On a telephone town hall in late July, an elderly woman in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley got through to her congressman and asked him a question that a lot of people are asking.

Here is what she said to Ryan Mackenzie:

"Honestly, I'd like to know your stance on this, especially when I'm a senior citizen, and I'm being told that our reserve funds, used to pay full retirement benefits for Social Security, will be depleted by 2032. So, we have many, many senior citizens that are doing without many things, and can barely stay in their homes. So, how can we justify spending $87 billion on a war that, frankly, I don't think has really accomplished much of anything?"

That is a clear question. Two parts. What's your stance, and how do you justify the tradeoff.

Here is Mackenzie's entire answer:

"we want to see a peaceful resolution in all of these conflicts as soon as possible."

He did not say where he stands. He did not address the $87 billion. He did not touch Social Security. He said he'd like peace, which is not a position — it's a greeting card.

Less than a day later, he voted

The very next day, Heartland Signal reported, Mackenzie joined 206 House Republicans in voting against House Concurrent Resolution 89 — a measure requiring the president to pull U.S. forces out unless Congress authorizes the war.

It was the fifth time Mackenzie has voted against measures to limit funding or military engagement in the region.

So he did have a stance. He had a clear, consistent, five-vote-long stance. He just didn't want to say it out loud to the woman who asked.

That's the whole story in two sentences. He knew the answer. He knew she wouldn't like it. So he gave her a sentence about peace and then went and voted the other way.

He ran on the opposite of this

Here's what makes the dodge worse.

While campaigning in 2024, Mackenzie specifically raised concerns about the U.S. bombing Iran and about getting into "forever wars." That was his pitch to a swing district.

Then, earlier this year, archived snapshots of his campaign website show that references to military policy — and the word "war" — were quietly removed from his policy priorities page.

His spokesperson's explanation was that "everyone understands that campaigns update their websites between elections," and that this one was updated to highlight cost of living, veterans, and reforming Washington.

Maybe. But a candidate who campaigned against bombing Iran, then voted five times to keep the operation funded, then deleted the word "war" from his own website, then declined to answer a constituent's direct question about the war — that's four steps in exactly the same direction.

His opponent, retired firefighter and union leader Bob Brooks, put it bluntly: "He campaigned on a promise to oppose reckless spending on foreign wars, but has now voted 5 times to continue the cost-spiking war in Iran. Now he is dodging his own constituents and scrubbing his own website because he knows his voting record is indefensible."

What the war is costing people in his district

The constituent's question wasn't hypothetical. It's arithmetic that Lehigh Valley families are doing at the kitchen table.

Gas. The average price in Pennsylvania was $4.22 as of July 31, 2026. A year earlier it was $3.23. That's a dollar a gallon, and it moved after the U.S. began military action in Iran. For anyone commuting to a job in Allentown or Bethlehem, that's real money out of every paycheck.

Social Security. More than 180,000 people in Mackenzie's district collect Social Security. When DOGE's cuts started disrupting Social Security services, Mackenzie went on national television to defend Musk and DOGE.

His spokesperson says he is "unflinching in his support for protecting critical programs like Medicare and Social Security." The woman on the phone was asking him to prove it by picking one over the other. He wouldn't.

He does this by design

The telephone town hall isn't an accident of scheduling. It's the format Mackenzie prefers, and the reason is visible in his record of avoiding the other kind.

• In March 2025, when local Democratic groups organized a "People's Town Hall" in Bethlehem that drew more than 400 people with a line out the door, Mackenzie declined the invitation — and scheduled a competing telephone town hall at the exact same hour.
• He didn't hold his first in-person town hall until September 2025, and it was a TV taping with an invited audience of 25 business and community leaders — not an open public meeting.
• Constituents, many of them seniors, have held weekly protests outside his Salisbury Township office over how hard he is to reach. Mackenzie accused the protesters of "disrespecting" local businesses and neighbors.

A phone line lets you take the question and move on. A room does not.

The bottom line

Pennsylvania's 7th is one of the closest districts in America. Cook Political Report rates it a toss-up, and a House Majority PAC poll released July 9 showed Brooks up four.

That's the context for a congressman who won't tell a senior citizen where he stands on a war he has voted five times to keep funding.

She asked how he justifies it. He still hasn't said.

Source

Richard Eberwein, "Rep. Ryan Mackenzie avoids constituent's question on Iran military spending, then votes for more spending", Heartland Signal, July 31, 2026. Photo: Matt Rourke / AP.