Vice President JD Vance was campaigning for Sen. Roger Marshall at a manufacturing plant in Olathe, Kansas, on Monday, September 14, 2026, when a protester cut through the room with an accusation about the senator’s medical practice. Vance answered with a line about a Mexican flag.
The event at Webco Manufacturing was organized by Make America Great Again Inc. (MAGA Inc.), President Donald Trump’s main super PAC. Moments before the interruption, Vance was on the subject of illegal immigration and foreign corporations. “We are not going to stand by as we allow illegal immigrants and foreign corporations to undercut the wages of the people in this factory,” he said.
Then the shout came, aimed at the senator Vance was there to promote: “He sues his patients!” Men in dark red shirts muscled the protester, who was wearing green, past the crowd and out of the venue as supporters booed him and broke into a chant of “USA.”
The Line About a Mexican Flag
“I see we have a guy who is protesting,” Vance said, repeating the line as the man kept yelling.
“You know, the last time I gave a speech and we had a guy who was interrupting, he had the common courtesy to bring a Mexican flag so we knew where he stood,” he continued.
The heckle had nothing to do with Mexico or immigration. It was about Marshall’s record of taking patients to court over unpaid medical bills. The remark instead pointed back to the Republican midterm convention in Dallas on September 10, where a protester interrupted Vance’s keynote address while waving a Mexican flag.
Vance then told the Olathe crowd that the man “decided to come in and lie about my very dear friend, Doc Marshall,” then defended the senator’s record. “Doc Marshall has stood up for everyday Americans every single day he’s been in the United States Senate,” he said.
The Lawsuits Behind the Shout
The accusation the vice president waved off as a lie is one the senator’s own camp has acknowledged. Marshall, an obstetrician-gynecologist before he entered politics, sued more than 700 patients over outstanding medical bills, and 81 of them were ultimately arrested after missing court dates over the debt, according to The New York Times, which reported that the suits were filed between 2003 and 2015 and that he kept trying to collect some of the debts between 2017 and 2021, after he had reached Congress. Both Marshall and his office have confirmed that he sued patients.
Asked about the lawsuits at a debate two days earlier, Marshall said he had used “common business practices.” He told the audience the hospital did not move quickly on unpaid accounts: “We would go a year before we would ever send somebody over.” The same reporting found the practice took legal action over debts as small as $101 and charged patients 18 percent annual interest on overdue bills.
That debate, held at the Kansas State Fair, was a rough outing for the incumbent, who was booed and heckled by the audience as he tried to speak. His Democratic opponent, megachurch pastor Adam Hamilton, hammered him over the lawsuits, pointing to what he said were 2,000 Bible verses about caring for the poor.
A Tightening Race in Kansas
The medical-debt story has landed in a contest Republicans once treated as an afterthought. The Cook Political Report now rates the Kansas Senate seat “likely R,” down from “solid R” — a downgrade that helps explain why the vice president spent a Monday afternoon in an Olathe factory.
Kansas has not sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1932. The state is not uniformly hostile territory for the party, though: voters elected Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly in 2018 and returned her to office in 2022.
Marshall said before the visit that he looked forward to “sharing the manufacturing renaissance happening across our state.” Beyond backing the senator, Vance’s swing through the Kansas City metro area also focused on new anti-fraud operations. LiveNOW from Fox streamed the Olathe appearance as it happened, drawing an audience of more than 93,000.
After the man was removed and the chanting died down, Vance moved on to credit card swipe fees — what retailers are charged when customers pay with a card. He told the crowd that the two of them had teamed up on the matter back when he was a senator himself, describing Marshall as the one who spearheaded the push to force Wall Street to lower those charges.