Roger Marshall walks back suggestion that his town hall attendees being paid off

U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) is walking back his unfounded allegation that people who attended his town hall were meeting were paid off by Democratic groups.

During an interview with KCMO’s Pete Mundo on Tuesday, Marshall admitted that his claim about his town hall attendees being paid to confront him lacks evidence.

“I don’t have firsthand evidence, but that was the rumor that the townspeople, that’s what they had told me that those people there were whispering ‘and how much did you get paid to do this’ and ‘who paid for your gas,’ some of those types of things,” Marshall said.

One day prior, Marshall endorsed a Truth Social post from President Donald Trump that claimed the opposite. Marshall commented “Can confirm” on Trump’s claim that “paid troublemakers are attending Republican Town Hall Meetings.”

Can confirm. pic.twitter.com/Ru9qbspeOY

— Dr. Roger Marshall (@RogerMarshallMD) March 3, 2025

Last Saturday, Marshall cut his town hall in Oakley, Kan. short when constituents began to press him on his lack of opposition to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency laying off veterans. Multiple people began to boo when Marshall left the room 20 minutes before the scheduled end time.

VIDEO: U.S. Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) ends his constituent town hall early today after being pressed about DOGE firing veterans. pic.twitter.com/s8U0w7Gxgq

— Heartland Signal (@HeartlandSignal) March 1, 2025

A Facebook live stream of the event showed Marshall urging attend constituents to write questions down and give them to staffers to be screened, implying he will prioritize inquiries from locals. As a U.S. senator, Marshall represents the entire state of Kansas.

Multiple Republicans, including many in competitive congressional districts, have faced backlash from their local communities for supporting the Trump administration’s controversial agenda like proposing U.S. troops in the Gaza Strip, firing federal workers and voting for a budget that will slash social programs like Medicaid. In response, U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC), the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, urged his colleagues to stop holding in person town halls because the “protests at town halls and district offices are going to get even worse.”

Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) likened protesters at his events to Nazis while Rep. Tom Barrett (R-MI) implied protesters at his Lansing office were backed by George Soros, with his staff saying that holding a town hall will be “unproductive.”