News · Press Release

🌊 Wave of Local and National Coverage Highlights Firefighter Bob Brooks’ Rally With Leader Jeffries and Governor Shapiro for An Affordable America

Lehigh Valley families are watching and reading wall–to–wall coverage of firefighter Bob Brooks’ rally with Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Governor Josh Shapiro, where the trio outlined their plans to fight for a more affordable America.

Speaking at the United Steelworkers union hall in Bethlehem, Brooks “energized union workers in the blue-collar district, who see a chance to send one of their own to the halls of Congress.”

Read and watch the highlights for yourself:

ANCHOR: An outpouring of support filled a United Steelstacks Union Hall in Bethlehem Sunday, bringing together three prominent Democrats to the Lehigh Valley
 Brooks says he’s running for Congress to help working people. His platform includes raising the minimum wage, providing affordable health care, ending overseas wars, and lowering costs for working families.

ANCHOR: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ visit to the Lehigh Valley, a sign of how important voters here are as they decide who represents the 7th District, a seat that could be critical to who controls the House.

WATCH ON CNN:

Brooks: “Regular people are tired of being kicked in the teeth. What’s happening right now in Washington is not working for us. It’s time to send them a message. We are going to get down there. We’re going to flip some tables, and we’re going to get to work on lowering costs and cleaning up the corruption for the people. For the first time in a long time they’re going to hear us.”

READ:

“I’ve lived in public housing. I’ve relied on food stamps when times were hard. I’ve had to choose between paying the medical bills and paying the mortgage. I’ve worked hard, and I made it out of a fire. I’m proud to be standing here today,” Brooks said. “Now I want to take that experience with me to the halls of Congress, so we can actually pass laws that work for working people,” he said.

“ We have been out supporting him since before the primary, out door-knocking and [getting] his name out there and his message that he’s for us, the working people,” Tammy McCoy, a Bethlehem School District cafeteria worker and member of the Pennsylvania Joint Board of United Workers, told The Keystone on Sunday. “ It would be great to have someone like me in Congress. I could say, ‘he’s pro-union.’ You can’t say that about all of them.”

Shapiro said, 31,000 people in the Lehigh Valley are losing health coverage and another 6,100 are losing access to SNAP benefits, as a result. “To rip away someone’s food off their table to give a tax cut to the people at the very top? That is shameful. That’s Ryan Mackenzie, and that’s Donald Trump and that’s why we need to throw Ryan Mackenzie out of the House of Representatives,” Shapiro said. Brooks pledged to be a voice for working people if elected to Congress. He’s vowing to ban members of Congress from trading stocks, overhaul campaign finance laws, raise the minimum wage and strengthen workers’ rights. He described Mackenzie, as out of touch with the needs of his constituents.

The stage is in battleground Pennsylvania. The stakes are control of the House. […] In Pennsylvania’s 7th District, tucked in the Lehigh Valley, Jeffries and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro […] rallied support at a steelworkers’ union hall for Bob Brooks, a retired firefighter trying to unseat the incumbent Republican congressman as Democrats reach for the House majority.

Brooks also shared his own vision to — as he said it in his speech — put “out the dumpster fire that we’re seeing in D.C. right now.” He named banning corporate PAC money, blocking congressional stock trading, raising the minimum wage, passing the union friendly PRO Act, setting term limits for lawmakers, cutting health care costs and ending overseas wars.

Mr. Brooks presented himself on Sunday as a political outsider whose own life reflected the economic pressures that Democrats have made central to the campaign. He recalled working as a paperboy, pizza delivery driver, dishwasher and bartender, and made the case to the crowd that he was best to address the economic pressures voters face. “I understand them because I’ve lived them,” Mr. Brooks said to nods of approval.

Brooks, with his past as a firefighter and a union leader, is precisely the type of candidate Democrats hope will attract voters who may have been turned off by the Democratic Party in the last few election cycles. […] Brooks delivered a speech Sunday focusing on how his background makes him well suited to represent the blue-collar voters of Pennsylvania’s 7th district, saying that he has spent time on food stamps, lived in public housing and struggled to make medical bill payments. “It’s time that we had somebody representing the Lehigh Valley in Congress who actually understands the challenges working people are facing,” Brooks said. “I understand them, because I’ve lived them.”

The rally in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley featured Democratic House candidate Bob Brooks, a burly, goateed firefighter and union president who hopes to unseat incumbent GOP Rep. Ryan Mackenzie. Brooks is one example of the outsider candidates Democrats hope can appeal to blue-collar voters who have abandoned the party in recent years. Democrats hammered at the GOP as a rubber stamp for what they described as an out-of-control administration that has left regular people paying the price.

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