Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) took a “rare swipe” at Fox News and Newsmax last week, asserting that the two deeply conservative media outlets are sowing division among right-wing voters. His comments were first reported on Monday by Semafor media editor Max Tani, and suggest frustration and infighting within the GOP.
According to Mediate, Marshall — a close ally of President Donald Trump — was on the podcast of a DC lobbying firm when he declared, “The job of the national media, what they do is make my parents mad. They sit home and they watch Fox News and Newsmax, and guess what? They’re mad at me, they’re mad at [Majority Leader] John Thune, they’re mad at Mitch McConnell — there’s this purity test.”
“I feel this anger more than ever before,” he added.
As Tani noted, “It was an unusual remark for a Republican, given GOP members usually prefer to kiss up to the network for airtime; later the same day, Marshall was on Fox Business with Maria Bartiromo.”
His ire may have been inspired in part by recent comments from Fox News host Mark Levin, who Mediate says “jabbed” Marshall in June following the senator’s “eyebrow-raising” appearance on CNN, in which he seemed to argue that Iran should have ballistic missiles.
“The insanity of those defending parts of the MOU, or major matters left out of this MOU, is truly stunning,” Levin wrote on X. “Roger Marshall is a senator from Kansas. He argues that the Iranian terror regime, which has killed and maimed thousands of Americans, funded terrorism around the world, and tried to assassinate our president and his daughter Ivanka, needs ballistic missiles to be able to defend themselves. This man should never be elected dogcatcher.”
All of this speaks to a wider atmosphere of frustration among the Republicans, who have become divided over issues like the war and the party’s inability to advance key bills through Congress in recent months. Much of the tension has been caused by Trump’s meddling in the party’s agenda, as he has remained fixated on passing his SAVE Act at the expense of other GOP legislation. Now with the midterms approaching fast and the GOP facing major headwinds, Republicans are beginning to panic.