ICYMI: Josh Shapiro Joined Pennsylvania Farm Country Radio to Discuss His Campaign, Faith, and Family
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 8, 2022
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SPA Press, Press@joshshapiro.org
ICYMI: Josh Shapiro Joined Pennsylvania Farm Country Radio to Discuss His Campaign, Faith, and Family
“You have always taken the bottom line, you don’t care who it is, if they’re doing wrong, bring them to justice. But at the same token, you know, the people that are innocent, you’ve always given a helping hand to them.” –Dave Williams
PENNSYLVANIA – Yesterday, Attorney General Josh Shapiro joined Pennsylvania Farm Country Radio to discuss his campaign for Governor, his track record as Attorney General, and the faith and family values that guide him in public service. As he runs for Governor, Josh Shapiro has been campaigning in every corner of our Commonwealth – meeting voters where they are and building a broad coalition of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents to win this November.
Across Pennsylvania, Shapiro is speaking to voters about his top priorities: creating jobs and lowering costs, fixing Pennsylvania’s schools, and supporting law enforcement to keep communities safe.
See below for key excerpts of Shapiro’s appearance on PA Farm Radio and listen to the full interview here.
ON HOLDING BAD ACTORS AND CORRUPT OFFICIALS ACCOUNTABLE
Dave Williams: You have always taken the bottom line – you don’t care who it is, if they’re doing wrong, bring them to justice. But at the same token, you know, the people that are innocent, you’ve always given a helping hand to them.
Josh Shapiro: That’s what we try to do. I mean, public corruption is a great example, we’ve arrested over 100 public officials for public corruption. And Dave, you know what, a bunch of Democrats and a bunch of Republicans – we don’t really care what your party label is, what the background is. If you’ve done wrong, if you’ve hurt a Pennsylvanian, we’re gonna hold you accountable.
By the same token, the other side of our office, you know, has a big heart and is out there trying every day to make sure that the senior that got scammed gets their money back, the student that got ripped off by a student loan company gets help. I mean, for example, we took on the student loan companies and returned over $130 million to Pennsylvania students in debt forgiveness because they got ripped off by those companies. We’ve got farmers who have been scammed out of I mean, thousands and thousands of dollars.
I guess it was back in March, just a couple months ago, two or three months now or so, I filed a lawsuit against a woman named Diane Connery. She was doing business with a company called Earth Care and Conservation, and basically she used that company to scam farmers out of their money – thousands and thousands of dollars. So we sued her to get the farmers their money back. I mean, that’s the kind of stuff we do every day.
My view is, if someone’s trying to hurt you, someone’s trying to screw you – I don’t know if I’m allowed to say those words – we’re gonna hold you accountable. We’re going to stand up for Pennsylvanians.
ON THE NEED TO HIRE MORE TEACHERS, POLICE OFFICERS, ABD FIREFIGHTERS – AND PAY THEM MORE
Josh Shapiro: I talk a lot when I’m out campaigning about the crisis we have in Pennsylvania today, of what I call the frontline worker. Follow me on this, right. I’m talking about teachers, and firefighters, and police, and home health care aides, and mental health counselors, people like that. And while they all obviously do very different jobs, the truth is, they’re all on the front lines, and they’re trying to provide a service to people to keep them safe and healthy. And well, you know, nurses are on that list as well.
The reality is, we’re short in all of those areas. We don’t have enough police. It’s why I’ve called for the hiring of 2000 more police officers. We don’t have enough mental health counselors, one of the reasons why I said we’re going to fund at least one mental health counselor in every single school building in Pennsylvania. Our nurses aren’t paid enough. I mean, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, under my leadership as Governor, is going to invest in those frontline workers and make sure that they have what they need, because we need them. We need more of them in our community.
ON SHAPIRO’S FAITH AND THE FAMILY VALUES THAT GUIDE HIM
Josh Shapiro: I have been to every county in Pennsylvania multiple times – rural, urban, suburban communities. Folks ask me all the time, why do you do this? And you know, the truth is, I tell them all the same thing. It’s because of two things, my family and my faith.
You know, Lori and I – Lori’s my high school sweetheart. So we met in the ninth grade, we’ve been together ever since. And we are blessed with four children, and not to sound sort of corny here, but I look in their eyes every day, and I really just want to make a better future for them and your kids and your grandkids. I got to get in the arena and fight for those kids.
And the second reason why I do this is my faith. Let me preface this by saying I recognize that we certainly all don’t share the same faith. So I’m not trying to push my faith on anyone else, but I think it’s important for people to understand how my faith grounds me.
You know, my Scripture teaches me that no one is required to complete the task, but neither are we free to refrain from it. And I think about that passage literally every day, and for me, what that means is, look, we each have a responsibility to get off the sidelines, get in the game, and do our part.
And so for me, the combination of looking in my kids eyes, and my faith and my upbringing, and my commitment to that calls me to service. I recognize not everybody’s gonna always agree and may not agree with a decision I make or a policy view I have. At the end of the day, what I want people to know is, you know, I’m in this to fight for my kids and yours, and to try and do my part in keeping with the teaching of my faith, to make a little bit of a difference in life. And that’s why I do what I do.
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