Governor Josh Shapiro
speaker
562 appearances
27 recordings
2 series
first heard Jan 2025
last heard May 2025
Governor Josh Shapiro’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
We have a targeted effort in our state to fund and support programs for women veterans in particular because of some of the added burdens that they've endured, particularly around PTSD. But we do that for all of our veterans. But I just want you to know that You know, if you were in a state like Massachusetts, you'd have the benefit of our HERO Act, which benefits 30,000 women in Massachusetts.
We also have a deputy secretary who's a woman as in that position at Veterans Affairs here in Massachusetts. And, you know, I say this to you, Emma, somebody like I was. I was the first gay person elected attorney general in the country when I got elected. And I'm the first woman elected governor in the state of Massachusetts.
And I wouldn't be where I am today if we didn't have anti-discrimination laws in place. I'll tell you that. And, you know, that's why we need to really push back hard on what Donald Trump and his administration is doing in trying to write diversity out. Again, diversity is a strength, not a flaw in America.
John is New York state's first mom governor. Maternal care is everything to me. And I will tell you this, we are the first state in the nation, I'm really proud of this, to require that insurance companies, all insurance companies, not just for people on Medicaid, that they provide paid prenatal care.
So you don't get a situation where a mother, as I've met them, had to make a choice between her minimum wage job as a waitress and leaving that job for a few hours to go to a prenatal appointment to take care of her baby's health and her health and possibly risking money to bring home to her other kids at the end of the day. We didn't think that was a fair choice for people to make.
And I hope other states will follow what we did here. We're proud of our focus on moms and their health and their baby's health. And we do have pockets where maternal mortality and infant mortality is very high, especially among women of color. And we've gone into those communities and supported programs for doulas and made sure that there's doula directories.
And this is covered by insurance as well, focusing on not just the mom's health, but with the baby afterward. And so we cover moms and babies on Medicaid even for the first year after the birth. So we're laser focused on this in New York. You ask a different question though. You're asking what happens when Donald Trump's cuts come or the Republican cuts come.
And I anticipate there'll be more cuts when they work on the reconciliation bill later this summer. We need to hold them accountable. Every single one of them, probably many of them are moms and dads themselves. These Republican members of Congress who need to know the outrage of their residents. And on Long Island, you have a number.
You have two Republicans, and I will give you their addresses to go down and ask them what they're doing to protect Medicaid, especially for our most vulnerable moms in their hours of pregnancy, the months of pregnancy, and brand-new babies. We're focused on putting money back in families' pockets. I just got through an arduous effort to get our budget done, almost 100 percent finished.
And it's focused on families. We'll have child care tax credits for the first time ever, $1,000 for every family with a child four years old and under. Because I know, personally, that's when you have to pay for the diapers and the formula and always going for those medical checkups and the vaccinations. And yes, get your vaccinations. So we're putting money back in families' pockets.
We have a middle-class tax cut coming, the largest tax rate cut in 70 years. We have money in inflation rebate, putting money back in families' pockets, starting as soon as possible. And we're focusing on nutrition programs, making sure we cover all the lunches and breakfasts in school, just like some of my colleagues do. So it's all about the family to me.
As I said back when I first announced my budget this year, I said, your family is my fight. Now, I didn't know at that moment that fight would also include taking on Donald Trump and his administration, who's trying to undermine all these safety net programs like Medicaid for expectant families. So I appreciate your concern. We are on this.
And if something does happen, our Attorney General Tish James and I will be on the front lines to try to stop it in court. We can't always rely on the courts, but sometimes we're surprised. Even the Supreme Court, handpicked by Donald Trump, the majority of them, have sometimes done the right thing in the interest of protecting the separation of powers and ultimately protecting our democracy.
So this fight is my own, and you can count on me being on the front lines if this happens.
Well, let's start with we've got to speak plainly to the American people about what really matters, right? The things that I think in the hearts of all four of us about standing up for working families, about being the party that fights for the middle class and for the working class and for the most vulnerable in our country.
And we've got to make sure that people understand what we're doing to get things done. Every one of the four governors on here have accomplished really important things in our state. So I'll give you an example in my state. You know, there's a federal minimum wage, $7.25. Nobody can live on $7.25 anymore. It's $14,000 a year if you're working full time. You've got to work.
two to three jobs to take care of your family at $7.25. It's impossible. So in my state, we raised the minimum wage to $15. It was important to us to make sure that we're lifting people out of poverty. If you're going to work full time, you ought to get a wage that's appropriate to that, that you can live on. So that's something that we ought to be talking about federally.
The $7.25 minimum wage, not enough. And Democrats are for raising it. Republicans don't want to raise it. In fact, many of them would like to do away with the minimum wage. So we should be speaking plainly about raising wages. We should be speaking plainly about the fact that we are for universal health care. Every one of us believes that. Health care is a right, not a privilege.
And we can have disagreements about how you get there. Some say Medicare for all. Some say that we ought to expand private insurance to cover more people with a state subsidy, for example, or a federal subsidy, but whatever that is. It's we believe that everybody should have a doctor and that no one should go without. Republicans are trying to take away. You're about to see this.
They're trying to take away Medicaid and Medicare from people who need it most. So I believe that the way to communicate is to start with the simple messages of the things that we believe that are reflective of our values. And then we've got to choose the media response. where messages are really getting to people. And this is one example of it.
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