Josh Shapiro Torches 'Devastating' Big Beautiful Bill: Trump Is Kicking His Supporters Off Medicaid

During a press conference on Monday, Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) spoke about President Trump's Big Beautiful Bill.

Transcript

00:00Governor, with the bill that's in Congress right now, they haven't completely nailed it down,

00:04but it appears likely that for SNAP benefits, they're going to increase the state's share

00:09from 50 to 75% of the administrative costs. Your reaction to that, what's that mean in Pennsylvania?

00:15You know, this bill that is making its way through Washington right now, seemingly being

00:20rushed through, would have a devastatingly negative impact on Pennsylvania. I've been

00:26very outspoken about that, and really, you know, specific about the harm it would do to

00:31Pennsylvanians. I know you asked about SNAP. Let me cover that and the other negative impacts.

00:36First, about 500,000 Pennsylvanians would lose access to healthcare. 310,000 of them would lose

00:46Medicaid, and about 200,000 would lose access to Penny because of those changes. That's a huge impact.

00:55We've got 3.1 million Pennsylvanians who rely on Medicaid right now, and so a little over 10%

01:01would lose access to healthcare. When it comes to SNAP, as you mentioned in your question,

01:08about 140,000 Pennsylvanians would lose access to food assistance, and they would dramatically

01:14increase, to the point of your question, the state share. I have made very clear Pennsylvania

01:20that Pennsylvania can't backfill those cuts on Medicaid or on SNAP. And there's real question

01:26as to whether or not we'd even be able to operate SNAP any longer, given the change in the formula

01:33and given the people that are going to be knocked off. Beyond Medicaid and SNAP, we have about 25 rural

01:41hospitals in Pennsylvania that are operating at a deficit where more than 50% of their revenue each year

01:48is coming from Medicaid. By slashing Medicaid, you're actually putting those 25 rural hospitals

01:55at risk. Beyond healthcare and food assistance, 26,000 people in Pennsylvania will likely lose their jobs.

02:04These are people who work in the energy sector. And because of the devastating cuts to energy,

02:11you're putting a whole lot of people out of work and making it harder for us,

02:16say, in Pennsylvania, a net energy exporter to do the work we need to do to generate more energy,

02:23particularly more clean energy. I don't know why they're rushing this through and at the same time

02:32making all of those cuts, ballooning our federal deficit by 3.3 trillion, with a T, trillion dollars.

02:42It kind of doesn't make sense to me. You know, President Trump ran on a platform of cutting the

02:48deficit, said he'd never knock anybody off of Medicaid, and he wanted more energy jobs in the

02:55United States. He's doing the exact opposite and screwing over, by the way, some of the very people

03:01that voted for him. Those rural hospitals are largely in communities that supported the

03:06President. Those lifelines and those communities are going to be taken away.

03:11A ton of people in rural communities that voted for the President accessed Medicaid and SNAP benefits.

03:17The President loved to hug the building trades during his campaign,

03:20and now he's pushing them aside with these cuts to energy projects.

03:25I hope cooler heads will prevail. I hope the Senate of the United States will not pass a bill

03:31that will be devastating to Pennsylvania and other states. I hope that the House and Senate will realize

03:38ramming this through is harmful and, by the way, very unpopular, and instead try and work in a bipartisan manner

03:45to give tax relief to people who need it and protect people's access to health care and food assistance.

03:51Thank you very much.