Kansas Democrat Courts Trump Voters. Trump Calls In: He Will Back Schumer and 'Take Away Your Guns'

Adam Hamilton spent Friday morning asking Kansas Republicans for their votes. A little over an hour later, the man those Republicans have backed three times picked up the phone and told them not to fall for it.

President Trump called in to Pete Mundo's morning show on KCMO Talk Radio in Kansas City on Friday, Oct. 30, four days before the Nov. 3 election. The rally he had planned in Salina was canceled, so this was his closing pitch for Sen. Roger Marshall, the Republican fighting for his seat against Hamilton, the Democratic megachurch pastor.

Mundo put the question straight. Hamilton "says that he's not a typical Democrat," the host said. "He says he won't vote for Chuck Schumer. He's going after your voters, Mr. President. So what would you tell a Trump voter who's considering voting for him coming up on Tuesday?"

"Well, he will vote for Chuck Schumer and he will take away your guns," Trump answered.

The pitch Hamilton made that morning

The timing was no accident of the calendar. That same morning the Kansas City Star ran a guest column by Hamilton aimed squarely at Trump voters. "The first time I voted for president, I voted for Ronald Reagan," he wrote. "I've been a registered Republican, a registered Democrat and an independent." He promised: "When Democrats get something wrong, I'll be the first to say so. The Biden border policy was a disaster." And he closed with a direct ask: "If you are a Republican but feel the values in Washington don't reflect your values, I'd be honored to have your vote."

(Some coverage quoted that line as "If Democrats get something wrong." The column itself says "When.")

Hamilton also accused Marshall of spending "more time questioning who's a real Kansan or a real Christian than talking about what we pay for gas or health insurance."

Trump's answer was that the label on the ballot still matters. Earlier in the interview he called Hamilton "a radical left guy" and said: "Take away your guns, take away everything, and I just don't see how they can have that in Kansas, frankly." A Democrat who wins in Kansas still casts his first big vote for a party leader, and today that leader is Schumer. Promising independence in a newspaper column is free. The leadership vote is not.

The church and the farm

Trump also went after Hamilton's home turf. "He's a pastor, I guess, and you know, his church is all in turmoil," he said. "He's caused turmoil with the church because he's so liberal, and you know, you have people breaking away." He added that he "had to do a little research" first, and noted that he won "the evangelical vote, the Christian vote."

Hamilton is the founding pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood. Trump did not spell out what he meant, but the backdrop is real: the United Methodist Church itself says more than 7,600 congregations left the denomination in its split over sexuality and marriage, about a quarter of its U.S. churches.

Then Trump made the case for Marshall, and he kept coming back to farmers. "I think the most effective person for farmers and ranchers, and there's nobody like him," he said. He pointed to the roughly $28 billion he says he steered to farmers in his first term out of tariffs China paid, and the $12 billion he "just gave them." That second number checks out: the USDA announced the $12 billion Farmer Bridge Assistance program on Dec. 8, 2025. "Roger's, you know, always pushing me to take care of our farm and the farmers," Trump said.

His closer: "You can't do better than Roger Marshall. I'd let you know if you could." And: "I know the senators. I know the good ones. I know the bad ones. Some aren't, I'm not thrilled with some, to be honest. But with Roger Marshall, it's not even a contest."

Iran: "It's going to end very soon"

Kansas drivers have felt the Iran war at the pump, and Trump made a promise about it. "As soon as the war ends, fuel prices are going to drop like a rock," he said. "Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, and they won't have a nuclear weapon. And that's going to end very soon. One way or the other, it's going to end very soon."

Asked what the endgame looks like, Trump laid out his scorecard. Iran had "159 ships, they're all at the bottom of the sea," he said, and "268 airplanes, they're all scattered all over the runways." "Their radar is gone. Their anti-aircraft is gone," he went on. "Their leaders are gone." He said Iran wants a deal but must give "a guarantee" it will never have a nuclear weapon, and blamed Barack Obama's 2015 nuclear deal for putting Tehran on "a road to a nuclear weapon." If Iran had one, he said, "we'd be addressing them as sir, and I'm not going to address them as sir."

He credited Marshall here too: "I appreciate that Roger sticks with me. A lot of people don't have the courage."

"The fake Dan"

Trump also weighed in on Alaska, where the Justice Department is now in court over the second Dan Sullivan on the Senate ballot. "Call him the fake Dan," Trump said. "I think it's a criminal act, actually." We covered DOJ's newest filing in that case this morning: Peltola's Team Told a Judge It Couldn't Say Why 'Other Dan' Ran.

Why it matters

Kansas has not sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1932, and Trump has carried the state by double digits three straight times. Yet this race is a coin flip. A CNN/SSRS poll released Thursday had Hamilton at 49% and Marshall at 45% among likely voters, inside the poll's 4.5-point margin of error, while a RedBox Research poll for a Democratic super PAC had Marshall up 45.7% to 45.0%.

That is the whole fight in one morning. Hamilton is running as the Kansan who just happens to be a Democrat. Trump is telling Kansans that there is no such thing in the U.S. Senate, where the first vote decides who runs the place. If Hamilton wins, Schumer's path to the majority runs straight through a state that has voted Republican for Senate for more than 90 years.

Voters settle it Tuesday.