Marshall addresses issues during town hall meeting

Senator Roger Marshall made a stop in Concordia for a town hall meeting on Friday evening. His day started in Salina in the morning, where he greeted a convoy of truck drivers on their way to Washington D.C.. He also visited Ft. Riley before arriving at the Cloud County Co-op at 5 p.m.

During a question and answer session in front of a crowd of about 80 people, Marshal delivered sometimes fiery rhetoric often directed at President Joe Biden and his policies.

Marshal began by asking the crowd if they were concerned about the price of fertilizer, gasoline, and the cost of groceries. He talked about being at President Biden's State of the Union address, and said: “The state of the union that the President described is not the state of the union I've been hearing from Kansans about.”

Marshall referenced a now-famous comment from former President Ronald Reagan and said: “Ask yourself: is your family safer than it was one year ago? Is the world safer today than it was a year ago? Is your paycheck going as far today as it was a year ago?”

In response to a question from the crowd, Marshall said that he introduced legislation on the Senate floor to stop America from importing Russian oil. “But there's one person who hasn't decided it's the right thing to do yet, and that's Joe Biden,” Marshall said. “He does not think it's the right thing to do. I disagree with him.” A few minutes later Marshall went on to say, “We had such a great strategic advantage which included energy independence. And we gave that card to Joe Biden and really Iran, as well, and they're able to hold it over our heads. Joe Biden opened the door and, uh, Vladimir Putin walked through the door and now we're funding his war for all practical purposes.”

Later on in the Q & A, Marshal was asked if he was going to vote for Biden's Supreme Court nominee. His answer was succinct and emphatic: “No. Hell no.” The answer drew enthusiastic applause from the crowd. Marshall went on to say, “Certainly, of all the judges he could have picked from, this is probably the most I would describe as liberal; the person who most wants to legislate from the bench; the person who wants to pay the least attention to the constitution itself.”

Before the town hall meeting ended, Marshall put in a plug for current Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt, the presumed Republican nominee for Governor who will run against current Governor Laura Kelly, a Democrat, in November.