Pennsylvania governor on alleged voter fraud, ICE, midterm election and measles outbreak

PHOENIXVILLE, Pa. (CBS, KYMA) - Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-Pa.) spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about alleged voter fraud in the state.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said there were as many as 14,576 non-citizens that could be registered to vote in Pennsylvania.

This prompted Brennan to ask if the DHS provided information to back up their claim, and what did his own investigation find, to which Gov. Shapiro said:

"'Could' is the operative word. As soon as we received that from the federal government, we immediately responded and said, 'Look, if you have information of illegal voters who are on our rolls, we want that information because we don't want them casting a ballot here in Pennsylvania.' I'm very serious about it. Look, I'm the former chief law enforcement officer of this Commonwealth. I have prosecuted election fraud cases. I don't want anyone voting who's not a legal eligible voter...when we responded to the Trump administration, they provided no backup. So it was a press release designed to get some attention for their false narrative. Listen, the first appointment I made when I was elected governor was the Secretary of State. That's the person that administers elections here in the state. A Republican named Al Schmidt. I chose him, even though I'm a Democrat, because I think the administration of elections should be nonpartisan. Al Schmidt, in his career of running elections, has done more to root out corruption than anything that's ever been done in the Trump administration. We take that very, very seriously, and the Trump Administration has never provided a shred of evidence to suggest that there are people on our rolls who are ineligible. If they have it, I want it, and we will act on it immediately."

Brennan and Shapiro then talked about the DHS going door-to-door asking about the immigration status of people who live there.

This led Brennan to ask the governor what he can tell CBS News about what the DHS is doing in Pennsylvania, and if the Trump Administration coordinated with him in anyway, and Shapiro said:

"No. And I want to make very very clearly the Pennsylvania State Police does not do DHS's work for them. Does not do ICE's work for them. We do not ask immigration status. In fact, when ICE came here and tried to bully their way into building two massive detention centers here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, one in Berks County, one in Schuylkill County, I fought back and won and drove those detention centers out of Pennsylvania."

During the interview, Brennan and Shapiro talked about the upcoming midterm election.

Brennan brought up the governor recently speaking with the Philadelphia Inquirer's editorial board, where he told them he thinks President Donald Trump and his allies are "going to try and stop votes from being counted."

The governor also said he expects House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to "make efforts to delay seating new members if Republicans lose the majority."

When asked why he's raising these concerns now, and if he thinks he might be undermining faith at all, Shapiro said:

"Respectfully, I was answering their question as to whether or not I thought the Trump administration would take steps to try and undermine our elections. So just to offer some context to that, and I did issue those answers, and I'll tell you why. Because I have lived through this before with the Trump administration. Back in 2020, I was the attorney general, and Trump lost the election here in Pennsylvania and tried to undermine the counting of the vote. In fact, he and his enablers sued me 43 different times to try and throw out the votes of certain Pennsylvanians. Heck, even my opponent went to court to throw out the votes of people in Bucks County. I won every single one of those cases. Went 43 and 0, Trump went 0 and 43. And so we are prepared should they try to do that again this time. In fact, we put together a task force more than a year ago when Trump began to hint at the idea that he would once again take that tack. So we are prepared in the courtroom. Should they go forward and try and undermine the right to vote. Now, more recently, we've seen further evidence of this president trying to undermine the right to vote in signing that bogus executive order, trying to make it so people here in Pennsylvania and across America couldn't vote by mail. I sued him. I won, and we protected the right to vote. So again, this was A) in response to a question, and B) based on a history of dealing with a guy who is constantly trying to undermine the right to vote here in our Commonwealth."

Later in the interview, Brennan and Shapiro talked about the measles outbreak, with Brennan saying the state is in the midst of one of the worst measles outbreaks the U.S. has seen in 30 years, leading her to ask the governor how will he get it under control, and Shapiro said:

"We've got five deaths in Pennsylvania. 1,500 people sickened by measles, a disease that was eliminated in the year 2000 in the United States of America, and it's come roaring back, largely because of vaccine misinformation and disinformation promoted by quack conspiracy theorist RFK, who Donald Trump has now put in charge of our nation's healthcare system. Now, here in Pennsylvania, I believe in making sure people have access to the information, that there is vaccines available to them, it is a personal choice if they wish to get it. But what is critically important is that they hear from an actual medical provider, an actual medical expert, not RFK, who can explain that the MMR vaccine, that's the measles vaccine, is highly effective, and the best way to protect yourself against this measles outbreak. Make no mistake; you can draw a straight line between the nonsense that RFK has been spewing for years and now his work as the leading public health official in this country, and people getting sick here in my state and across the country. How do we get control of it...now, it's the second part of your question. You do what we're doing here in the Commonwealth, bringing all of our healthcare partners together, and working to provide actual medical information to people in our Commonwealth, and making sure they get access to the vaccine, and encouraging them to take it. Now, here's some data for you. Typically, our Department of Health, working with our healthcare partners, would vaccinate around 25,000 people a month. Since the measles outbreak and my encouragement, and Dr. Bogen, our health secretary's encouragement to get vaccinated, we're now up to 55,000 vaccines being administered a month. So, Pennsylvanians are doing what we do best: coming together, looking out for our neighbors, and trusting science- something RFK continually tries to undermine."

To watch Brennan's full interview with Shapiro, click here.