Marshall backtracks on support for $5,000 Trump dividend in Kansas Senate debate

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kans.) appeared to shift his opinion on President Trump’s $5,000 dividends announced earlier this week.

In a debate at the Kansas State Fair against Democratic opponent Adam Hamilton, a moderator asked both candidates if they supported the dividends, citing the proposal’s $1.2 trillion cost amid the growing national debt.

“I’m going to bring in all the information, and then make a decision,” he said. “But look, this is not the first time I’ve disagreed with President Trump, and it probably won’t be the last.”

“Instead, I said, I’m going to be focused on Kansas jobs. I’m going to be focused on protecting Kansas agriculture and the Kansas cattle industry,” he continued.

Marshall’s remark comes after his apparent support for the president’s proposal in social media post Wednesday.

“Comment how you will spend your $5,000 Trump Dividend when Republicans win in November,” he wrote on social platform X .

Marshall, who has Trump’s endorsement, has also voiced dissent about Trump administration policy when the president threatened to ban Bombardier, the Canadian jet maker, from selling planes in the U.S., as part of the ongoing trade war with Canada.

“I’m going to fight to keep Bombardier’s over 1,200 Kansas jobs. I’ve already taken that concern inside the Oval Office,” Marshall posted on X Tuesday.

The audience at the debate appeared to interrupt Marshall at multiple points in his remarks.

Some attendees chanted “shame on you” while the senator was responding to allegations that his legal team sued over 700 patients when he was a physician resulting in 81 being arrested over outstanding medical debts, according to the New York Times .

“Those are common, common business practices, we would go a year before we would send someone over,” he said during the debate, calling the report a “hit job.”

Hamilton faces an uphill climb to win in November. A Democrat has not won a Senate race in the Sunflower State since 1932, although the state’s two-term Gov. Laura Kelly is a Democrat.

Hamilton’s campaign did received a glimmer of hope in August when election handicapper Sabato’s Crystal Ball shifted the Kansas Senate race from safe Republican to likely Republican following Hamilton’s Democratic primary win.