Senator Marshall: Republicans are Putting the America First Agenda Into Action
Senator Marshall Joins Mundo in the Morning on KCMO Radio
Washington – On Tuesday, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas), joined Pete Mundo on KCMO to discuss the Republican party’s success despite the Democrats’ holdup on President Trump’s nominations, the upcoming government funding deadline, the MAHA movement, the comeback of American agriculture and manufacturing, and the recent flawed jobs report.
Click HERE or on the image above to watch Senator Marshall’s full interview.
On Republican success in the Senate despite Democrats’ tactics:
“Pete, it’s inside game, it’s extortion. I want to emphasize that, despite Chuck Schumer’s obstruction, and that’s his number one goal here, is to slow us down. Despite that, we’ve had one of the most successful first six months of a president ever. We’ve passed nine major pieces of legislation. Think the Halt Fentanyl Act, the Genius Act, of course, the One Big, Beautiful Bill. We repealed 16 of Joe Biden’s major rules, rules as well, and then still got 150 nominees across the finish line. But what Chuck Schumer has done is slow down the process. Typically, by now, 70% of the President’s nominees are confirmed through a short process, a short pass called unanimous consent. President Trump’s had zero; most of the President’s 90% of so everyone comes through committee, the person that comes through committee with unanimous approval, typically, those get fast tracked through the Senate, but Chuck Schumer is making us spend two hours at a minimum on every one of those.”
On Democrats stalling Trump nominations:
“Here’s the deal, I’m okay with working long hours. We did. We’ve done over 500 votes, a record number of days in session. We work late, we stay, but it takes our eye off the ball. We should be working on balancing the budget right now. Pete, that’s the problem, so we need to be working on balancing the budget. There’s 12 buckets to fund the government. We got three of them across the finish line before we left here. Susan Collins leads the appropriations process. She has eight of those buckets pass through committee. Let’s get those on the floor. Debate them one at a time, so we don’t do a continuing resolution, which is where we’re headed again. The whole emphasis here, Chuck Schumer is jamming us. Why is he jamming us? Because AOC is going to primary him, because his left is running the party now.”
On government funding deadline:
“So the federal government is the September 30, October 1 calendar. So if we don’t get it done by then, the government would shut down. We’re not going to let that happen. If we do, it’s on the backs of Schumer, because he wants it to have happen. Don’t listen to what he’s saying. He wants us to shut down the government, and then he’ll blame President Trump for it. That would if we can’t get these bills through, then we’ll do a continuing resolution to fund the government at the current.”
“That’s a good question. I think that it’s driven by consumers, that, you know, I’m not driving this. RFK is not driving. He’s got a huge megaphone that anyone could have if you’re not the president, but it’s people, it’s consumers out there driving it. And for the first time, I have people in the White House listening to me. Look, if you want me to save Medicare, if you want me to save Medicaid, if you want me to drive down the cost of health care, I need America to get healthy. The problem driving up the cost of health care, among other things, is utilization. So 90% of our dollars are spent on chronic diseases, chronic diseases like heart disease, obesity, hypertension, diabetes, those types of things. So the way to address them is through eating healthier foods. Throw away your ultra-processed food. If it’s in a box, throw it away. Try to eat fresh. Frozen is better than out of a box as well. Trying to work with my farmers here to how do we get to more regenerative agriculture, where we’re growing more with less. Look, we have lots of farmers now that are only using 40% of the amount of fertilizers and pesticides that they used to. We’ve decreased the drift from the field by 90% so we’re going in the right direction. And now my job on the Ag Committee is to try to help fund those farmers to do these major conservation practices.”
On the SNAP benefits role in the MAHA movement:
“So our bill that we’ll get on the farm bill is to say that stamp dollars not be used for sugary sodas. It’s 11% of the spending of the snap spending. 11% have been on sugary sodas. And we’re trying to reward healthy choices, though, so we’re going to try to double up on the snap box if you make healthy choices. Whole milk, cheese products is what we’re trying to get on the list. But fresh fruits and vegetables, which I understand, are expensive, so we’re trying to double up on the healthy choices as well. So what? How would you go about doing that? So it’s great. We already have local grocery stores. Hy-Vee is out there leading the charge here in Kansas City, on helping us do that as well. But it’s just a process that, when it’s all technology. Now, when you take your SNAP dollars in and you pay for that particular product, they give you credit for another amount of SNAP coupons.”
“We’ve done four telephone town halls. Pete, I wish I could get you on one of those with me, maybe just to listen even. But we’ll have 5,000 Kansans. We do these little polls, 70, 80% of Kansans support work requirements. And so we do have work requirements that we’ve got passed for both Medicaid and SNAP. They’re very reasonable. 20 hours a week is all we’re asking. Why do the Democrats present this as punishment? Why is a job punishment? I thought a job brings dignity, brings pride to a family as well. So you can, if you work 20 hours a week, volunteer 20 hours a week, go to school, 20 hours, right? So, that’s reasonable.”
“We’ve made incredible progress, Pete. And certainly, we’re way better off than we were under Joe Biden. Joe did zero trade deals, right? So we’ve done seven of the major 10 trade partners right now, seven of the 10 are done. The ones we haven’t gotten finished yet are Taiwan. And guess what? They need us really, really badly. India. No one’s ever been able to crack this nut, India, but we need to figure that out. They’re the fastest-growing country in the world. Their economy is exploding. Lots of good things in India, but they don’t value intellectual property. They steal are intellectual property, just like China does. So we need to do India. With China, we have until August 12. But think what President Trump has done to box in China here. So he’s got the UK done and the EU done. But then look at that South Pacific brim, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, South Korea, Japan, Australia. So, he has boxed China in here. What China was doing was trans-shipping. So they would make tennis shoes in China, ship them to Vietnam, and then Vietnam was sneaking them in here at their tariff, right? Well, guess what? Trump knows this. We all know that. So we will punish the heck out of Vietnam if they keep doing that. So we have China boxed in, and you can expect our grain prices to start going up this fall.”
On how the Trump trade deals are benefiting American agriculture and manufacturing:
“Oh, I’m absolutely bullish. Look, the ag sector is not going to survive doing what we were doing. Under Joe Biden, we had a record drop in net farm income. So, between these trade deals and dropping the interest rates, of all the things I could do for the farmers right now, and really small businesses, is drop the interest rates. Average Kansan farmer, a million-dollar operation loan, we saw that interest rate go from two to 9% and then they had zero profit. Literally. Average Kansas farmer, $70,000 a year profit. So that ate up all that profit. So those are the two focuses. Get the interest rates to come down, because the economy is growing. The other thing I’m seeing, Pete, is a lots of manufacturing jobs. Coming back to Kansas, we tour some 12 manufacturing companies. Maybe they’re 50, maybe they’re 400 employees. They can’t keep up with the orders. Now, the only challenge we have is they don’t have enough employees for the jobs, and we’re having problems getting aluminum and steel, but we’re working on that.”
On the most recent jobs report:
“Look, I think we were all surprised at the job report. I don’t have much confidence in the job reports. As you can imagine, this person that did the reports after the election in November she showed these great numbers for Biden right before the election, and then she revised them down by 800,000. These jobs, I don’t like the way we report them. They include government jobs as well as part-time jobs. You know, part-time jobs are great, but to sit there and say so, Joe Biden’s economy was built on government jobs and part-time jobs. So what I’m seeing now, with no tax on overtime from the One Big, Beautiful Bill, is these manufacturing companies are have people willing to stay and work longer. So they don’t, because we don’t have the people to hire, but part of that jobs report reflects that the government’s getting smaller, and I think that that’s a good thing as well. So I think that the summer job numbers always go down. Good GDP growth. What I’m really proud of is that net income is going up right now. So people’s income is going up faster than inflation. Gas prices [are] stable. Grocery prices are stable. I think it’s a good economy, I’m going to say it’s treading water. I’m not satisfied. We’ve got work to do.”
On his agenda in the Topeka area:
“I’ll start out at Johnson County Community College. I’m sure you recall Pete. I’m a community college graduate. My wife graduated from community college, everything I did professionally, I owe to education, and so grateful for those teachers and coaches and great family. But then a new president at JOCO, so I want to go say hi to him. And then I think there’s a new grade school, Tomahawk grade school. We were out yesterday in Topeka, have a new middle school open out there at Washburn Rural. So it’s kind of seeing these new schools. The kids are coming back next week as well. We’ll make a couple of other stops on the way as well. But it’s great to be back here in the metro.”
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Contact: Payton Fuller
