{"id":150914,"date":"2026-09-08T22:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T02:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/?p=150914"},"modified":"2026-09-08T22:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T02:06:10","slug":"debate-day-comes-and-goes-for-bob-brooks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/?p=150914","title":{"rendered":"Debate Day Comes and Goes for Bob Brooks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><em>With Bob Brooks skipping today\u2019s scheduled debate, Mackenzie offers new options<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Allentown, PA<\/strong> \u2014 Today was\u00a0<em>supposed<\/em>\u00a0to be the day of the first debate between Congressman Ryan Mackenzie (PA-07) and scandal-plagued Democratic candidate Bob Brooks. Local broadcaster WFMZ had set aside September 8th for the taping of their traditional PA-07 congressional debate, and reached out to both campaigns over a month ago. Bob Brooks has done everything he can to avoid giving voters the debate they deserve \u2014 even trying to delay a debate broadcast until the night before the election.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/politicspa.com\/playing-the-debate-game\/152200\/\">From PoliticsPA:<\/a>\u00a0\u201c<em>Mackenzie agreed to two September debates with WFMZ-TV (Sept. 8) and Blue Ridge Cable 13. Brooks has signed onto a single debate with WFMZ that would be aired on a tape-delay basis\u00a0<strong>with the second half not appearing until November 2 \u2013 the day before the election.<\/strong>\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>REMINDER: The mail-in ballot process for the general election begins 50 days prior to election day. In 2024, Over one quarter of Pennsylvania voters cast votes early, by mail. By the evening before election day, tens of thousands of voters in the Lehigh Valley and the Poconos<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs Bob Brooks has already pointed out, he\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/VoteBobBrooks\/status\/2096675665210650654?s=20\">in town<\/a>\u00a0this week. That didn\u2019t stop him from telling WFMZ that he wasn\u2019t available to debate today or anytime in the next six weeks,\u201d\u00a0<strong>said Mackenzie for Congress Campaign Manager Andres Weller.\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cBob Brooks is so desperate to avoid accountability for his lies, frauds, and crooked schemes that he won\u2019t even give voters a full chance to compare the candidates. Since Bob Brooks has refused today\u2019s opportunity to debate, Congressman Mackenzie has since agreed to over half a dozen additional possible dates with WFMZ and BRC 13.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Information provided to TVL by:<br \/>\nArnaud Armstrong<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With Bob Brooks skipping today\u2019s scheduled debate, Mackenzie offers new options Allentown, PA \u2014 Today was\u00a0supposed\u00a0to be the day of the first debate between Congressman Ryan Mackenzie (PA-07) and scandal-plagued Democratic candidate Bob Brooks. Local broadcaster WFMZ had set aside September 8th for the taping of their traditional PA-07 congressional debate, and reached out to &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/?p=150914\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Debate Day Comes and Goes for Bob Brooks<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":143707,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\r\n\r\n{excerpt}\r\n\r\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[69,482],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-valley","category-press-release-2"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/ryan-mackenzi-for.jpg?fit=672%2C372&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=150914"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":150915,"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150914\/revisions\/150915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/143707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=150914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=150914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=150914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}