Pa. Gov. Josh Shapiro says Chuck Schumer should have used ‘leverage’ in government shutdown fight

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said Democrats in Washington should have been more strategic in trying to extract concessions from the Republican-led Congress on the government funding bill that passed last week, weighing in on a debate that divided his party over its response to President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has faced intense criticism from many in the Democratic Party — including elected officials and fellow party leaders — over his vote Friday in favor of a procedural measure that allowed the GOP bill to clear the upper chamber and reach Trump’s desk.

Dissenters were itching for a fight with Trump and preferred a government shutdown to what they saw as the latest sign of a party missing in action as the administration has dismantled federal agencies, launched a global trade war, and tested the limits of executive power.

“I would have liked to see when Chuck Schumer had leverage here to say, ‘We need A, B, C and D for the Democratic Party,’ and force the Republicans to meet him halfway on those issues and deliver something for the folks who are worried now,” Shapiro said Friday on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.”

Shapiro: "Schumer had leverage...There was an opportunity for more action... Don't let anybody tell you you have to be a party of resistance or you have to be a party of getting stuff done. I think you can be both, and I think it's a false choice to suggest it's an either or." pic.twitter.com/4koTInxe0Y

— Brendan Hartnett ???????????????? (@BrendanHartnett) March 15, 2025

Shapiro, a first-term Democrat who’s widely seen as a likely candidate for president in 2028, also used the interview to tout his accomplishments in swing-state Pennsylvania and criticize Trump’s trade policies, which he said were “jacking up costs for farmers and for manufacturers.”

He at times deflected, including when Maher asked whether teachers unions — a key part of the Democratic coalition — were responsible for prolonged school closures during the pandemic. “Look, we partnered with our teachers unions in Pennsylvania to increase the number of teachers we have in the classrooms,” Shapiro said.

After the audience applauded Shapiro’s answer to a question about Trump’s speech Friday at the Justice Department, Maher nodded to the governor’s aspirations for higher office. “It’s only March of 2025,” the center-left host said. “You’re going to get exhausted.”

Here are some highlights from the interview.

Josh Shapiro on the government funding bill

Ten Democrats, including Schumer and U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., voted Friday in favor of a procedural measure to advance the spending bill, known as a continuing resolution, which keeps the government funded through September. The Senate ultimately approved it, mostly along party lines, 54-46. It had already passed the House, where all Democrats voted against it.

Schumer said he wanted to avert a shutdown to prevent Trump from gaining even more power. “I’m not an expert in the D.C. stuff,” Shapiro said when asked about the issue. “I try and stay as far away from that as I can. I live in the real world in Pennsylvania, where we have to balance budgets.”

When pressed, the governor said “there was an opportunity for more action” from Schumer but didn’t get into specifics on the funding negotiations. He added, “I think it is a false choice to suggest you need either/or — either you need that resistance, that fight, that opposition, or you need to find ways to compromise and come together.”

‘Tanking the stock market’

When Maher noted that Trump has called for a “common-sense revolution,” Shapiro argued the president had failed to deliver on that promise.

“It’s not common sense what he did to press a button and start a tariff war with our two biggest trading partners,” Shapiro said, adding that Pennsylvania dairy farmers have been harmed.

“Now their products cost 25% more when they’re trying to sell in Mexico. They’re losing market share,” he said. “It’s tanking the stock market. … It’s making goods cost more.”

Department of Education cuts

The U.S. Department of Education last week laid off more than 1,000 workers, or almost half its staff. Trump has said he wants to fully dismantle the agency and give states and parents more control over schools.

“I’ve got kids who are coming from poor families who rely on this funding from the federal government,” Shapiro said. Asked about Trump’s cost-cutting efforts, Shapiro said the administration is “going about it wrong.”

“It’s important that we support the American people, not the American institutions,” he said. “You are right that there is waste, there is fraud, there is abuse in these institutions, which should be rooted out.”

The governor said as a former county executive, he’d successfully reduced wasteful spending but “didn’t go with a hatchet.”

The 2024 veepstakes and being Jewish

Maher noted that after Kamala Harris passed on Shapiro as her vice presidential nominee, “a lot of people said, ‘Well, the only reason he didn’t get it was because he’s Jewish, and there was a wing in this party that was very anti-Israel now.”

“Which is a big change in my life, because the Democrats used to be a very pro-Israel place, and then it all got switched around. Do you think that’s true?” Maher asked, adding that politicians running for president should “defend the Jews, like, outright, because I just feel there’s a lot of tiptoeing back away from this issue.”

“I said all along that Kamala Harris had a deeply personal decision to make in that process. In the end, so did I,” Shapiro said. “I love being governor of Pennsylvania, and I love charting my own course and being able to serve the people on my terms.”

“I’m damn proud of my faith,” Shapiro added, without commenting on his party’s fissures over Israel.

The governor said the first TV ad of his 2022 gubernatorial campaign showed his family sitting around the Shabbat dinner table on a Friday night “celebrating our faith.”

Voters responded warmly, he said, sharing their own religious traditions with him. “Folks were more open about it because I showed them truly who I am,” he said.

Trump’s Justice Department speech

Maher brought up Trump’s speech at the Justice Department on Friday, during which the president attacked former officials who tried unsuccessfully to prosecute him and said he would “insist upon and demand full and complete accountability for the wrongs and abuses that have occurred.”

Shapiro said he didn’t see Trump’s comments but warned against even the “appearance” of politics in prosecution.

“You have the power when you’re a prosecutor to take away someone’s liberty, take away someone’s freedom, ruin their reputation and their careers. There can be no room for politics in that,” he said during a panel discussion.

Asked by a panelist whether that happened during the Biden administration, Shapiro did not directly answer, saying he was making a “general point.”