Bob Brooks

Yep.

So all eyes were going to be on the debate that was about to take place between incumbent, incumbent first-time congressman, that's Ryan Mackenzie, who's a Republican, and the Democrat who's challenging him, Bob Brooks.

And then we learn last night, what? That Bob Brooks, the Democrat here, who paints himself as, you know, back in the day began as a, a first responder or a firefighter, and shows himself in commercials fighting fires, as sort of a hero who doesn't fear the fire, but certainly didn't wanna face the fire or a heated debate, backed out of the planned debate.

And so, you know, this was a, a shocker really, that they, they sent this cease and desist letter to Congressman Mackenzie's office, his campaign committee, and the National Republican Congressional Committee as well.

According to the news release from the Brooks campaign, the letter demands they take down and retract an ad that they say makes false claims about Brooks.

Because you would be doing it, you know, 'cause it would obviously, you know, we're tick-tock, we're two weeks away.

Yeah, you're right.

And so in that one, the Mackenzie campaign releasing a statement saying that the, uh, congressional candidate, Bob Brooks, announced that he pulled out of the only scheduled debate in one of the most closely watched House races in the country.

Yeah

... are you or your candidates offering?

So, you know, I-- [chuckles] you're going to get...

You and your, uh, listeners are going to get sick of hearing me say this by the end of this podcast, but, uh, you know, one of our secret sauces, uh, or not-so-secret sauces, is the candidates that we have running in all-

Mm-hmm

... of these districts.

And the reason I say that is because these folks that were recruited and are now running for office have lived through a lot of things that, you know, your, your everyday hardworking American voter has lived through.

So we have a lot of candidates who grew up on Medicaid, who grew up on food stamps, who, you know, are raising-- who are in their 30s and 40s raising children, um, you know, maybe dealing with having to, uh, help their parents access care.

And then you contrast that against my op- opponent.

Bob Brooks is proven, it was proven in court that he stole from his own family.

I, I'm gonna try to keep this about you-

Sure

A spokesperson for the governor told me in a statement, quote, "The Shapiro administration has also taken action to significantly lower Pennsylvania's SNAP payment error rate, which is down nearly 50% in just two years compared to what it was before Governor Shapiro took office, from 16.6% in FY 2023 to 9.2% in FY 2025.

For the second year in a row, Pennsylvania's error rate is also better than the national average." End quote.

You can watch an interview with Democrat Bob Brooks in a separate episode of Battleground Politics.

You'll notice that that episode is shorter than this one.

And he's just, he just, uh, stakes a lot of claims on the map that, uh, he, we're gonna come back to and say, "Well, Pete, Pete campaigned there.

What does that say about his electability?" There are re- there are places like, uh, Pennsylvania 7th District where everybody campaigned for Bob Brooks.

Bernie campaigned for him, Buttigieg campaigned for him, uh, and a lot of people take credit.

But that's, that's something that just all of us in the media actually are gonna have to pay attention to.

All right, Pennsylvania 7th District.

Cook moved this one to toss-up to lean D. Ryan Mackenzie, the incumbent, versus Bob Brooks.

We've talked about Mackenzie's done a great job of painting Bob Brooks as corrupt, scandal-plagued, a fraud.

I...

And obviously, the Cook folks are not s- buying that right now.