WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Andy Kim (D., N.J.) is introducing a plan to provide free healthcare to every child in the country, an idea he thinks could become a strategic step toward universal healthcare while addressing the urgent needs of an estimated — and likely undercounted — 4.6 million uninsured children.
Enrollment in MediKids, as he calls it, would be automatic at birth and extend until age 26. It aims to provide comprehensive benefits to uninsured children and young adults while also tackling the larger affordability crisis and the healthcare cuts under President Donald Trump that are expected to lead to further disenrollment in the coming years.
Strategically, Kim said, he also hopes the idea will be a politically popular jumping-off point as his party prepares to regain some level of control in Washington during the midterm elections this year and then fight for the White House in 2028.
“It really kind of brings that debate about healthcare to its core essence,” Kim said. “Who is going to stand in the way? Who could possibly say that we shouldn’t provide healthcare to every child in this country?”
Kim, speaking to reporters in his office on Capitol Hill last week, said he was in the early stages of figuring out and advocating for the program. He also said he was clear-eyed about the “political realities” that will make it difficult to pass.
Even if Democrats win control of the House and Senate this year, finding a bipartisan agreement with Trump during the remaining two years of his term would be an uphill battle.
Beyond that, Democrats have had their own internal debates on the issue — symbolized by Joe Biden’s opposition to Medicare for All during his 2020 campaign as progressives like U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind., Vt.) championed the idea.
Kim said he sees MediKids as a steppingstone toward universal government-backed healthcare, which he expects to be part of his party’s debates again heading into the 2028 presidential election. He said he introduced it now because of the “urgency” of the affordability crisis and a “hunger for ideas” that he hears from voters in New Jersey and elsewhere.
Critically, he said, it is also a personal issue for him and his family. Trump’s attempt to roll back the ACA during his first term coincided with the birth of Kim’s son, who had immediate medical needs.
“I would not be here in Congress had it not been for that experience,” Kim said. “No parent should have to experience what I had to, and what many parents right now have to, which is worry about whether or not they’re going to be able to get healthcare for their kid if they lose a job, or change jobs, or any number of other issues.”
MediKids as introduced would operate as an extension of Medicaid, which currently covers about 35.5 million kids, including through the Children’s Health Insurance Program. It would provide access to comprehensive screening and early treatment benefits that experts say improve overall health outcomes for children.
Kim said he did not have even a rough estimate of what it would cost to extend the benefits to every child and young adult through age 26. Though the price tag is likely to be significant — and play a role in the program’s ability to gain political support in Washington — he said the long-term investment in healthier kids will have “real savings over time.” Identifying a funding source would come later as Democrats figure out how to pay for a long list of priorities if they win control of Congress and the presidency, he said.
“When you think of our healthcare system, writ large, children are very inexpensive,” said Joan Alker, a research professor and executive director of the Center for Children and Families at the Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy.
Alker said research has shown that providing healthcare for kids creates a“great return on investment, both from the perspective of taxpayer dollars and, more importantly, from the perspective of having children who are going to grow and thrive.”
MediKids, she said, would be an effective and in some ways novel way of tackling an “extraordinarily worrying” trend.
After steady declines in the number of uninsured children both before and after the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the figures have fluctuated in the last decade. The 4.6 million children without insurance in 2024 represented about 6% of all children, an increase from about 5.1% in 2022. That period coincided with changes in Medicaid after the pandemic, a period known as the unwinding.
But child enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP has also decreased dramatically since Trump took office again in January 2025 — declining by more than 2 million through May of this year, according to the center at Georgetown.
Enrollment has decreased in Pennsylvania by about 130,000, or 4.1%, and in New Jersey by about 28,000, or 1.5%. Indiana has seen the worst fallout, with about 360,500, or about 20%, fewer children enrolled.
Alker said most children remain eligible. The drop-offs are due to a variety of reasons, including families with mixed immigration statuses being less willing to participate in federal government programs under Trump, less outreach by the federal government to connect individuals with healthcare options, and more administrative red tape for Medicaid, she said.
“I think this is a harbinger of what’s to come next year,” Alker said, referring to the changes to Medicaid eligibility that were passed in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and will begin to be implemented after the midterm elections.
“There’s a lot of conversation about children being protected,” she said. “But when you start cutting off parents and other adults, when you start adding red tape, then children are going to be impacted.”
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit healthcare-focused think tank, about 26.7 million people — adults and children — were uninsured in 2024. That is about the same amount as in 2016, which marked a high-water mark after the Affordable Care Act passed.
Kim said he set the upper eligibility limit for MediKids at age 26 because of the popular piece of the ACA that allows young adults to stay on their parents’ insurance until that age. He said he is still working through all aspects of the program, though, and his priority remains on the growing number of children who are uninsured.
“That should be unacceptable for everybody,” Kim said. “I honestly did not realize the number was that high when I first set out to do this. But it’s shocking in the richest, most powerful country in the world that we have that level of problem that is out there right now.”
WASHINGTON — Doug Mastriano, the far-right Pennsylvania lawmaker whom President Donald Trump nominated to become the U.S. ambassador to Slovakia, refused to tell senators during his confirmation hearing on Thursday whether he believes all American political leaders should be Christian.
A key Trump ally during the president’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, Mastriano also rejected claims that he is a conspiracy theorist who assisted in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
And while he said he regretted some of his past statements about the Holocaust and his associations with individuals considered antisemitic, he repeatedly pushed back on Democratic senators’ concerns about his fitness for the role.
“I’ve never been involved in conspiracies,” he said during a heated exchange with U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine (D., Va.), who at different points referred to Mastriano as “gullible” and someone who needs to “look in the mirror a little bit.”
The Republican state senator from Franklin County is a retired U.S. Army colonel who deployed three times to Afghanistan after 9/11 and previously served in Eastern Europe.
He was the Republican nominee for Pennsylvania governor in 2022 with Trump’s backing, but he lost to Democrat Josh Shapiro by nearly 15 percentage points. Mastriano’s nomination for the ambassadorship came as his supporters were promoting him as a write-in candidate for governor ahead of the May Republican primary, in which Treasurer Stacy Garrity was unopposed.
U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick (R., Pa.), who pushed for Mastriano’s nomination and chaired his confirmation hearing during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Thursday, said Mastriano’s military career made him “highly qualified” for the role.
“This position needs a leader with strategic judgment, intimate knowledge of NATO’s inner workings, and firsthand experience working alongside our allies with an unwavering commitment to advancing America’s interest,” McCormick said during the hearing. “Doug brings that experience, and I’m confident that he’ll represent the United States with great professionalism and integrity.”
Mastriano also leaned on his experience, which he said involved planning operations in the Baltic states and fending off Russian aggression. He said he hoped to strengthen America’s relationship with Slovakia and encourage the country to contribute to Ukraine’s defense.
But Democrats on the committee said they had serious concerns about both Mastriano’s past comments on foreign policy and a range of other issues — including an ideology that has been described as Christian nationalist.
U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen (D., Nev.) said Mastriano had spoken often about his Christian identity and his belief that the separation of church and state is a “myth.” Rosen, who is Jewish, asked Mastriano to look her in the eye and say whether all U.S. political leaders should be Christian.
Mastriano said that he believed “religious liberty applies to every American” and that it was “why our country was founded.” After Rosen said it was “deeply problematic” that he would not say America is a pluralistic nation where leaders do not need to be Christian, Mastriano responded, “I will look you in the eye and repeat even simpler language” — though he did not answer the original question.
“We are absolutely a pluralistic society and I have worked for non-Christians in the military and the government, and I’ve had them working for me,” Mastriano added.
Rosen also questioned him about previous comments comparing abortion and his loss to Shapiro in the 2022 Pennsylvania governor’s race to the Holocaust.
“There was a social media post that I would not post today,” Mastriano said, calling any comparisons to the Holocaust “unwise.”
Asked about his associations with Andrew Torba, founder of the online platform Gab, which has been used to share extremist and antisemitic views, Mastriano said he “immediately” returned a campaign donation from Torba and cut off advertising on the platform when he learned about the Gab founder’s views.
“You can denounce your past associations with antisemites. You can point to your support of Israel,” Rosen said. “But for me, I’m not sure that either excuses you or erases your record.”
U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.) questioned Mastriano while displaying a giant poster with his picture and a 2018 quote in which he said European Union leaders were “political, diplomatic enemies of the United States of America.”
She said staff who had interviewed him recently had also quoted him as saying he believed the European Union was a “rising rival comparable to China and that it would eventually create a standing army to challenge the United States.” Visibly frustrated during her questioning, Shaheen said that the EU should be treated as allies, not rivals, and that Mastriano “should absolutely know better.”
The most contentious exchange came between Mastriano and Kaine, who started by saying that he respected the nominee’s military service and that the nomination brought him “a real sense of sadness.”
“You’ve associated with antisemites and Holocaust deniers. You’ve associated with 9/11 conspiracy theorists. You’ve made comments about foreign leaders that are not diplomatic in quality. And you and I share a very special day in American history,” Kaine said. “We were both here on Jan. 6, 2021.”
Mastriano was Trump’s top ally in Pennsylvania as the president contested his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. He worked both publicly and privately to contest the vote, and he was near the Capitol on the day that a mob broke in to stop the certification of the results. The Republican lawmaker was not charged with a crime related to any of those activities, which he reminded Kaine about on Thursday.
“That is incorrect,” he said as Kaine pressed and said he had been at the Capitol to overturn the results. “I was here to hear the president. I was here with my wife to hear the president of the United States speak. We didn’t do anything illegal. We came, we saw, we left.”
Asked if he would say, now, that Biden had won the election, Mastriano said only that Biden had been certified as the winner — a phrase that other Trump nominees have used in nomination hearings and that Democrats have described as a pre-negotiated script to appease a president who still stands by the fraudulent claims.
“Conspiracy theorists generally are gullible people. They might have master’s degrees and Ph.D.s, and you’ve got them,” Kaine said to Mastriano, referring to his degree in history.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, senator,” Mastriano said, denying that he subscribes to conspiracy theories as the two talked over each other.
Kaine said Mastriano could claim, if he wanted, that he only held a public hearing on the 2020 election — an event in Gettysburg that helped spread false claims that there was widespread fraud in the election — but he could not erase his record.
“No, sir, there’s no erasing,” Mastriano said. “Facts are stubborn things.”
WASHINGTON — Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, thumbing his nose at national Republicans on the morning after they subpoenaed him, rallied protesters on Capitol Hill on Thursday as one of his counterparts in Virginia, who had also been compelled by a subpoena from the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, prepared to testify behind closed doors.
Taunting both Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), the committee chair, and President Donald Trump outside the building where the committee meets, Krasner railed against Republicans generally and the ongoing legal maneuvers he said are intended to ensure progressive prosecutors like him “roll over and play dead.”
“Jim Jordan, can you hear me?” he asked as he stood before a crowd of mostly Virginians outside the Rayburn House Office Building. “Why don’t you come out here? We miss you. We haven’t seen you, and apparently, you don’t like us when we’re with you in public.”
The monthslong war of words escalated on Wednesday, when Jordan ordered Krasner’s office to produce documents about its handling of immigration issues. The Republican-led committee requested the documents in May as it accused the district attorney — as well as Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel and Sheriff Rochelle Bilal — of protecting criminal immigrants through sanctuary policies.
Republicans have similarly targeted multiple jurisdictions, including Arlington County and the city of Falls Church, in Virginia’s Washington suburbs.
The committee subpoenaed the area’s top prosecutor, Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, in March for documents related to protests outside the home of deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller. After a back-and-forth in which Dehghani-Tafti requested a public hearing, the committee wrote in a July 1 letter that it was compelling her to appear to answer questions about “politicized interference in a doxxing investigation and your preferential treatment of illegal immigrants accused of criminal conduct in your district.”
“I’m here because I respect the law, and I’m here because I upheld the rule of law,” Dehghani-Tafti said Thursday as she walked by the gathering of about 75 people, some of whom wore shirts and held signs reading “No Secret Hearings.”
Krasner said the committee was afraid to conduct the questioning in a public setting because Dehghani-Tafti, whom he described as a top-notch prosecutor and communicator, would “wreck them.”
“And they are not just trying to do it to her,” Krasner said. “They’re trying to do it to a whole bunch of us — pretty much anybody who they see as standing in their way.”
Krasner did not otherwise address his own subpoena while speaking in Washington.
Asked for comment, a spokesperson for the committee said Thursday: “We look forward to Mr. Krasner’s compliance with the subpoena.”
In an interview after his speech, Krasner said it was important for him and other local prosecutors, some of whom were in attendance Thursday, to join together to show that “none of us are backing down.” He said that he has the same legal representation as Dehghani-Tafti to deal with the situation, and that if he was compelled to testify he would answer the committee’s answers truthfully.
“I’d be shocked if these cowards wanted a public hearing,” Krasner said. “Not because I’m so important, but because the questions are so stupid, and the truth harms them so much.”
In a private setting, he said, the committee can control any transcripts or videos and decide when and how to make them public. He compared the situation to “Putin’s Russia,” mocked Jordan for not completing law school, and repeatedly called Trump the “criminal-in-chief.”
Krasner also alleged that part of the reason he and others are being targeted is because of their ability to prosecute state-level crimes, for which Trump does not have the power to pardon. That includes potential crimes related to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender and former Trump associate who died in 2019.
“Make no mistake, Epstein class, we are coming for you,” Krasner said in shouting distance from federal lawmakers. “We’re coming for you now, or we’re coming for you later.”
Epstein’s private islands were in the U.S. Virgin Islands and his mainland home was in Florida, outside Krasner’s jurisdiction in Philadelphia.
Late Thursday afternoon in Philadelphia, Krasner said he was in the process of complying with the subpoena.
“It encompasses an infinite number of documents, many of which they’re not entitled to have, but there’s little doubt they’re entitled to have some of them, and what the law requires is what we’re going to do,” he said. “It is very likely that sooner or later we’re going to turn over some documents.”
He derided Jordan as “the criminal-in-chief’s little helper” and accused the House committee of being on a “silly mission” to try to show fault with how honest prosecutors are handling immigration issues in their jurisdictions.
“If they want to mess with Philly, they’re going to come through me,” Krasner said. “My job is to protect Philadelphians. I’m going to do that. We’re not going to have ICE agents or federal agents murdering people on the streets of Philadelphia with no consequence.”
This month ICE agents fatally shot two men in six days during traffic stops in Texas and Maine.
The House committee gave Krasner a July 29 deadline to provide the documents it requested. In a letter Wednesday, Jordan said Krasner’s “refusal to cooperate” included “bizarre and baseless demands and conditions.”
“The Committee has no obligation to entertain your unreasonable demand because as federal courts have explained, it is exclusively the prerogative of the Committee to determine how and in what manner it conducts its oversight,” Jordan wrote.
Staff writer Jeff Gammage contributed to this article.
CARLISLE, Pa. — President Donald Trump — as fighting resumes in Iran and his administration’s request for $1.5 trillion in defense funding stalls in Washington — used a Wednesday appearance at a defense industry summit in central Pennsylvania mostly to boast about his perceived foreign and domestic achievements, from the oil business in Venezuela to the National Guard’s security work during Mardi Gras.
In a 53-minute speech that was set up as a roundtable conversation, Trump occasionally applauded the latest investments in Pennsylvania’s defense manufacturing and research, which was the focus of the two-day Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit organized by U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick (R., Pa.).
He also acknowledged the setbacks in Iran and the widely recognized need for the country to more quickly build items like submarines and munitions.
But in his second stop in three weeks in Pennsylvania — and specifically in a Republican-held U.S. House district that is critical to his party keeping control in the midterm elections — Trump also weaved through a wide range of topics.
“This guy Shapiro is totally overrated. I watched him the other night doing a speech, and he does not have what it takes,” Trump said in Carlisle. “Maybe he’ll win, and he’s expected to win, but I hear things about Stacy, and I’m hearing some poll numbers that are very good. But Shapiro is — he doesn’t have what it takes.”
Shapiro, who also attended the summit, held back from pointedly criticizing Trump’s foreign aggression during his panel, and he left the summit before the president’s appearance.
While most panelists and convention-goers praised the federal government’s focus on military investment, there was little discussion about specific developments abroad or controversies around Trump’s use of the armed forces.
Just this week, fighting in Iran resumed after a tentative ceasefire was reached and then fell apart. The U.S. Senate, which had previously voted — in a mostly symbolic gesture — to restrict Trump’s actions in Iran, has meanwhile stalled the president’s defense budget as Democrats attempt to exert more leverage to wind down the conflict.
“This war continues to be a costly blunder that has only made us worse off than before,” U.S. Sen. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat who served as a diplomat before entering Congress, said on social media this week as Trump continued the war effort.
The bombing campaign that began in late February has been both unpopular — a Fox News poll in June found 58% think the U.S. made the wrong decision by starting it — and costly, as gas prices have remained elevated and the nation’s arsenal of Tomahawk cruise missiles has depleted. It will take years to replenish the stockpile, according to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
McCormick, who has supported Trump’s efforts in Iran, said in opening the summit on Tuesday that the gathering came “in a moment as consequential as any moment in American history, and maybe in human history.”
“President Trump’s vision of peace through strength demands new players and new ways of doing business,” McCormick said. “Such radical new thinking has never been more needed in America’s history, in the history of our military. China, Iran, Russia, North Korea: They all share one objective — a weakened United States. And they’re actively working together toward that end.”
But Shapiro said he believed the administration’s antagonistic relationship with longtime allies is a risk to national security, though he did not specifically frame his comments around the wars in Iran or Ukraine.
“Candidly, I get a little bit concerned when our administration pokes their finger in the eye of our allies,” Shapiro said. “That undermines our ability to innovate, and it undermines our ability to be stronger with our national defense and to have a deterrence that is going to protect the American people and protect our interests abroad.”
McCormick, a U.S. Army veteran and former hedge fund CEO, organized the 1,300-person gathering to bring defense contractors and other companies together with government officials, military leaders, and research institutions.
As at a similar energy- and technology-focused event last year, McCormick used the event to highlight what he described as about $10 billion worth of investments in the state.
The list featured several ongoing Philadelphia efforts — including new ship orders at the Hanwha Philly Shipyard that McCormick valued at $1.5 billion, and a 10-year, $2.5 billion agreement to support submarine construction by Rhoads Industries and General Dynamics.
Day & Zimmermann, a Philadelphia-based and family-owned conglomerate that is one of the Army’s largest ammunition suppliers, also won a $2.3 billion contract to update, operate, and run the Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada, according to McCormick.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief executive Jamie Dimon, who visited the Navy Yard on Wednesday ahead of the conference, also appeared in Carlisle to discuss $13 million in financing his company is providing to Rhoads’ ongoing project.
Not all of the announcements are new or immediate — such as a recent $84 million order of heavy dump trucks from Mack Defense, which is part of a five-year, $221.8 million contract signed last year and that Trump touted in Macungie last month.
Trump called the announcements “a colossal victory for this commonwealth and for the entire nation.”
“Pennsylvania workers will build the ships, submarines, trucks, weapons and industries that will ensure America remains the strongest and the most powerful nation in the history of the world,” Trump said.
In between diversions about the 2024 election, COVID-19, and claiming — as he has before during rallies in Pennsylvania — that affordability concerns are “fake,” Trump also addressed the focus of the gathering by stressing the need for a faster buildup of military equipment.
“We used to make a ship a day, and now we’re a laggard in that department,” he said while asking the submarine construction workers in Philadelphia to pick up the pace. “We do lots of great things, but we’re a laggard there.”
Like his rally in Lehigh County in June, Trump’s speech on Wednesday was located in a congressional district with one of the most competitive races — both in Pennsylvania and nationally — this year.
U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, a York County Republican, is seeking an eighth term in the 10th Congressional District, which covers all of Dauphin County and parts of York and Cumberland Counties. Perry narrowly fended off a challenge from former local television anchor Janelle Stelson in 2024 and is facing her again as Democrats invest more into the race.
As polls show Democrats have some broad momentum in the midterms, a new Pennsylvania poll released Wednesday found 39% of voters in the state approve and 58% disapprove of the president’s job performance.
The same poll from Quinnipiac University found 40% approve of McCormick’s job performance, 33% disapprove, and 28% had no opinion.
The event Wednesday and the energy-focused summit in Pittsburgh last July have spotlighted McCormick in rare, high-profile ways for a freshman senator. The former CEO of Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge funds, has also developed a close alliance with Trump in ways that have elevated his political stature.
“Hopefully we’ll fix some of these societal problems,” Dimon, one of the country’s most powerful executives, said when McCormick asked him onstage what the next decade would look like. “And Secretary of Treasury Dimon will be happy to report to you, will be happy to report to President McCormick.”
McCormick has not publicly expressed an interest in running for president — though at least one widely expected 2028 contender was in attendance Wednesday at his invitation.
“Defense is critical to the future growth of this commonwealth,” Shapiro said, while praising McCormick in a bipartisan showing.
Shapiro spoke emphatically about bolstering the state’s role in the defense industrial base and said he is doing what he can to have the state benefit from defense-related jobs and a federal focus on national security.
Shapiro also appeared at the conference at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle earlier in the day. In a panel conversation there, he did not criticize Trump by name as he fully endorsed the summit’s goal of supercharging the defense industry and placing Pennsylvania at the center of the expansion.
President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (right) are on stage at a Defense and Innovation Summit hosted by U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick at the US Army War College in Carlisle Wednesday, July 15, 2026.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Those jobs include about 2,200 at General Dynamics, a global corporation whose Pennsylvania employees work on everything from sonar and artificial intelligence to submarine defensive systems and electronic warfare, the company’s president, Danny Deep, said while sitting alongside Shapiro.
Deep referenced the governor’s 2024 visit to the General Dynamics munitions manufacturing plant in Scranton, when Shapiro and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed both empty artillery shells and agreements to work together. Because of the demand during Ukraine’s war with Russia, the company has ramped up its monthly munitions production from 14,000 to 50,000 — a move that Deep said was possible only with help from the state.
“That’s because of this public-private partnership, and that’s what makes Pennsylvania so special,” he said.
President Donald Trump leaves the stage at the end of a Defense and Innovation Summit hosted by U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick at the US Army War College in Carlisle Wednesday, July 15, 2026.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Michael Coulter, president and CEO of Hanwha Defense USA, likewise said on the panel that the cross-party and cross-government support is essential in the company’s continued expansion at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia. The investments announced by McCormick on Wednesday included a federal government order of new ships that was valued at $1.5 billion and supporting more than 2,000 jobs in Philadelphia.
“We are foot-on-the-throttle to make shipbuilding great again,” Coulter said. “And Pennsylvania’s the heart of that.”
Staff writer Joseph N. DiStefano contributed to this article.
In the back of a classroom where she had just read to 20 attentive preschool kids, U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan was concerned about what the staff of the West Chester YMCA was telling her.
Nearly a third of the families who rely on the facility’s childcare programs — in the richest county in Pennsylvania, and one of the wealthiest in the country — receive financial assistance to cover the $1,900 monthly cost, the staffers said.
Houlahan, a Democrat who is soft-spoken when she is not grilling President Donald Trump’s cabinet secretaries or House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) on Capitol Hill, asked about the income qualifications for financial aid. At a certain point, the YMCA staff told her, some parents have a disincentive to earn more, lest they become disqualified and then stuck with a higher bill.
“It’s terrible, no matter how you do the math,” Houlahan said a few hours later at a Malvern restaurant, relaying the story to her daughter, Molly Rosa Houlahan, and daughter-in-law, Kristen Rosa Houlahan.
The YMCA’s fee was about the same amount the couple were paying for their 18-month-old, Lucy. With another child due in September, it is also an amount they still are unsure how to afford twice over.
“We’re very fortunate in our jobs, and we’re both trying to get promotions in order to be able to afford a second daycare,” said Molly Rosa Houlahan, 33, a local theater director and producer. “But we are not in that position yet. I don’t totally know what will happen when this second child arrives.”
From childcare to healthcare, groceries to gas prices, affordability concerns have remained top of mind for Americans this year — dominating discussions on Capitol Hill ahead of the high-stakes midterm elections.
Republicans, who control Congress and the White House, say they have made real progress in raising wages and lowering costs. They marked the first anniversary of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act — since rebranded by Republicans as the Working Families Tax Cut Act — this month by celebrating the law’s more generous tax refunds and other benefits, like new investment savings accounts for children under 18.
Democrats have pointed to the bill’s simultaneous cuts to Medicaid spending and food assistance for low-income families. They say Trump signaled he has no interest in lowering costs when he refused to sign a bipartisan housing bill and said he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation” when handling the war in Iran.
In this 2019 file photo, U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D., Pa.) arrives for a House Armed Services Committee budget hearing for the Departments of the Army and Air Force on Capitol Hill in Washington.Andrew Harnik
Houlahan, who has represented most of Chester and Berks Counties since 2019, routinely highlights the broader scope of cost-of-living issues alongside her colleagues. She has taken a leading role among centrist House Democrats to help craft a detailed “affordability agenda.”
Whether her party can advance any of those policies in Washington, even if it wins control of one or both chambers of Congress in November, remains an open question as Trump remains in office and the International Monetary Fund warns of a worsening global economy.
But as the fight drags out, it has also become increasingly personal for Houlahan and her family.
In addition to occasionally helping fill the gaps in their granddaughter’s care, Houlahan and her husband’s own home in Devon, Chester County, has transformed into a version of a so-called sandwich generation household within the last year. The couple’s other adult daughter, her husband, and both of Houlahan’s parents, who are 80 and 84, have all moved in.
The underlying circumstances for the multigenerational home, as they would be for any family, are various and personal. And Houlahan emphasized across multiple interviews that she is fortunate to have the means to welcome her family under her roof. (Houlahan is an Air Force veteran and a former executive at the athletic apparel company AND1. Her husband, Bart, is a partner at an investment research firm.)
But the larger realities — like skyrocketing costs for childcare and senior living — have also now played a role in her own life.Her mother has a Parkinson’s diagnosis, and her parents were unable to find a one-floor living space that was affordable and fit their other needs as they looked to move closer to their family.
“We’re having these conversations, and you know people all over our community are having these conversations,” she said. “It’s an acute issue for families in our area: How do you balance all of this?”
U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (center) has dinner with her family at Brick & Brew in Malvern, including her father, Andy Jampoler (left), her husband, Bart Houlahan, and her mother, Suzy Jampoler.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer
‘A big balancing act’
Houlahan has shared parts of her family’s story as she has traveled her district this year — prioritizing events and meetings that aim for a deeper understanding of an affordability crisis that has not spared her home county, where the median household income is about $131,000, or 40% more than the statewide average.
On back-to-back days this spring, that meant a focus on the kinds of childcare and senior-care issues she has become familiar with.
“We call it ‘from zero to Edna,’” Laura Schoefield-Pierson, executive director of the YMCA of Greater Brandywine, said of the facility’s programs aimed at all ages, from infants to seniors.
Walking Houlahan through the pre-K classes and a gym with a dozen seniors playing table tennis, Schoefield-Pierson spoke about the organization’s exercise programs aimed at offsetting symptoms of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, and about the complexities of providing assistance for families with young children.
In addition to the “many children” whose care is subsidized through the state’s Child Care Works program — set for families earning 200% or less of the federal poverty level, or $66,000 for a family of four — others receive aid through the YMCA, Schoefield-Pierson said. The facility’s fundraising goal this year is $237,000, she said. On the day of Houlahan’s visit, Schoefield-Pierson said “the kiddos” were writing thank-you notes to donors.
U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D., Pa.) interacts with teachers and children at a childcare center at the YMCA in West Chester.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer
Though the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends childcare should not exceed 7% of household income, Houlahan said she was surprised to learn a family would have to earn $327,000 to meet that benchmark at the YMCA for one child.
Nationally, the average annual cost of childcare in 2024 was $13,128, an increase of 29% over the previous five years and far exceeding the national recommendation for the average household’s budget.
“It’s crazy how much healthcare and childcare plays into your family planning,” said Helena Cordoba, a 35-year-old mother of two who said at a roundtable hosted by Houlahan that she had been hoping to grow her family.
A Colombian immigrant who owns Café Com Leite in Phoenixville, Cordoba said she thought she had been living the American dream. But a recent miscarriage and the rising costs of both childcare and healthcare, which she does not currently have, have made her rethink her family’s plans.
“I never thought I was going to say, ‘Maybe the miscarriage is a blessing.’ That thought on its own is very saddening,” Cordoba said. “I don’t know if we were going to be able to afford another baby. Our life would have been completely turned upside down.”
Others voiced similar struggles while Houlahan sympathized and shared her daughter’s own experience with a $2,000 monthly daycare bill.
Karessa, Amelia, and Zack Hathaway, pictured here in 2023, at Sweet Amelia’s in Kennett Square.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Zack Hathaway, who owns the restaurant Sweet Amelia’s in Kennett Square with his wife, Karessa, said their business “makes just enough” to cover the $700 to $800 weekly cost for their babysitter amid a demanding restaurant schedule. Thomas Smith, who works at the Cleveland-Cliffs steel plate production facility in Coatesville, said he makes too much to qualify for subsidies for his grandchildren but still struggles to cover the cost.
“It’s like a big balancing act to be able to put your kids in a place that you want to feel comfortable with them being and with being able to afford it,” said Amarte Grove, another Cleveland-Cliffs employee and a father of five daughters.
In another tour focused on the other end of the agespectrum, Houlahan peppered staffers at Brandywine Valley Active Aging in Downingtown about their work to offer free meals, housing services, and activities to about 120 seniors daily.
According to the organization, Chester County’s homeless population has decreased in recent years — from 916 in 2023 to 747 in 2025. But the percentage of that population that is over 60 has increased from 9% in 2023 to 14% in 2026. About 45 older adults in the county were homeless as of early May, according to the organization, which works alongside other independent and government groups to connect seniors with stable housing.
“It is really difficult to live in Chester County,” said Jen Manthey, BVAA’s director of information and assistance. “It takes a long time for them to get out of homelessness, partly because it takes a long time for us to build the trust with them and get that rapport — that they trust what we’re saying, and there aren’t $400 room rentals out there that we’re just hiding from you.”
U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D. Pa.) visits with senior citizens at the YMCA in West Chester. She shares the burden of the “sandwich generation” caring for her elderly parents, opening her home to her adult daughter and son-in-law, and helping to care for her other daughter’s toddler.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer
Nick Popov, BVAA’s chief operating officer, said demand remains high for the 5,000 free lunches the organization provides every month to individuals age 60 and older. The cost for those meals is reimbursed through the Pennsylvania Department of Aging, though the organization raises most of its funding in total, he said.
“The services are out there. We’re doing everything we can to provide them,” Popov said. “But it’s always a struggle to kind of balance the bottom line between our goals and what we can actually affordably accomplish.”
Houlahan’s parents said they had never expected to move in with their daughter. Even as they looked to move closer to their family and could not find a spot that fit their financial and physical needs, it took some convincing, mostly from their son-in-law, Bart Houlahan.
“It was an inspiration that permits us to enter old age — serious old age, not just the kid stuff right now — with greater confidence that our health will be sustained,” said Andy Jampoler,Houlahan’s father, a Holocaust survivor born in German-occupied Poland in 1942.
U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan poses at a family during dinner at Brick & Brew in Malvern, including her father, Andy Jampoler (left), her husband, Bart Houlahan, daughter Molly Rosa Houlahan, daughter-in-law Kristen Rosa Houlahan, and Houlahan’s mother, Suzy Jampoler.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer
Turning experience into policy
In May, Houlahan introduced legislation that would require the federal government to collect data on the sandwich generation, a step she said is critical to creating better policies for an “undervalued role in the nation’s economy.”
It would require at least one federal survey to ask whether individuals provide unpaid care to both children and older adults. U.S. Sen. Andy Kim (D., N.J.), who has two young sons and cares for his father with Alzheimer’s, sponsored a companion bill in the Senate.
Sen. Andy Kim (D., N.J.) poses with his family and Vice President Kamala Harris after taking the ceremonial oath of office in the old Senate chamber on Jan. 3, 2025, in Washington.Steven M. Falk / Staff Photographer
Houlahan is also the chair of an “economic growth and cost of living” working group within the New Democrat Coalition, a group of self-described centrist Democrats that includes about half of the entire caucus. The group rolled out an “affordability agenda” earlier this year that is considered a framework for how Democrats would tackle housing, healthcare, energy, paid family leave, and much more if they win control of the House.
U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider (D., Ill.), chair of the New Democrat Coalition, credited Houlahan for her leadership with the agenda, describing her as having a “quiet wisdom that focuses on the core of a problem” while bringing her own life experience to the work.
“Everyone’s experience is unique, but her experience shares many of the aspects of what people across the country are facing,” Schneider said. “The sandwich generation, taking care of kids and parents, for whatever circumstance, while at the same time seeing the cost of just everyday living … is putting a burden on families.”
The legislation aims to incentivize housing construction, restrict large investors from buying single-family homes, help families with home repairs, and more. The president reiterated Friday that he would not sign it, allowing the bill to become law without his signature.
In her Capitol Hill office about an hour after Trump canceled that bill signing late last month, Houlahan described the president as “so obtuse that he can’t see in front of him that this is something that the people want.” After spending much of the last year calling out Johnson, the House speaker, for not standing up to Trump, she said there should be “counterinsurgents” and an “uprising” in the Republican Party.
At the same time, she expressed some hope. The housing bill may have been a rare moment of bipartisanship, but it was also a sign that Congress can still act on affordability even before the end of the year, she said.
“We don’t have time, for all of this stuff, to wait until somebody else is in charge,” Houlahan said. “We can do this ourselves.”
U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D., Pa.) sits between her father, Andy Jampoler, and her husband, Bart Houlahan, at Brick & Brew in Malvern. Houlahan’s parents recently moved in with her. Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer
As Democrats grapple with the fallout from Graham Platner’s scandal-plagued and ultimately canceled bid for U.S. Senate in Maine, a political consulting firm that worked on his race and that’s been heavily involved in Pennsylvania politics is at the center of many of the party’s frustrations.
Members of the firm weren’t the only ones advising Platner’s campaign. National operatives such as Daniel Moraff, who has also worked in Pennsylvania, have also fielded criticism for recruiting and not thoroughly vetting Platner, an unknown political outsider.
But both before and after the allegations of sexual assault that led to Platner’s exit from the race this week, other Democratic consultants and political observers blamed FIGHT for continuing to support him through multiple public setbacks.
Platner’s issues have also reignited anger about and drawn parallels to Fetterman, another candidate who ran as a working-class progressive. The Pennsylvania Democrat has lost much of the support from the base that elected him as he’s more frequently sided with Republicans in ways that some have described as a betrayal. He has not been accused of the same types of issues that plagued Platner’s run.
“I supported Graham at the beginning, despite the nagging voice in my head that kept saying ‘this feels familiar,’” Adam Jentleson, Fetterman’s first chief of staff who has become a staunch critic of the Pennsylvania Democrat, wrote on social media.
Jentleson was among those who questioned the FIGHT agency and the rest of the Platner team’s work and its handling of the collapse.
When Morris Katz, the FIGHT strategist on Platner’s campaign, said on social media that his team advised to end the campaign immediately after hearing the allegations Platner had raped a former girlfriend, Jentleson replied that the argument “strains credulity.” Platner and his team had continued to deny the allegations, Jentleson and others noted.
“Shading a narrative toward the positive is standard, lying is not,” Jentleson wrote, comparing the experience to working with Fetterman.
Fetterman, for his part, has heavily criticized Platner in recent months and celebrated his downfall this week.
“You will only be remembered as the accused rapist that got pushed out of your election. … Go back under the rock that you came from,” Fetterman said Wednesday on Fox News.
The Democratic Socialists of America, in a letter that mentioned the FIGHT staff’s work for Fetterman, called on candidates to refuse to work with Katz, The Intercept reported Friday.
FIGHT declined to comment for this story.
As Democrats look to regain their footing in this year’s midterm elections, the Platner saga and FIGHT’s role has also touched on the party’s broader goals of cultivating candidates who can win over the kinds of working-class voters President Donald Trump captured in recent years.
Platner, an oyster farmer and former bartender who suffered PTSD after serving in the U.S. Marines, pitched himself as deeply in-tune with working class voters in Maine. It was the type of profile, many Democrats hoped, would lead to a victory over longtime Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and help the party win control of the U.S. Senate.
Democrats in Pennsylvania have taken a similar approach.
In a Lehigh Valley-based congressional district considered one of the likeliest seats in the country to flip from Republican to Democrat, the party has rallied behind Bob Brooks, a union leader and retired firefighter who coaches high school baseball and drives a snowplow.
“When you look at Brooks, one of the reasons he was recruited into this race and why Democrats have rallied around him is that there’s a belief that he might capture some of the [working-class Democratic] energy,” said Chris Borick, an adjunct professor of politics at Lehigh University.
The FIGHT agency, which primarily makes candidates’ television ads, has worked on Brooks’ campaign as well as the campaign of Paige Cognetti, the Scranton mayor and Democratic nominee in the Scranton-based 8th Congressional District.
There are no signs that Brooks or Cognetti are being advised by Katz, who has primarily worked on Platner’s campaign. In response to requests for comment Friday, Brooks’ campaign only confirmed that FIGHT makes its ads, and Cognetti’s campaign said, “Paige is glad Platner dropped out of the race.”
The Pennsylvania candidateshave not faced the same type of intense criticism for parts of their personal histories as Platner did throughout his 10-month campaign.
Brooks’ opponents in the 7th Congressional District primary criticized him for old social media posts that, for instance, downplayed the role of guns in a mass shooting. Brooks said the posts were “silly, maybe stupid.” He, like Platner, also faced accusations that he could be “another John Fetterman,” given his background and similar appearance.
Mike Mikus, a Pittsburgh-based Democratic strategist who has long opposed Fetterman, said Brooks was “the real deal” at a time when Democrats are “desperate” to correct their problem with white, working-class voters. Platner, on the other hand, appeared to be an “overcorrection” that involved consultants dismissing “obvious red flags,” Mikus said.
He said FIGHT may lose some future clients because of the misstep, which he largely blamed on Moraff, a consultant who does not work for FIGHT and has also been widely criticized for recruiting Platner.
“Everybody’s looking for authenticity,” Mikus said. “And you can’t workshop somebody into something they’re not.”
Created after Trump and the Republican Party’s sweeping victories in 2024, the FIGHT agency’s pitch since its launch has focused on authenticity. Its candidates have reflected not just voters’ desires for candidates outside the traditional political establishment, but campaigns intent on fighting Trump and advancing economic populism. Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic socialist who won New York’s mayoral race in 2025, has marked their largest success to date.
“Among progressives there’s a sense that the party has not been effective in trying to counter Trump … and we have to fight this battle internally in order to resist Trump,” said Stephen Medvic, an associate professor of government at Franklin and Marshall College. “So you’re getting groups in the last couple of years, like FIGHT Agency, being put together to try to tip the balance in their direction.”
But their approach — finding someone who meets the profile and aligns with their ideology — may not necessarily always produce a winning formula. Limitations may depend on the type of assessment and vetting that goes into recruitment, he said.
“You might get an AOC, but … you might get a Platner,” Medvic said. “A lot of Democrats are now regretting that they were so excited about Fetterman because he turned out to be something so different.”
WASHINGTON — A replica Liberty Bell, a Knoebels amusement park bench, hundreds of bags of potato chips, and dozens of sweating tourists packed into Pennsylvania’s location at President Donald Trump’s Great American State Fair on Tuesday — a stark turnaround from when the signature 250th anniversary event opened in Washington last week without a Keystone State presence.
Pennsylvania was one of the few Democratic-led states that — describing the two-week fair as too partisan — had either decided not to participate or failed to find another host to showcase local history and memorabilia.
The interest, Gov. Josh Shapiro said at the time, was just not there.
But after a weekend-long sprint initiated by U.S. Sens. Dave McCormick (R., Pa.) and John Fetterman (D., Pa.) to dredge up that interest, Pennsylvania’s pavilion opened Tuesday with nearly every inch of the space filled.
The walls were covered by antique flags and signs lent by York County’s Jeff R. Bridgman Antiques. Children stood in line for a U.S. Steel penny-press machine, grabbed bags of Middleswarth chips made in Snyder County, and Crayola crayons from Easton. (Additional chip donations from Utz and Martin’s will be arriving soon.)
Tourists collected pamphlets about Gettysburg and the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau. They took pictures of anthracite coal and a drill bit used for fracking, both of which were on loan from U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser (R., Luzerne).
Pennsylvania’s pavilion showcases a natural gas drill bit and Middleswarth chips at the Great American State Fair on June 30, 2026, in Washington, D.C.Sam Janesch / Staff
“I always look for an opportunity to highlight our industry,” Beth Ann Bossio, a Christmas tree farmer from Fayette County, said after driving three and a half hours to drop off a tree to display in the center of the space.
Pennsylvania is one of the largest producers of Christmas trees, and Bossio said it was important to her that both the state and its farmers were represented at the fair.
Beth Ann Bossio (front center), a Christmas tree farmer from Fayette County, helps staff from U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick’s office set up a tree she brought for Pennsylvania’s pavilion at the Great American State Fair on June 30, 2026, in Washington, D.C.Sam Janesch / Staff
“That was my vision to come here, to make sure that Pa. is being reflected of what we are, and what we represent,” she said before tying an American flag-themed bow on the tree. “Farmers are very proud of that. We’re patriotic. We take pride in our land and how we steward it.”
The packed room on the National Mall came together in a rush in recent days, after Shapiro joined Democratic governors from other states in declining to use state resources to create and staff a pavilion, which his office said would have run a tab of “hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars.”
He also said his administration’s search for another Pennsylvania host came up short. No companies or other kinds of groups were interested, he said, even as businesses and local governments stepped up to fill the spaces in other states.
While Shapiro last week blamed the lack of interest on the president’s polarizing impact on the 250th celebrations, he said in an interview Tuesday with The Inquirer that it “was never a political exercise. This was an exercise in practicality.”
Shapiro said Pennsylvania’s pavilion would have cost the state $700,000, all of which was money he saw better spent on the major events happening in Pennsylvania this year, including the NFL Draft, PGA Championship, MLB All-Star Game, the ongoing World Cup games, and a number of events across the state for the nation’s 250th birthday.
“My focus is on spending the taxpayer dollars here,” he said.
His administration spent two or three weeks reaching out to businesses and to the Pennsylvania Chamber asking them if they wanted to participate. None of them did, Shapiro said.
“They obviously had a change of heart at the last minute. That’s fine,” Shapiro said about the revived Pennsylvania pavilion.
Organizing the booth in Shapiro’s place were the state’s two senators, a bipartisan duo who have often worked together.
McCormick said he understood Shapiro’s desire not to spend taxpayer money, but when he found out there would be nothing to represent the state that is “the center of America’s history,” he sprang into action.
The freshman Republican said he and Fetterman spoke Saturday morning and quickly made calls to the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, and individual businesses to donate time and resources.
“It’s just inconceivable that we wouldn’t have a booth that would represent all that Pennsylvania had to offer,” said McCormick, whose staff greeted guests at the pavilion all day Tuesday.
Fetterman, who has said Pennsylvania’s role as a purple state means he should consistently work across the aisle, said he was proud to work with McCormick on the effort.
“America’s turning 250 years old,” Fetterman said alongside McCormick during an appearance in Philadelphia on Monday. “Can’t we all just celebrate that and not just find new ways to fight about the politics and the dynamic right now?”
McCormick’s office listed 23 companies or groups that signed up to help, though only a few corporate sponsors were front and center in the space.
Two large signs showcase the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a natural gas advocacy group that has a significant lobbying presence in Harrisburg. And U.S. Steel, the Pittsburgh-based company that benefited from a Trump-approved takeover by a Japanese-owned company last year, offered the penny press and colorful wristbands reading “forging the future.” Hats and signage commemorating Yuengling and Mack Trucks were lent from the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association.
Tourists use a U.S. Steel penny-press machine on display at Pennsylvania’s pavilion at the Great American State Fair on June 30, 2026, in Washington, D.C.Sam Janesch / StaffPennsylvania’s pavilion showcases state history and memorabilia at the Great American State Fair on June 30, 2026, in Washington, D.C.Sam Janesch / Staff
Some organizations have acknowledged earlier conversations with Shapiro’s office to participate that didn’t go anywhere.
A report from The New Republic that Pennsylvania would not be participating in the affair “caught us off guard because that was not our experience at all, nor was it what we had communicated to the [the governor’s] office,” said Jon Anzur, the senior vice president of public affairs for the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry. “It’s unfortunate that it occurred that way.”
He said the governor’s office approached the chamber less than two weeks out from the start of the fair to help get companies involved.
“It just seems odd that we were approached at the eleventh hour and now it sounds like the governor’s office is trying to point fingers when there was ample time to get ducks in a row,” he said.
The Hershey Co. is among the Pennsylvania-based companies that declined to participate.
“We were asked by Gov. Shapiro’s office in mid June and then again over the weekend by Sen. McCormick’s office,” said Todd Scott, a spokesperson for the chocolate business.
Both were told that the size of the ask and the limited amount of time to make it happen was not possible.
“We were asked so late in the game that logistically we couldn’t make that happen. We just cannot provide on a moment’s notice that amount of product that they would have been asking for,” he said.
But the summer weather was also a factor.
“There’s no refrigeration on the mall, and with extreme heat, chocolate doesn’t do well in 100-degree temperatures,” he said. “We always want to make sure that people have the best experience with our products that they can.”
But another candy company, Asher’s Chocolate Co. in Souderton, decided to join.
“Asher’s was asked to participate by the Chamber of Commerce [Monday] and agreed to donate prepackaged bite-size pieces of fudge, which were on hand,” said David Neff, who represents Asher’s. “Asher’s is deeply committed to America and celebrating America’s 250.”
“SAP is committed to the communities where our customers, employees, and partners live and work. SAP’s support of America’s 250th anniversary celebrations reflects our long‑standing commitment to supporting innovation, economic strength, and workforce development,“ SAP spokesperson Bridget Carroll said in a statement.
SAP software is used by the U.S. military and its NATO allies to track troop deployments, military supply chains, and equipment maintenance.
The military aircraft producer Lockheed Martin, which has engineering centers in King of Prussia and in Moorestown, N.J., is the top donor to Trump’s initiative, giving nearly $20 million.
This story has been updated to clarify Bob Asher’s role in Asher’s Chocolate Co.
Staff writer Joseph N. DiStefano contributed to this article.
This story was updated to clarify that Bob Asher is no longer involved in Asher’s Chocolate Co.
In a rare public appearance in Philadelphia, Democratic U.S. Sen. John Fetterman joined Republican U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick at a youth basketball camp in Nicetown on Monday to promote Trump Accounts, the new federally backed savings accounts for kids that became law with the president’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Fetterman — who did not vote for the GOP-led initiative last year but has more frequently supported President Donald Trump’s policies since then — said he was urging families in deeply Democratic Philadelphia to look past Trump’s name on the program.
“Do not fall into that political trap,” Fetterman said. “This isn’t some radical thing. … Do this for your child.”
The accounts, which launch on July 4, are available to children under 18 — with children born between Jan. 1, 2025 and Dec. 31, 2028 receiving $1,000 in seed money.
All accounts will also receive $250 because of a $6.25 billion donation from tech CEO Michael Dell and wife Susan Dell. Families, businesses, and nonprofits can add up to $5,000 annually. A portion of the funds may be accessed when the child turns 18, with the rest transferred into an IRA retirement account.
“Who is excited about getting $200? Put your hands up,” McCormick asked more than 100 kids gathered on one of the indoor courts at Philadelphia Youth Basketball’s summer camp, at the Alan Horwitz “Sixth Man” Center in Nicetown.
Both McCormick and Fetterman appealed directly to the children during speeches between basketball camp drills.
Despite being 6-foot-8 and palming a basketball as he posed for pictures, Fetterman said his basketball skills weren’t “worth much.” But he told the kids that he was there because he wanted them all to be millionaires someday. And the Trump accounts — which he said he and his wife, Gisele, would open for all three of their children — were a step in that direction.
U.S. Senator John Fetterman palms a basketball Monday, June 29, 2026 as he appears with fellow Pennsylvania Sen. Dave McCormick to promote the savings accounts for kids that were a signature piece of President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill. Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
“I am begging your parents to get involved in this,” Fetterman said. “It’s about all of your futures.”
In a joint interview after the event, the senators described the initiative as a groundbreaking effort to build long-term wealth for individuals who don’t typically have access to it.
“This is one of many things that we need to do to think about how we address a fundamental problem — which is, we have a growing concentration of wealth in our country,” said McCormick, a former investment firm CEO and millionaire many times over.
“He was talking almost like a Democrat … a concentration of wealth,” Fetterman quipped, prompting McCormick to laugh.
Fetterman, at the time, joined other Democrats by calling the bill a “disaster” for its cuts to Medicaid spending and other programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
After voting against the law — or voting “hell no,” as he said at the time — Fetterman has broken with his party to support Trump and Republicans in a number of high-profile moments, and in ways that have deeply frustrated Democratic voters. His appearances at public events in Philadelphia and around Pennsylvania have been extremely rare, and many political observers question whether he will seek re-election in 2028.
At the same time, Fetterman has developed a close working relationship with McCormick, a Republican elected in 2024. The pair frequently partner on issues in Washington and stress the need for bipartisanship, particularly in a purple state like Pennsylvania.
“He and I are in this together,” McCormick, who has stopped in Philadelphia frequently, including for meals with Democratic Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, told the crowd Monday.
Philadelphia Youth Basketball CEO Kenny Holdsman said he had worked with both senators and credited a conversation he had with Fetterman for helping push the organization to keep its doors open for longer hours as safe haven for the 2,400 young people in its programs.
Holdsman said the Trump Accounts would “really help young people and their families in a big way” — from the financial security that comes with a compounding investment account, to the educational and financial literacy aspect that will come with kids having access to their savings.
Invest America founder Brad Gerstner, who had pushed for the idea behind Trump Accounts for years and now leads the nonprofit that manages the initiative, showed the children a screenshot of the app that will display the contents of each account.
“We want kids across the country, when they’re in middle school, to be able to open up this on their phone, so it’s not some abstract notion that I have money. This is the way the teachers in public schools are going to be able to teach them about ownership, compounding, financial literacy, et cetera,” Gerstner said. “It’s hard to teach kids about money when they don’t have any money.”
Bipartisan groups have said the Trump Accounts do not have the same kind of tax-advantaged structure as other investment accounts, such as 529 plans that are specifically used for education. Cato Institute, a conservative think tank, has also criticized the $1,000 contributions for children born in the years around the program’s founding and called the overall plan “a government welfare program rather than a tax-neutral investment vehicle.”
Fetterman said he supported 529s but the Trump Accounts were a “much more versatile vehicle” for investing in children’s futures. McCormick said the program’s ability to accept philanthropic donations made it particularly appealing as other individuals and corporations can buoy the accounts on top of families’ investments. Both also stressed convenience.
“You’re going to share in the prosperity of America,” McCormick said. “It’s easy. You don’t have to overthink it.”
Sen. Fetterman pauses to fist bump a youngster on his way to the more than 100 children attending a summer basketball day camp at the Alan Horwitz “Sixth Man” Center.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
WASHINGTON — Fifty years ago this week, President Gerald Ford’s helicopter arrived at Valley Forge in a dense fog.
After a speech to 15,000 people, he designated the Revolutionary War landmark as a national park before heading to Philadelphia, where an estimated crowd of 1 million gathered outside Independence Hall. Ford spoke soberly, recounting the story of a nation that, on its 200th birthday, should find confidence in its ability to both celebrate its founding ideals and ask “hard questions” in the pursuit of something better.
“The American adventure,” Ford said on July 4, 1976, “is a continuing process.”
Philadelphia’s 250th anniversary celebrations this week are set to feature no appearances from the president. No reflections on self-improvement from the commander-in-chief at the birthplace of American democracy, no luncheons with the Philadelphia mayor near City Hall, as Ford also did after his speech.
President Donald Trump has said he will instead use the occasion to throw “the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY” on the National Mall — one of several ways the president’s critics have said he has injected partisanship and self-serving events into what should be a unifying moment.
Trump’s stamp on “America 250” has been clear.
A UFC fight on the White House lawn branded as “Freedom 250” overlapped with the president’s 80th birthday and featured adulations directed at him. The Great American State Fair, which some Democratic-led states declined to participate in, opened last weekwith a campaign-style speech in which the president railed against DEI and transgender athletes. It also featured the U.S. Marine Band playing the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.,” a Trump campaign rally staple. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, using an offensive term that combines liberal with a slur for people with intellectual disabilities, said the band was better than the “libtards” who canceled their performances because of concerns over Trump’s partisan behavior.
“This is really, more than anything else, an opportunity to attempt to bring us all together as Americans. That’s what past celebrations have done,” said U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Democrat whose district includes Independence Hall. “It’s just so tragic that for this anniversary, the president we have is Donald Trump, someone who is completely not capable of doing any sort of national unity-type event.”
Historic Interpreter, Lane Norris, as Alexander Hamilton, speaks with tourists outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer
Boyle worked for years to arrange a ceremonial gathering of Congress at Independence Hall for the 250th, which is set for Thursday. Though not officially a joint session outside of Washington — which has only occurred two other times since the capital relocated from Philadelphia — the event will mark the moment on July 2, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress voted to adopt a resolution for independence.
The commemorative moment “just gives me chills to think about it,” said U.S. Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, a Delaware County Democrat who represents part of Philadelphia and plans to attend Thursday. Scanlon said she was hopeful the event will be bipartisan at a time when the president’s divisiveness was “taking an edge off the celebratory aspect” of the 250th.
Both Scanlon and Boyle described the president’s lack of plans to mark the moment in Philadelphia as disappointing. The White House did not respond to questions for this article, including whether it made any attempts to plan an event with the president in the city.
“I always just kind of assumed that the president of the United States would, at some point in the days leading up to the Fourth of July or even on Fourth of July itself, be in Philadelphia,” Boyle said. “But obviously this president has different priorities.”
Injecting polarization into apolitical events
Matthew Levendusky, a University of Pennsylvania political science professor who has studied how JulyFourth celebrations affect sentiments about national identity and polarization, said previous presidents participated in “patriotic, but not political,” events like concerts, fireworks, and parades.
Trump has taken a distinctly different path since his first term, Levendusky said, noting the military parade in 2019 and a speech at Mount Rushmore in 2020 when, after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, he used the moment to criticize the removal of monuments that symbolized racial oppression.
The 250th events are an example of how Trump, a “conflict entrepreneur,” makes such events more political at a time when American society has already become more partisan, Levendusky said.
“There’s more debate over the meaning of American identity than there was a decade or 15 years ago — in part because there’s been more polarization,” said Levendusky, the director of Penn’s Institutions of Democracy at the Annenberg Public Policy Center. “But he’s also done things that inject polarization into that process.”
Those actions appear to have affected how voters feel about America’s democracy 250 years in — at least among Philadelphia’s largely Democratic electorate.
According to a new Suffolk University/Philadelphia Inquirer poll that surveyed 500 city residents, 70% of Philadelphians believe Trump’s presidency has made them feel less confident in the country’s democracy. The answers were strongly correlated to political party, with more Republicans than Democrats saying that Trump’s presidency made them feel more confident in democracy or that it made no difference.
Tourists flocking to the city have reflected those ideological divides but also a bipartisan desire to set politics aside for a historic milestone.
“We’re all Americans, I don’t care who the president is,” said Greg Sage, 55, a Republican from Michigan who voted for Trump and toured the city’s historic sites this month. “I try not to politicize it, you know? But I believe we’ve been around 250 years. Maybe we’ll make another 250.”
Phyllis Ahnberg, 68, a Democrat from California, said that it was “empowering” to visit Philadelphia’s sites and that she would not let one person or administration change how she celebrated a moment for unity. Still, it was hard to ignore Trump’s impact during a recent trip to Washington.
“We were up at [the] Washington Monument, and we were looking, and it was disgusting to see the White House and this, like, fight thing,” Ahnberg said, referencing the towering structure built to host the UFC fight on June 14. “And to see the East Wing torn down … I mean, it was disgusting. Nobody hired this man to do that.”
U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick, Pennsylvania’s highest-ranking Republican and a close Trump ally, attended the fight and posted on social media that it was an “incredible evening” that honored “the strength, resilience and spirit of the American people.” His office did not grant a request for an interview for this article.
Pennsylvania’s empty booth at the Great American State Fair on Thursday in Washington. On Saturday, Sens. David McCormick (R., Pa.) and John Fetterman (D., Pa.) announced that they had secured private-industry sponsors for the booth at no cost to taxpayers.Sam Janesch / Staff
A debate over past and future America
Other Republicans on Capitol Hill have defended Trump’s role in the anniversary while using the moment to say they believe left-leaning Democrats are the primary threat to America’s democracy.
“We are in a fight right now to save the republic, and every American needs to take this seriously. You need to wake up,” an animated House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) said at a news conference last week after three insurgent candidates backed by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, won competitive congressional primaries.
“Are we going to maintain our status as a constitutional republic on our 250th anniversary?” Johnson continued. “Or are we going to make a new choice and go down some road toward a communist utopia?”
A democratic socialist and state legislator, Rabb has been adamant about what he sees as a need for “radical” change. After speaking at an event titled “The Next American Revolution: Breaking Oligarchy and Making a New Democracy” in Washington last week, he said in an interview that Trump’s presidency has in some ways been a “valuable distraction.”
It is a particularly meaningful opportunity for him personally. A longtime family genealogist, Rabb has spoken often about his heritage as the descendant of both a signer of the Declaration of Independence — the slave-owning Philip Livingston — and Black abolitionists.
“I am an embodiment of the hypocrisy and the complexity of choices and systems that have never really been addressed … [and] that are very similar to what we had 250 years ago,” Rabb said. “Unless and until we have a real public, ongoing, and substantive conversation, it will be more of the same.”
Staff writer Andrea Padilla contributed to this article.
WASHINGTON — Pennsylvania is not participating in President Donald Trump’s Great American State Fair, which kicked off Wednesday, after state leaders failed to find a company willing to represent it at one of the hallmark 250th anniversary events in Washington that some say have become overly partisan.
Pennsylvania’s state government, like those in some other Democratic-led states, had already chosen to not sponsor a booth at the 16-day fair. Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office had still been trying to connect Freedom 250, the nonprofit behind the fair, with organizations and companies that could represent the state, according to federal and state sources familiar with the planning.
“Unfortunately, due to the high cost to taxpayers and not being able to secure PA businesses to sponsor the booth, Pennsylvania will not be a participant in the Great American State Fair,” the Pennsylvania Department of Economic and Community Development said in a statement.
The fair, being held at the National Mall to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary, was originally planned to feature a pavilion dedicated to each state and territory.
But as tourists visited Thursday on the fair’s first full day, there were no signs of the commonwealth where American democracy was born 250 years ago.
Almost every other state was showcased — with most sending state or local government staff and tourism boards to host educational or interactive exhibits.
Cape May County, a Republican stronghold that is representing New Jersey after the state government declined to participate, featured an 8-ton sand sculpture that a sculptor from Wildwood took 4½ days to create.
An 8-ton sand sculpture promotes Cape May at New Jersey’s pavilion at the Great American State Fair, in Washington, D.C. The pavilion was sponsored by Cape May County, a Republican stronghold that chose to represent New Jersey after the state government declined to participate.Sam Janesch / Staff
Maryland’s state tourism department handed out information about its vacation hot spots. Staff in the Lone Star State’s pavilion greeted tourists with a cheerful “Welcome to Texas” and offered an interactive space flight exhibit, a replica of the Alamo, and an Austin City Limits music display.
Delaware highlighted Founding Father Caesar Rodney’s ride to cast the decisive vote for independence in Philadelphia.
Delaware’s pavilion at The Great American State Fair highlights Caesar Rodney’s ride to cast the deciding vote for independence. Sam Janesch / Staff
Pennsylvania joined seven other Democratic-led states — Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, and Washington — in declining to participate.
Some of those states had flags outside the pavilions where they would have been located. A few chairs and a sign with the state’s name were also inside.
But in the booth where, according to an interactive map, Pennsylvania’s location was supposed to be, a flag reading just “250″ was outside and the room was blocked off for the fair’s staff.
As recently as this month, Pennsylvania was still seeking companies to represent it, but Rosie Lapowsky, Shapiro’s spokesperson, confirmed Thursday that the state had given up that effort.
“None were interested,” Shapiro said to the New Republic in a story that first reported Pennsylvania’s lack of participation. “It reflects this sad state of affairs that we find ourselves in — that the president has politicized this to a degree that businesses don’t want to participate.”
Trump’s presence has increasingly hung over events tied to the 250th anniversary in the nation’s capital, with the president planning to hold a political rally on the Fourth of July as part of the long-planned fireworks celebrations. It has made the decision to participate by entertainers and states alike more politically fraught.
“Freedom 250 is a nonpartisan organization, full stop — and our track record of collaboration across red, blue, and purple states speaks for itself,” Freedom 250 spokesperson Rachel Reisner said in a statement earlier this month. She did not respond to a request for comment Thursday about Pennsylvania’s lack of involvement or Shapiro’s comments.
Cape May represents New Jersey at the Great American State Fair Thursday, June 25, 2026, in Washington, D.C.Sam Janesch / Staff
In New Jersey’s pavilion, visitors were met with not just the sand sculpture but also a new three-minute video highlighting Cape May County and a giant image of George Washington lounging at the beach with a cold drink.
County administrator Kevin Lare said it took a significant amount of work — and at least $150,000 from the county’s tourism budget — to pull it all together in recent weeks. It is worth it, he said, to highlight the county in the hopes of bolstering its largest economic engine — tourism.
“It’s a once-in-a-250-year event,” Lare said. “It’s not something the county will do every year at this level. It’s a celebration of our country, and our board of commissioners still believe we live in the greatest nation in the world. They’re happy to be a part of it.”
Staff writer Gillian McGoldrick contributed to this article.
