The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) warned that “Shylock” draws on an antisemitic stereotype on Oct. 20, a day after President Donald Trump used the term while defending Sen. Roger Marshall over lawsuits against patients.
The group’s post did not name Trump. It said using the word can reinforce harmful ideas about Jews. The ADL’s warning focused on the term, while Matt Duss’s criticism focused on the post’s decision not to identify its user.
At a rally in Park City, Kansas, on Oct. 19, Trump defended Marshall against criticism over lawsuits filed against patients with unpaid medical bills. Trump said critics had portrayed the Republican senator as a “Shylock-type guy.” Marshall, a physician, is seeking reelection against Democrat Adam Hamilton, The Guardian reported.
KCUR reported that no law required Marshall to sue the patients, contrary to Trump’s claim that he was obliged to do so. The station said the lawsuits concerned unpaid medical bills. The dispute thus involved both Trump’s language in defending Marshall and the reason given for pursuing the cases.
Duss, a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders, criticized the ADL response in a post. He said ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt would have condemned a Democratic speaker by name in a hypothetical similar case. Duss called the post “just a general public service announcement.” His comment was a criticism of Greenblatt, not a stated ADL policy.
The ADL took a more direct approach after Trump used the term at an Iowa rally in July 2025. In its post about that incident, the group called the use “very troubling and irresponsible.”
Marshall’s race against Hamilton is scheduled for Nov. 3, the Associated Press reported. The ADL’s latest post warned about the term without naming Trump; Duss’s response challenged that choice and raised the question of whether the group would identify a Democratic speaker in a comparable case.
