb the ladder. Even if we no longer speak.”

Explaining the roots of their feud on the parole board, the senator writes that “I truly believed with all my heart that nobody I ever supported for a pardon was a danger to society. I was willing to stake my political career on it.”

“[Shapiro] was far more cautious, and at a certain point, I began to think that what was influencing him was not mere caution but political ambition.”

At one meeting, Fetterman recalled, Shapiro voted against parole in 12 of 15 cases, causing the lieutenant governor to break his reading glasses in frustration.

“I believe what drove him to delay and deny applications was not the facts of a given case as much as a fear that someone whose sentence he’d commuted would go on to commit terrible violence on the outside,” Fetterman added.

During the 2024 campaign, Fetterman privately confided his apprehension about Shapiro to former Vice President Kamala Harris’ team as they considered potential running mates, Politico reported at the time.

Harris revealed in her recent memoir, “107 Days,” that she had “had a nagging concern that” Shapiro “would be unable to settle for a role as number two and that it would wear on our partnership.”

Shapiro, one of the most popular governors in the country, is heavily favored to win re-election next year and has been floated as a potential 2028 presidential candidate.

A rep for Shapiro did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Unfettered” is available wherever books are sold.