Rachel Maddow dismantles MAGA senator's cookie dealings with simple math

MS NOW's Rachel Maddow dismantled a GOP senator's excuses for stiffing a baker out of nearly $700.

Recent reporting shows that Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS), stiffed a local bakery, Holly's Sweet Treats in Hutchinson, of a nearly $700 bill for custom campaign cookies he ordered in 2020. That seemed like an odd thing to do for someone currently locked in a surprisingly close re-election battle who used medical debt to terrorize patients at his old OB-GYN practice, Maddow argued.

"The lawyers working for him routinely ... pressured judges to issue arrest warrants," noted Maddow. "And Marshall thereby got his patients arrested for unpaid bills as low as $114," sometimes having their wages garnished — all while applying an interest rate of 18 percent APR to patients' unpaid medical bills.

Marshall has tried to claim this was standard practice, Maddow said — but The Kansas City Star looked into it and found that "the 18 percent annualinterest rate ... was by far the highest of the roughly 150 medical practices whose public records were reviewed." And furthermore, she noted, "the lawyer who representedRoger Marshall and many of thelawsuits he filed against hispatients, [said] that it wasn't like a standard rate at all. It wasRoger's choice."

"Perhaps, given how famous Roger Marshall now is for being real strict about other people not paying their bills, Roger Marshall suddenly decided it was time to pay for the cookies, decided to make a big public show of him finally paying off that bill," said Maddow, noting that he took to X to proclaim he "repaid the bill from 2020, double."

But Maddow took a look at the math and found that didn't quite add up.

"Let's see, the bill was ... $678.75," said Maddow. "Double that is $1,357.50. Roger Marshall paid $1,300." In other words, he said, "he didn't pay all these sweet treats double ... by his own account, he's still stiffing them $57.50."

"That said, if they wanted to charge him, say, I don't know, picking a number out of the ether, 18 percent interest like he charged all his patients?" said Maddow. "Then Roger Marshall still owes Holly's Sweet Treats way more than that. I mean, don't hold me to the math, but by my count, if this had been six years at 18 percent interest, that would mean Roger Marshall still underpaid the bakery about by about $112, which is very close to the $114 for which he had at least one of his patients arrested."

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