Trump announces $8 billion in farmer diesel aid during Park City speech
Donald Trump, 80, delivered a 98-minute stump speech at an arena outside Wichita on Monday in his first Kansas campaign rally in eight years, traveling to a state that has not elected a Democratic senator since 1932 in support of a candidate whose race has tightened unexpectedly before the November 3 midterm.
Amid raucous chants of “USA! USA!” from the crowd, Trump took the stage at the Heartland Credit Union Arena, a 5,000-seat multipurpose venue in Park City. Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” played as Marshall walked on stage, and the rally was disrupted by several protesters, The Guardian reported. The trip came in a state Trump won by 16 percentage points against Kamala Harris in 2024 and that already has a Democratic governor, Laura Kelly — and the stakes include control of both the Senate and House of Representatives just two years after Republicans swept into power.
“You’re really sort of – I hate to say it – you’re sort of tending toward the purple,” Trump told the crowd. “That’s why I have to be sure that we get this guy.”
The Guardian reported that Marshall, 66, an obstetrician-gynecologist and former congressman in his first Senate term, has championed the debunked claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Marshall is facing an unexpectedly strong challenge from Hamilton, 62, who founded the 24,000-member United Methodist Church of the Resurrection — the largest United Methodist congregation in the country — and who opposes Trump’s tariff agenda and what he describes as the president’s “erratic leadership.” Opinion polls show the two men running neck and neck. In the third quarter, Hamilton raised $11 million while Marshall collected about $800,000, according to figures reported by The Guardian.
Farmers in heavily agricultural Kansas have been hit hard by the consequences of the Iran war, with diesel costing nearly $6 a gallon. Trump, who had previously upset cattle ranchers with a plan to reduce import tariffs to lower beef prices and with aggressive immigration raids that prompted some agricultural workers to stay home, used the rally to announce an $8 billion federal program to provide farmers with support to offset diesel costs during the harvest season.
Despite Hamilton’s background as a pastor and former Republican, Marshall dismissed him as “too woke for Kansas.” Accompanied by Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” as he walked on stage, Marshall told the crowd: “This is a guy that participates in protests against police. He supports drag shows. He tells us to apologise for the colour of our skin. And in a state with more cattle than people, he tells you to stop eating beef.” The crowd jeered at each line.
Trump labeled the Democrat a “radical left lunatic” and a “phoney who’s pretending to be a moderate,” claimed Hamilton supports flooding Kansas with refugees who “go around killing people,” said Hamilton had used church money to fund “transgender crap” and “openly mocks Jesus,” and accused him of believing America is systemically racist. “He wants you to repent for being born white,” Trump said.
According to The Guardian’s account, the president also sought to weaponize the recent upheaval in France, repeating what the paper characterized as a baseless nativist claim that the violence is being led by immigrants. “We’re not going to let that happen to this country,” he said. “When you see burning steeples and raging fires in France, just remember that is what the radical Dumocrats want to do to America.”
Trump attacked three Muslim politicians during his remarks — Abdul El-Sayed, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib — drawing chants of “Deport her!” from the crowd when Tlaib’s name was mentioned. The Guardian reported that Trump falsely claimed that both El-Sayed and his sister are members of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist opposition group in Egypt. Trump mockingly warned that, should El-Sayed be elected and sit on the Senate intelligence committee, he would leak information to the enemy.
The Guardian reported that critics have called Trump’s current barnstorming tour a “desperation tour” aimed at rescuing Republicans from the political difficulties his presidency has created, and that some critics argue the president may be making life harder for candidates by nationalizing races they would prefer to keep focused on local issues.
Earlier, in warm sunshine, a long line of people snaked through fields outside the arena. Vendors offered a familiar inventory after more than a decade of Trump rallies: giant Trump flags, tables full of “Make America Great Again” caps, spangly “DJT” and “Trump the golden age” jackets, “Alligator Alcatraz” merchandise, “We are all Charlie Kirk now” sweaters and T-shirts reading “Stand for the flag, kneel for the cross.” One woman wore a sweater that read “0% liberal.” One man’s T-shirt declared: “I love Trump because he pisses off all the people I can’t stand.”
Justin Nelsen, 44, a cybersecurity worker, said: “It fires us up, it gets us all excited for the cause and allows us to put out there what we want here as the state of Kansas. That’s why I’m here.”
Brittany Jones, a 33-year-old lawyer wearing a Stars and Stripes sweater, said: “If you know Adam Hamilton at all you know that he’s a problem and a chameleon and good at saying what he thinks people want to hear, even if he doesn’t believe it. He has shown himself to be not only a turncoat to things that matter to Christians, he has wholly given himself to the local agenda. Even though he claims to be a moderate, there’s nothing moderate about him.” Asked what a Democratic win would mean, Jones called it “seismic.” “It would be sad for most Kansans when they realise what happened, and some people just aren’t thinking through the consequences, but he has a built-in audience of people who are highly motivated,” she said. The Guardian reported that Jones, who had her friend’s three-month-old baby, Hannah, tucked under one arm, said she mostly welcomed Trump’s second term, citing as priorities “girls’ sports” and protecting children from “harmful gender transition procedures.”
Construction worker Thad Snider, 42, who attended wearing a red “Make America Great Again” T-shirt alongside his mother, said he was not overly worried about the Senate seat falling to the Democrats. “I don’t think Adam’s as strong a candidate as what the media is trying to sell him as,” he said, pointing to Hamilton’s past political donations to Democrats including Hillary Clinton. “I don’t think it’s going to happen but, if it did happen, it would be very shocking.” Snider argued that voters faced a stark choice between political parties, describing the Republicans as the “least bad” option because “at least they’re not socialists or communists.” He said he disagreed with foreign wars and wished Trump had done more on election integrity, but remained loyal to the president. “Any time you turn around a battleship, it takes time,” he said.
That sentiment was echoed by Darrell Claphan, 72, a retired sales worker, who said of Trump: “He’s doing fantastic. He’ll go down in history being the number one president at what he’s done for the country in my lifetime.” Claphan dismissed opinion polls showing a close race, stating: “Polls have been wrong ever since I’ve been alive.” Asked how he would react to a Democratic Senate victory in Kansas, Claphan said: “I’d be shocked. But I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
Whether the Republican Senate winning streak that stretches back to 1932 — the year Herbert Hoover was president, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic and the Nazis became the biggest party in the German Reichstag — continues past November 3 may turn on whether the unusual competitive dynamics that drew Trump to Park City hold through the campaign’s final two weeks.