Trump Uses Antisemitic Slur Again While Defending Sen. Marshall at Kansas Rally

President Donald Trump used an antisemitic slur on Monday while defending Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall at a campaign rally in Park City, Kansas. Trump told the crowd that reporting on Marshall's past medical billing had made the senator out to be "some kind of a Shylock-type guy." It was the second time in two years that Trump has used the word in public.

Trump was campaigning for Marshall, a Republican who has held the Kansas Senate seat since 2021 and is running for reelection. The rally was held at the Heartland Credit Union Arena.

What Trump said

Trump said Marshall had been given a "bum rap" over lawsuits his former medical practice filed against patients. "He was mandated by law to request, strongly, money owed from patients," Trump said. "You're not allowed not to do it. You have to, by law, go after those people, and they made it like, oh, he was some kind of a Shylock-type guy."

"If he didn't make these requests, he would be breaking the law," Trump added. "He would have been breaking a very strong criminal law, and he would be subject to criminal arrest and liability." Trump then told Marshall on stage that he probably should not have said it. "But that's the way it is, Roger," he said. "I have to tell it like it is. You got screwed with that stuff."

The reporting behind the remark

The comments referred to a New York Times report last month that said Marshall, an obstetrician and gynecologist before he entered politics, and his former practice sued more than 700 patients for unpaid medical bills. The report said the suits led to scores of arrest warrants for patients who missed court dates.

Marshall's lawyer has said the senator had no involvement in the warrants or the arrests. Marshall himself called the story a "hit job." The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump's remarks on Monday.

Why the word draws condemnation

Shylock is the Jewish moneylender in William Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice. The Anti-Defamation League says the character, and by extension Jewish people, are presented in the play as "money-hungry, conniving, and cruel." The group says the term "evokes a centuries-old antisemitic trope about Jews and greed that is extremely offensive and dangerous."

The league called Trump's use of the word last summer "very troubling and irresponsible."

He has said it before

Trump used the same term at a rally in Iowa in July 2025, when he described predatory lenders as "shylocks and bad people" who charged families high interest. Asked about it afterward, he said he had never heard the word described as antisemitic. "To me, Shylock is somebody that's a money lender at high rates," he told reporters. "I've never heard it that way."

Former President Joe Biden also faced criticism for using the word in 2014 and later apologized for it.

The race behind the rally

Marshall faces Democrat Adam Hamilton, a megachurch pastor and former Republican who is running as a Democrat this year, in a closer than expected race. Trump traveled to Kansas on Monday to shore up support for Marshall in the final weeks before the vote. At the same rally, Trump announced an $8 billion Harvest Fuel Relief Program for farmers.