MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas interviews Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro about his massive win against Trump in court. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Governor Shapiro and what was his recent court victory about?
Let's talk with a governor who's fighting back and winning against some of these Trump executive orders, freezing funds, which would have caused big problems in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Governor Shapiro, welcome.
Hey, Ben, it's great to be with you. And by the way, I just want to say thanks for having me back on. I know you're Mr. Big Time now, but you remember who was there in the beginning. Now you all are number one. Congratulations. I'm so proud of you and your brothers. But I'm glad you didn't forget us little people.
Thanks for having me back on. We will never forget. We appreciate all the work you're doing in the Commonwealth, and I appreciate that. Let's talk about the lawsuit that you brought against the Trump administration's funding freeze. There was about $2.1 billion that you identified there. That was in the lawsuit that you filed of funds that were supposed to go to the Commonwealth that were blocked.
That's why you brought the lawsuit and you've accounted for what all 2.1 billion now after fighting back. Tell us about that.
Yeah, we won. Look, I mean, this really comes down to a simple thing that our kids learn in middle school, right? A deal is a deal. That's it. The federal government made a deal with Pennsylvania to invest $2.1 billion in our commonwealth. A whole lot more than that, but that's what was frozen.
And understand, Ben, this was money that was going to things like fixing old abandoned minefields where we were having sinkholes. We actually had a woman die in Western Pennsylvania who fell into a sinkhole. It was capping orphan wells that were leaking methane into our communities, which was speeding up climate change and having really adverse health risks in the community and so much more.
And so I talked to the federal government and said, yo, y'all can't do this. You've got to give us the money that is owed to us. Remember, a deal is a deal. They refused. And so I had no other choice but to take them to court. I sued them, but I kept talking to them during that process.
and ultimately made very very clear i wasn't going away pennsylvania was going to get its fair share of federal funding and what's been promised to us and we were able to get them to unfreeze all 2.1 billion dollars that had been taken away from pennsylvania i'm really proud of that and i'm grateful to the people whose voices were raised up demanding that the federal government do what they were legally
required to do and as a result the good people of pennsylvania are protected look you've got a lot of bipartisan support there in the commonwealth you visit blue areas purple areas red areas and you got pretty good support even in some of those ruby red and red areas They're being impacted by a lot of what we're seeing, though, from the Trump administration.
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Chapter 2: Why did Pennsylvania sue the Trump administration over funding?
well for many it's child care you know if parents don't have a safe and reliable place that they can drop their kids off at and go to work well they're not going to go to work because they're going to be home caring for their kids or making other arrangements we know that if we can build out a child care system that is available to all we talked about rural communities before especially
in those rural communities, we know that we can have greater economic productivity. Let me offer, I'll nerd out on you here for a quick second. We have the need to put about 25,000 more kids in childcare in Pennsylvania. This is a need that parents have identified. Well, to do that, we need to fill 3000 open early learning teaching slots.
And so my budget does a common sense thing, which is to say we're going to give $1,000 stipend to childcare workers to either retain them or attract them into this really important field. This is something that's been endorsed by Republicans and Democrats alike.
And it builds on the work we've done on childcare by tripling our childcare tax credit to reduce the cost for families trying to avoid childcare and actually giving businesses a tax write-off when they pay for their employees' childcare costs. So we're trying to come at this in a bunch of different ways.
funding the providers, putting money back in parents' pockets to be able to afford childcare, and helping businesses support their employees. This is a common sense thing we can do to attract more people into a really, really necessary field. It's going to help us grow our economy and have really good outcomes for our communities.
You know, and finally, I know how patriotic the people are in the Commonwealth. Two very disturbing developments I've seen in the Trump administration on this. I mean, I could probably 2000, but number one, veterans being disproportionately impacted by the terminations within the federal government, 30 percent, 40 percent of federal government. Workers are veterans or the spouses of veterans.
And then Donald Trump having the United States join in access of evil, like with Russia and North Korea, to vote against a resolution condemning Russia's unlawful invasion of Ukraine. We know that there's been a lot of hardworking factories in the Commonwealth who have been building some of the weaponry as well to defend Ukraine. So I know it's an issue that hits close to home. Yeah.
It does. So let me address, you know, on both of those fronts. Pennsylvania is proud, the proud home of nearly a million veterans. And these veterans deserve better than what they're getting from the Trump administration. Veterans are getting laid off and veterans are going to see their programs that they rely on for health care and
Other things get cut back on as a result of the budgets that are going through Washington right now. Veterans deserve better. And by the way, here in the Commonwealth, we are looking to hire some of those laid off veterans for really critically important jobs that we have.
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