Freshman Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, a Republican who represents the Lehigh Valley in Congress, held his first in-person town hall Wednesday, fielding questions from an invitation-only audience of both Republicans and Democrats in a televised event.
The segment will air on “Business Matters” hosted by Tony Iannelli, president of the Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, on WFMZ Channel 69 in two parts, at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 29 and Oct. 6. It also will be available to stream online after airing on the TV channel.
Iannelli said his team selected a “balanced” group of people from both parties, and Mackenzie did not vet the questions or attendants in advance. Iannelli also posed several of his own questions to Mackenzie.
The town hall came as Mackenzie has faced pressure from Democratic opponents to hold a public, in-person town hall, which Mackenzie had not yet done, though he hosted two telephone town halls that were open to the public.
Here are the key takeaways from Wednesday’s event, which touched on topics including the Jeffrey Epstein files, tariffs and Mackenzie’s relationship with President Donald Trump.
Donald Trump
Asked by Iannelli about his relationship with Trump, Mackenzie said that the president is “the most engaged executive I have ever seen.” He said Trump’s staff is in constant communication with members of Congress and that he has built a “rapport” with the president via visits to the White House.
He acknowledged that Trump frequently makes headlines for his statements or executive orders that cause controversy in the media. Mackenzie said that he sometimes learns about Trump’s executive orders or statements at the same time as the general public.
He also said that much of the legislation put forward by Republicans’ slim majority in the House is “grassroots” and comes directly from members and are signed off on by the president, not the other way around.
“There are certainly times when I come out of committee meetings after a couple of hours and the press will be in the hallway, and they will ask us about something and I will say, ‘Well, that’s news to me as well, I am going to have to get up to speed on that one,’ because every day, the president is making news, that is for sure,” Mackenzie said.
Perceived Democratic threats
Mackenzie was challenged by several audience members on Trump’s actions that were seen as threatening free speech and challenging Democratic norms.
Terry Purdy asked Mackenzie if he would condemn Trump’s calls for Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute his political enemies.
Trump recently fired a federal prosecutor who failed to charge two of his perceived political enemies, New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey, and called on social media for Bondi to mount a case against them despite a lack of evidence, in what is considered by some legal experts to be a breach of democratic norms.
Mackenzie said, “We have to be very careful that anybody that is using the systems of government to target their enemies, that should not be happening in law enforcement.”
Mackenzie claimed that President Joe Biden’s administration also directed the Department of Justice to prosecute political enemies. He did not cite any specific examples but did criticize James, who is a state official and was not part of the federal administration, for campaigning on a promise to prosecute Donald Trump.
James is under investigation by the Department of Justice for alleged mortgage fraud, though according to a CNN report, prosecutors believe they do not have enough evidence to indict her.
“I don’t know why we would say because somebody is on the other side of Donald Trump, if they have broken the law, they should be free and clear from having to live by the rules that everybody else does,” Mackenzie said. “So if somebody has broken the law, they should face the facts.”
Asked by Sharon Geroulo if he was concerned about threats to free speech under Trump, Mackenzie again claimed that the Biden administration also posed threats to free speech. He pointed to alleged pressure from the Biden administration against social media companies to ban creators that spread misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I mean, that is something that has been going on in the last administration,” Mackenzie said. “I know there are concerns about this administration, and again that is something we’re going to push back on; again, you shouldn’t be using the levers of power to target your enemies with law enforcement.”
Tariffs
Iannelli asked Mackenzie to address tariffs imposed by Trump that have caused widespread national economic uncertainty.
Mackenzie acknowledged that tariffs — which Trump has on several occasions announced, then walked back or adjusted with little warning — have been “very disruptive to a lot of businesses.”
“Here in our local community that are dealing with tariffs, whatever the number is, they’re going to deal with it and they’re going to adjust their business, but they want to know what that number is going to be,” Mackenzie said.
He defended Trump’s tariffs on China specifically, which he argued are appropriate given that China is an economic adversary to the United States.
“They take predatory economic actions against our companies all the time,” Mackenzie said. “They subsidize companies in their home country, dump their products at below market rates, and then when they put somebody out of business here in the U.S., they jack up the rates and they take that industry over.”
Epstein files
Town hall attendee Tom Molseed asked Mackenzie if he would join a vote to compel the Department of Justice to unseal the files regarding disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
According to an ABC News report, a special election Tuesday in Arizona won by Democrat Adelita Grijalva will narrow Republicans’ narrow House majority. Grijalva has said she would sign a legal petition put forth by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna that would force a vote on a bill compelling the Department of Justice to release all of its records related to Epstein. The petition has 217 signatures, and needs 218.
Mackenzie has not signed the discharge petition, but said that he wants “full transparency” in the investigation against Epstein and other powerful people who may have been involved in his scheme to traffic and sexually abuse young girls.
He said that the House Oversight Committee is conducting its own investigation into Epstein, but that he would vote in favor of releasing the files if it came to a House vote.
“We are going to continue to vote for transparency and make sure that everybody can see the files,” Mackenzie said. “And so I think it’s good, I think we should have these votes because this is what people send us to Congress to do, when something comes before you, you get an opportunity to vote up or down.”
Mondays with Mackenzie protests
Mackenzie also addressed weekly protests outside of his Cedar Crest Boulevard office in Salisbury Township organized by the Democratic party and other affiliated groups. Mackenzie acknowledged that the hundreds of protesters had the legal right to gather, but claimed they were disrupting nearby businesses and traffic.
“I think, look, it is people’s right, it is their freedom of speech, but to be respectful to other people in the community, that’s not happening because they’re not listening to those requests from other other participants in the community,” he said.
Lori McFarland, chair of the Lehigh County Democratic Party who attended the town hall, claimed that protesters were not disrupting local businesses, and that they have received no complaints from the building’s other tenants, which includes a chiropractic medicine provider, mortgage lenders office and home health care services.
“We are not violating anybody’s opportunity or ability to go in and out of the building,” McFarland said.
Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.
