Editor\u2019s note: We are publishing a series of fact-checks of advertisements in the Pennsylvania 8th Congressional District race between incumbent Republican Congressman Rob Bresnahan of Dallas Twp. and Democratic challenger, Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti. The election is key for both major parties\u2019 hopes of holding a House majority the next two years.<\/p>\n
This 30-second ad is paid for by Rob For PA, Bresnahan\u2019s official campaign committee, and approved by the candidate.<\/p>\n
Standing at an island in front of a kitchen sink, Bresnahan deftly catches what appears to be a five-pound stick of bologna flying from the left side of the screen in his right hand. As he spikes the hunk of processed meat onto the marble slab atop the island, he declares, \u201cPaige Cognetti and her allies are full of baloney, spending millions to paint me as something I am not.\u201d<\/p>\n
With a neon sign similar to those common in delicatessens flashing the words \u201cPaige Cognetti 100% Baloney\u201d beside him, Bresnahan airs grievances with messaging that has become common in Cognetti\u2019s ads.<\/p>\n
Bresnahan says he voted to ban congressional stock trading, and that he doesn\u2019t trade his own stocks.<\/p>\n
He adds that Cognetti once worked on Wall Street and for Goldman Sachs, the investment bank and financial services company. He insists she raised taxes, cut benefits and fired teachers, and that she wants to \u201cdisarm the police.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s lying,\u201d the congressman alleges, \u201cand she knows it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bresnahan concludes the ad by saying that his only focus is on Northeastern Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
Key claim<\/p>\n
Cognetti is lying about Bresnahan\u2019s record on congressional stock trading while ignoring a previous career on Wall Street.<\/p>\n
Is it factual?<\/p>\n
There are actually quite a few claims levied in the ad to address and expand upon.<\/p>\n
It is true that, in July, Bresnahan voted for the Stop Insider Trading Act<\/a>, which would prohibit members of Congress, their spouses and dependent children from buying new stocks and also require public notice before they could sell them. However, critics argued<\/a> the bill didn\u2019t constitute a total trading ban because it did not prevent members of Congress from holding or selling stocks they owned before being elected, or force a total blind trust or full divestment of those previously owned stocks.<\/p>\n The bill failed to advance in the Senate<\/a> on Sept. 30 after being unanimously opposed by Democrats.<\/p>\n His assertion that he doesn\u2019t trade his own stocks may, indeed, be true.<\/p>\n Bresnahan has insisted he doesn\u2019t trade his own stocks<\/a>, leaving that responsibility to a third-party financial adviser who handles his portfolio without any input from him. However, the number of trades made on his behalf, especially during his first year in office in 2025, made his portfolio one of Congress\u2019 busiest<\/a>. Trading on his portfolio has reduced significantly<\/a> so far in 2026.<\/p>\n Cognetti, as Bresnahan said, did indeed work at Goldman Sachs in New York City in the Investment Management Division from 2014 until October of 2016, according to her LinkedIn profile<\/a>.<\/p>\n Cognetti also, as alleged, raised taxes; Two of the six budgets passed during her current tenure as Scranton\u2019s mayor included 2% property tax hikes, in 2023 and 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n It is true that Cognetti was a member of the Scranton School Board that voted unanimously in 2018 to lay off 51 teachers district-wide<\/a> as part of a wider effort to get the district out of financial distress and oversight from the state Department of Education.<\/p>\n Contrary to Bresnahan\u2019s claim, Cognetti has never advocated for the practical disarming of police.<\/p>\n During a virtual town hall held on June 5, 2020 \u2014 just 11 days after George Floyd\u2019s killing during police action in Minneapolis \u2014 Cognetti reiterated current Scranton Police Department policies on de-escalation before stating that, she would \u201clove to\u201d live in a world where neither police nor citizens had firearms, calling it \u201ca great reality for us to live in.\u201d<\/p>\n She did add, though, that, \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s something that is feasible in the near term. That\u2019s something that we have to work toward.\u201d<\/p>\n In that town hall, Cognetti committed to working toward gun control policies and police force policies in Scranton that are \u201cas progressive and proactive as possible\u2026to reduce the use of force as much as possible.\u201d In the years since, more than $5 million in state and federal grants were allocated to projects benefitting Scranton\u2019s police department<\/a> under the Cognetti administration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s note: We are publishing a series of fact-checks of advertisements in the Pennsylvania 8th Congressional District race…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":306735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[836,182,139,50,178,180,179,181],"class_list":["post-306734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-election","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-top-stories-stt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/306735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}