Deputy Press Secretary Harrison Fields said Gov. Shapiro overstated and lied about the impact he had on the unfreezing of federal funds.
Governor Josh Shapiro recently claimed that his visit to the White House last month is the reason $2.1 billion in federal funds for the Commonwealth was unfrozen – a claim that has since been disputed by the White House.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Harrison Fields said in a recent statement, “Governor Shapiro is lying. Agencies are reviewing all funds for consistency with the law, waste, and the administration’s priorities. Pressure by governors is not one of those factors, and funds within Pennsylvania are being reviewed the same as everything else”. Most of the funding identified by Shapiro’s office came from former President Biden’s 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and his 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
The Trump administration froze the funds on January 28 as part of their federal government-wide review. Administration lawyers characterized the freeze as simply a “pause” to consider how best to use federal funds. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) rescinded the administration’s memo to freeze federal grants and loans in late January.
Despite OMB’s rescinding of the memo, Governor Shapiro sued the administration on February 13, filing in the U.S. District of Eastern Pennsylvania. The suit claimed the federal freeze was illegal and unconstitutional because the funds had already been approved by Congress and federal courts had directed the administration to restore federal funding in other lawsuits. The suit is still pending in federal court.
Trump administration lawyers argued in federal court in Rhode Island that the government’s move to freeze funds was legal and asked a judge to reject a request by nearly two dozen Democratic states for a preliminary injunction.
Shapiro’s press secretary Manuel Bonder responded to the White House’s dispute, saying they “have the receipts”, referencing a timeline of events from the White House lunch meeting.
Shapiro was appointed by Trump to the Council of Governors, a bipartisan panel of ten governors nominated to two-year terms to strengthen partnerships between states and the federal government. He met with members of President Trump’s cabinet on February 21 for a White House luncheon for the governors during his visit to Washington, D.C. for the National Association of Governors.
According to a spokesperson for Shapiro, he presented a list of federal programs that Pennsylvania agencies could not access to a senior administration official. “He provided it, and by the time the governor left the White House, he was informed that those funds were being unfrozen,” Bonder added. In his announcement that the funds were restored on February 24, Shapiro gave credit to the still-pending lawsuit.
A person close to Senator McCormick said Shapiro’s office asked his staff about the frozen funds weeks before the White House meeting, and that McCormick’s team reached out to the Trump administration “to help expedite the process” of unfreezing them before Shapiro met with the cabinet.
Fields also responded to the timeline, saying, “the Democratic Party is in shambles, so no wonder he’s trying to look good. He is not telling the truth. He is overstating what he was able to do.”
Forty percent of Pennsylvania’s annual spending comes from federal funds, which totals more than $50 billion for the upcoming fiscal year. Shapiro is facing a $4.5 billion shortfall for budget negotiations this year.
