President Trump tried to defend Republican Senator Roger Marshall on Monday night at a rally in Park City, Kansas, but ended up using an antisemitic slur in the process.
“[Marshall] was given a bum rap because he was mandated by law to request strongly money owed from patients. You’re not allowed not to do it. You have to by law go after these people, and they made it, like, oh, he was some kind of a Shylock-type guy,” Trump said in a speech to the crowd.
The term refers to a Jewish character in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice who is portrayed as a cunning moneylender, fueling stereotypes about the Jewish people. In a guide for educators, the Anti-Defamation League states “Shylock, and by extension, all Jews, are presented as money-hungry, conniving, and cruel.”
Trump used the term in a speech last year about a bill he was trying to pass, distinguishing between respectable bankers and exploitative ones.
“No going to the banks and borrowing from in some cases a fine banker, and in some cases Shylocks and bad people,” Trump said at the time. Following the event, when reporters questioned him about its antisemitic origins, Trump said he had “never heard that.”
Marshall, who was a doctor before entering politics, is under fire for suing hundreds of patients over unpaid medical bills, even pursuing criminal charges over debts as little as $101. His record has given Democrats an opening in the normally safe Kansas Senate seat, with Democratic nominee pastor Adam Hamilton seizing the opportunity and polling neck and neck with Marshall.
“There are 2,000 verses in the Bible that speak to caring for the poor,” Hamilton said at a debate with Marshall last month. “This is not happening under this man.”