BETHLEHEM, Pa. -- U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie announced Wednesday morning he will host his second telephone town hall Wednesday night.
Mackenzie’s first telephone town hall in March attracted more than 6,000 participants, according to his office. At the time, Congress was considering significant cuts to Medicaid, the federal health insurance program serving the country’s most vulnerable citizens.
Since then, the first-term Republican voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill, President Donald Trump’s signature tax and spending plan.
The law cut taxes, committed $350 million to border security and ICE; is projected to push 11.4 million people out of Medicaid; is expected to remove an estimated 3 million people from SNAP, also known as food stamps; and is expected to raise the national deficit an estimated $3.3 trillion over the next 10 years.
Mackenzie passed a deciding vote for its passage.
In addition, Mackenzie voted last week to claw back $1.1 billion of federal funding for public media and another $8 billion of foreign aid. Mackenzie and other House Republicans previously approved the spending.
“Now that the House has passed a commonsense budget focused on delivering tax relief, protecting our communities, reforming government and investing in our future, I want to make sure residents across the Greater Lehigh Valley have the opportunity to ask questions, share feedback and hear what this means for their families,” Mackenzie said in a news release.
Mackenzie has yet to hold an in-person town hall, drawing criticisms from Democrats. Protesters have been gathering weekly outside his offices, and three Democrats -- Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure; Carol Obando-Derstine, a former supervisor at PPL; and Ryan Crosswell, a former federal prosecutor -- have already launched campaigns to oust Mackenzie in next year's midterm election.
They’ll be competing for some of the most hotly contested political real estate in the country. Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District, which includes all of Carbon, Lehigh and Northampton counties and a sliver of Monroe County, is among the few toss-up congressional districts in the nation.
The town hall comes as Congress begins its summer break early amid rising tensions for the release of non-classified information regarding Jeffrey Epstein. The late New York financier and sex offender has been the subject of numerous conspiracy theories since he died in jail in 2019. Epstein had links to many of the country’s most powerful individuals, including Trump, former President Bill Clinton and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Calling in
Tonight's telephone town hall begins at 6:15 p.m. Participants can join by calling 877-228-2184 and using the PIN 123440.
