Trump Rallies for Roger Marshall in Kansas and Reaches for 'Shylock' Again. He Has Been Told. He Should Stop.

The facts come first below. My opinion follows in the section marked as opinion.

President Trump went to Kansas on Monday night to help Sen. Roger Marshall hold a seat Republicans once thought was safe. While defending the senator, he used a word that NBC News and others describe as an antisemitic slur.

Trump spoke for roughly 90 minutes at Heartland Credit Union Arena in Park City, a 6,500-seat arena in a Wichita suburb, The Kansas City Star reported. It was his first trip to Kansas this election cycle. "On Nov. 3, you need to send a very strange Adam Hamilton back home and reelect one of the greatest senators in our country," he told the crowd.

A race Republicans did not expect

Marshall's Democratic opponent, Adam Hamilton, is a megachurch pastor and a former Republican, according to NBC News. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report calls the race a toss-up. NBC rates it competitive but leaning Republican. The Star noted that Kansas has not elected a Democrat to the Senate in 94 years. The Independent cited a recent YouGov poll showing Hamilton at 48 percent and Marshall at 45 percent among likely voters.

Marshall told the Star before the rally, "We don't win this race unless President Trump's voters get out and vote. That's how close it is."

Part of what has tightened the race is a New York Times report last month. It found that Marshall, an obstetrician-gynecologist, sued more than 700 patients over unpaid bills when he was in practice. According to the Independent, which cited the Times analysis of Kansas court records, patients were arrested for missing court dates in 81 of those cases. A Marshall spokesman told the Times, "Judges issue warrants when people repeatedly miss court dates, not doctors." Marshall has called the story a "hit job."

What the president said

Trump took up Marshall's defense from the stage. "He was mandated by law to request, strongly, money owed from patients," he said, according to the Independent. "You have to by law go after those people, and they made it like he was some kind of a Shylock-type guy." He added, "They gave him a bum rap, so I don't know if I should be saying it, but that's the way it is, Roger. You got screwed with that stuff."

Shylock is the Jewish moneylender in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice." NBC noted that the Anti-Defamation League, in a guide for teachers, says that in the play "Shylock, and by extension, all Jews, are presented as money-hungry, conniving, and cruel." Trump used the same word last year about bankers. Asked about it then, he said he had "never heard it that way." Joe Biden used the word in 2014 and later apologized. The Washington Examiner also called it an antisemitic slur. The White House did not immediately respond to NBC's request for comment.

Protesters interrupted the speech several times. Trump called them "idiots" and said they were paid $250 to disrupt the rally. He offered no evidence for that claim. He also spoke about Saturday's crash at a Wichita youth soccer game that killed a 6-year-old boy and a 35-year-old man. "We grieve for the beautiful lives that were lost and pray for those who were tragically injured," he said, according to NBC's live coverage. Dock Line reported on that crash in Wichita Soccer Field Crash Kills Boy, 6, and Man, 35.

Opinion: He has been told. Now he should stop.

A doctor who delivers babies is entitled to be paid, and a senator is entitled to a defense against a story he believes is unfair. Trump can make that case, and Kansans can weigh it, including the 700 lawsuits and the 81 arrests. Voters can reasonably reach different verdicts on that record.

But there was no need to reach for that word. Last year the president said he did not know what it meant to Jewish people. That excuse was used up the day he gave it. Caricatures of Jews as greedy and cruel have a long and ugly history. A Christian should want no part of them. Scripture says plainly that "death and life are in the power of the tongue." James warns that with the same mouth "bless we God" and curse men, adding: "My brethren, these things ought not so to be."

The president should drop this word for good, and the Republicans who shared the stage with him should say so. Conservatives rightly call out antisemitism when it shows up on the left. The standard does not change when it comes from our side. Marshall's race will be decided on Nov. 3 by Kansans weighing two men's records. A slur in his defense helps neither man, and it hurts our Jewish neighbors.