On a telephone town hall on July 22, an elderly woman from Allentown named Helen 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, as Heartland Signal reported it:

"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 on the war, and how do you justify the tradeoff.

What he said instead

Mackenzie took about two minutes to answer. You can watch the whole exchange.

He started with seniors. He said he has "been a staunch advocate" for "protecting social security and Medicare," and talked about writing to the Trump administration to push for a larger increase in Medicare Advantage.

Then he turned to the $87 billion — and talked about everything except the war. He said he is "a staunch supporter of our troops," and that part of the funding is to "upgrade our military capabilities regardless of any military operations": new technology, cybersecurity, shipbuilding. "They are extremely expensive," he said. "There is no doubt about that."

He closed by saying he is "committed to protecting our seniors, their social security, their Medicare benefits" while also "having a strong military."

Listen to it twice and you still won't find the answer to her first question. Helen asked for his stance on a war. He described a defense budget. The word "Iran" never came out of his mouth. As Heartland Signal put it, Mackenzie "did not directly address his stance on the war."

His office says that isn't fair. "Congressman Mackenzie has been clear both before and during the present months-long conflict with Iran that he opposes allowing this to become another forever war, supports a negotiated settlement, and will not support the use of ground troops," spokesperson Arnaud Armstrong told Heartland Signal.

If that's his position, it would have taken one sentence to tell Helen.

Hours later, he voted

Less than a day after the town hall, Heartland Signal reported, Mackenzie joined 206 House Republicans in voting against House Concurrent Resolution 89 — a measure that would require the president to withdraw U.S. forces 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 on the war. He had a clear, consistent, five-vote-long stance. He just didn't say it out loud to the woman who asked.

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 on his worries about bombing Iran, then voted five times against limiting the war, then deleted the word "war" from his own website, then talked his way around a constituent's direct question about it — 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

Helen'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. While Elon Musk's DOGE was cutting its way through the federal government, Mackenzie went on national television to defend Musk and DOGE.

He told Helen he is committed to protecting her Social Security. She was asking him to say what he'd put first when the money runs short. He talked about protecting both, and then voted the war forward.

He does this by design

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

• 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 didn't attend. Less than 24 hours before it, his office announced a telephone town hall starting five minutes after it. (His office said it had been planned for weeks.)
• 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, mostly senior citizens, have held weekly protests outside his Salisbury Township office over how hard he is to reach. Mackenzie accused them of "disrespecting" local businesses and neighbors.

A phone line lets you take the question and steer the answer wherever you like. 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 talked for two minutes to a senior citizen about the cost of a war without once saying where he stands on it.

She asked for his stance. He still hasn't told her.

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.