Kansas residents who attended a town hall meeting in Oakley last week are pushing back on Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall’s claim that they were paid to be there in the audience as a disruption.
The meeting was contentious nearly from the start, as people in the crowd shouted at Marshall and booed him. Many of them said they were there, in a county that voted overwhelmingly for President Donald Trump last fall, to speak against recent funding cuts to agriculture programs and mass layoffs of federal workers.
Indeed, several who spoke this week with the Kansas News Service said they are just concerned Kansans trying to reach their senator.
The meeting even caught the attention of Trump. He said on Truth Social that the attendees of the meeting were “paid troublemakers.”
Marshall shared the post on X, writing, "Can confirm." His office said in a statement to media that “Democrat operatives sabotaged the meeting.”
Marshall has since walked that back on a conservative Kansas City talk show.
"I don't have firsthand evidence," Marshall said on the show. "But that was the rumor there. The townspeople, that's what they had told me, that those people there were whispering, 'How much did you get paid to do this and who paid for your gas?' Some of those types of things."
Anne Parelkar drove five hours to Oakley from Overland Park to attend the meeting. She said she’s a registered Republican.
“I believe that the truth is somewhere in the middle, and I believe that it is Roger Marshall's job to help us find that truth, and he's not willing to do it,” Parelkar said.
She said she met a lot of northwest Kansans, and sympathized with them for the way their town hall ended.
“None of them made me feel like I wasn't supposed to be there,” Parelkar said. “But Roger Marshall represents me and everybody else in that room, just as much as he represents those people from Oakley.”
Plenty of residents in the audience were from western Kansas. They said they wanted to discuss a range of topics, such as the current state of Kansas agriculture and transgender rights.
Kristi Khan, who was vocal during the meeting, said she was from Colby, which is just north of Oakley. She said her son was transgender and died by suicide. She has dedicated her time to pushing back against misinformation about the trans community.
“I came because I have reached out to Marshall and a bunch of politicians, and they will not respond to me,” Khan said.
Khan wanted to talk about the process transgender youth go through, but Marshall didn’t address it.
“He acted like nobody local was against him, but some of us were,” Khan said.
Western Kansas farmers also attended and tried to voice their concerns to Marshall.
Some farmers say they have not been paid for work they already completed under federal contracts signed last year. Millions of dollars are left in limbo.
After Trump ordered a funding freeze of the Inflation Reduction Act from former President Joe Biden’s administration, waves of federal funding have been stopped. The U.S. Department of Agriculture had funding tied up under that act. Some programs were put on pause, leaving Kansas farmers and rural communities looking for answers.
Trump has also vowed tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, which are major trading partners for Kansas agriculture.
Louise Ehmke and her husband, Vance, are wheat farmers in Lane County, Kansas. They use equipment called undercutters, which are produced in Canada. Retaliatory tariffs will cause these pieces to increase by $150 per blade, they said.
“Attending this meeting was worth the investment in our farm and in our operation and the future of our farm,” Ehmke said. “We didn’t get any specific answers.”
Chuck Nunn, another western Kansan, was the last speaker to talk to Marshall before the senator left. He said he was very concerned about the Trump administration’s funding freezes and job cuts affecting veterans.
In response to the narrative of the crowd being paid troublemakers, he told CNN it didn’t make sense.
“If they were going to have a paid actor, they would pick somebody a hell of a lot better looking than I am,” Nunn said.
Calen Moore covers western Kansas for High Plains Public Radio and the Kansas News Service. You can email him at cmoore@hppr.org.
The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy.
