PENNSYLVANIA — Ahead of the State of the Union address tonight, Lieutenant Governor Austin Davis underscored how he and Governor Josh Shapiro have been delivering real results for Pennsylvanians by bringing down costs for working families, driving economic growth, and making communities safer in spite of the Trump Administration’s chaos, corruption, and cruelty.

Regardless of how Donald Trump will try to spin his disastrous first-year in office, Pennsylvanians can be assured that Governor Shapiro and Lt. Governor Davis will continue working to get stuff done and move the Commonwealth forward.

See below for key excerpts from these conversations, and listen to the full interviews here, here, and read more below:

The Julie Mason Show, SiriusXM

Question: So the President [is] delivering his State of the Union this evening. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the State of the Union. 

Austin Davis: Donald Trump has done nothing but enrich and protect his millionaire and billionaire friends at the expense of the American people. I think folks are looking for the President to talk about how he’s going to alleviate some of the affordability concerns. I can tell you, he has exacerbated that problem with his tariff strategy literally needlessly putting a tax on working class people. These illegal tariffs have cost Pennsylvanians about $4 billion from raising prices for families, killing jobs, and hurting local businesses. And so I think folks want to see him get down to brass tacks to dealing with the issues that working families in Pennsylvania are facing every day. But I’m not holding out too much hope.

Question: One of the Pennsylvania initiatives to deal with affordability and the concerns of citizens is Pennsylvania’s 211 number. Can you tell us about that?

Austin Davis: If you think back a few months ago to when we had the crisis with SNAP benefits that the Trump Administration forced upon us, the 211 number was a place that people could go for help and direction, and we really saw those folks step up and fill the gap in a huge way. And so we want to make sure folks still have access to find out information where they need but that’s one plan of our affordability agenda. We’ve done a lot around expanding the Child Care Tax Credit, creating a retention and recruitment bonus for child care workers to help increase supply and bring down costs for families, as well as expanding the Working Family Tax Credit here in Pennsylvania, creating it for the first time.

Mornings with Zerlina, SiriusXM

Question: What is your core message to Pennsylvanians about what you’ve accomplished?

Austin Davis: I’m really proud to be running for reelection, along with Governor Shapiro to continue to be in this fight, but I think we’ve been laser-focused throughout our time in office is making sure that we’re creating ladders of opportunity for every working family to succeed. That means bringing down costs. That means expanding economic opportunity for folks, and it means making our community safer. And I’m really proud of the things that we’ve accomplished over the last four years, everything from expanding the Child Care Tax Credit and investing $25 million in child care recruitment and retention programs to make sure we’re bringing down the cost for working families, but also creating more access for our most precious resource, our young people, to investments in law enforcement and violence intervention and prevention programs that have brought us to the lowest point of gun violence and violent crime in nearly three decades here in Pennsylvania. So I think we’ve done a lot of work, but there’s still so much more work to be done, and I’m excited to get back out there and take our message to the voters.

Question: This is an important moment for the health and preservation of American democracy. What do you think?

Austin Davis: Yeah, I certainly think it is an important moment. I think we are certainly being tested at this point in time, but I think our democracy has been tested before. And ultimately, I think, you know, this is a decision for each American in which way they want our country to go. And for me, this is even more personal as a new father, right? What type of country am I going to leave to my daughter to inherit? And we are not all just passive viewers on what’s happened. We all have a role to play through our election system, through organizing at our communities. And I think this moment is a clarion call for every person to get off the sidelines, to get in the game and to do your part to try to make sure we preserve what are our fundamental rights and freedoms. Because, as you see around the world, they’re not guaranteed. We have to fight.

Question: One of the dynamics that has unfolded over the last year plus is that a lot of folks in the states, the Democratic leaders in states, governors and lieutenant governors, have to be the stop gap to protect their constituents from some of the harmful impacts of federal policy of the Trump Administration. What are some of the things that you have done in Pennsylvania to do that?

Austin Davis: Right now, governors and lieutenant governors and state capitals are in some ways, the places where real policy is happening that touches the lives of everyday Americans. I can tell you, Governor Shapiro and I have never hesitated to stand up to the Trump administration when they sought to take something away from Pennsylvanians or infringe on their rights and authorities. As Governor and Lieutenant Governor, we have sued the Trump administration 19 times. Previously as Attorney General, Governor Shapiro sued the Trump administration 43 times, and that role so we have never hesitated to defend our fundamental rights and freedoms when they’ve come to get voter registration information, when they’ve sought to withhold resources from Pennsylvania, we have stood up for everyday Pennsylvanians and made it clear that Donald Trump’s going to have to go through us if he tries to hurt Pennsylvania.

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