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roger marshall
'We're Literally Starving Them': GOP Senator Gloats That Iranians 'Can't Feed Themselves' Because of Trump Blockade
One foreign policy analyst said the senator was effectively admitting that “we’re literally committing crimes against humanity.”
Apr 23, 2026
A Republican US senator proudly declared that President Donald Trump's blockade of Iranian ports is "starving" Iranians on Wednesday, in yet another piece of counterevidence to the idea that the president's war there is meant to "liberate" the people.
"We have this embargo working, this blockade, and we're literally starving them," said Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) during an interview on Newsmax. "Both financially, and they can't feed themselves either, very long."
During the same interview, Marshall said Trump must “take everything into consideration” to finish the war against Iran and compared the decision Trump must make to "President [Harry] Truman’s decision on dropping the bomb, and D-Day for President [then-Gen. Dwight] Eisenhower.”
The comments came after Trump announced that he would extend a two-week ceasefire while continuing his naval blockade of Iranian ports, enacted as a counter to Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has caused chaos and inflation across the global economy.
It was yet another 180-degree spin from Trump, who just days before had issued another genocidal threat to "blow up" the "whole country" of Iran, including civilian infrastructure, if it did not capitulate to his demands in a ceasefire agreement, which was roundly condemned by international organizations as a pledge to commit war crimes.
The Iranian population suffered tremendously under Trump's "maximum pressure sanctions" before the war, which fueled 58% food inflation year over year in September 2025.
The war launched by the US and Israel in February has only heightened the pain: Last month, Iran's inflation rate hit a record 72%, and the cost of its staple food basket soared to 134% compared with the previous year.
More than 750,000 jobs had been lost as of last week, and the United Nations Development Program predicted that Iran's economy could contract by as much as 10% as a result of the war. In just 40 days of war, the UNDP found that 3.5-4.1 million Iranians have fallen below the poverty line.
Trump's blockade of Iranian ports has tightened the noose even more, cutting off about 90% of the nation's maritime trade.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the blockade immediately affected nearly a million tons of grain and oilseeds. Prices for commodities like rice, which have already increased sevenfold in recent months, are expected to soar even further.
While Iran is much larger and more self-sufficient than Cuba, the blockade mirrors the economic warfare Trump has waged against the island in what he has said is an effort to force its leadership from power or outright "take" it for the US.
The blockade of fuel shipments to the island enacted through tariff threats has paralyzed its economy and resulted in rolling blackouts that have disrupted hospital care, agriculture, and every other facet of daily life for the Cuban people, drawing condemnation from United Nations human rights experts, who have called it a "serious violation of international law" and an act of "extreme unilateral economic coercion."
The Trump administration and its cheerleaders in Congress have not been shy about their goal for sanctions in Iran—to inflict suffering upon the people of Iran in hopes that they will rise up and overthrow their governmen. But Marshall's declaration that Trump was trying to "starve" Iran was seen by critics as an even more explicit endorsement of collective punishment than most.
Dylan Williams, the vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, said it confirmed that Trump was pitching "genocide as a tactic in Iran."
In less than two months, at least 1,700 civilians have been killed, including more than 250 children, according to the US-based Human Rights Activist News Agency. More than 26,000 people have been injured, according to the Iranian Health Ministry.
The international affairs researcher Derek Davison wrote that by cheering a policy he said was "literally starving" Iran, Marshall was basically saying: "We're literally committing crimes against humanity. It's awesome."
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Iran War 'More Important Than Your Pocketbook,' GOP Senator Tells Americans Facing High Gas Prices
"People in the United States are literally skipping meals and the Republican Congress won’t even hold a hearing about this unplanned disastrous war," said one critic.
Apr 14, 2026
A Republican senator on Tuesday tried to sell wary Americans on President Donald Trump's war with Iran by telling them that national security is more important than any financial pain they're feeling in the form of higher energy costs.
During an appearance on Newsmax's "Wake Up America" program, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) tried to assuage Americans' concerns about the spike in gas prices caused by the war by informing viewers that the US is "the leading producer of oil in the world, we're exporting more than we're importing."
Sen. Roger Marshall: "I'm sorry that gas prices are going up, but help is on the way, and your national security is even more important than your pocketbook." pic.twitter.com/GSUEDVHQml
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 14, 2026
The US exporting more of its own oil to foreign countries whose regular supplies have been disrupted by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz does nothing to lower US gas prices and, if anything, will push them higher.
As a Monday Wall Street Journal article explained, "prices at the pump are poised to keep rising if the US exports more oil and gas and drains its inventories," especially since "the jump in exports doesn’t yet correspond to an increase in US oil production."
Later in the segment, Marshall acknowledged that Americans were feeling pain at the gas pump, but he said it was worth it to stop the supposed threat from Iran, which did not attack the US and, according to US intelligence estimates, was not close to producing nuclear weapons.
"I'm sorry that gas prices are going up," he said. "But help is on the way, and your national security, yes, is even more important than your pocketbook."
Marshall's claims about the Iran War being worth the cost came days after Harvard Kennedy School professor Linda Bilmes, an expert in war budgeting, estimated the total cost of the conflict would top $1 trillion.
Criminal defense attorney Sara Spector pounced on Marshall's comments as symbolic of Republicans' tone deafness to Americans' economic concerns.
"Octogenarians are door dashing to pay for medical bills," she remarked, "and Senator Marshall wants you to pay for a war while Donald Trump golfs and attends VIP sporting events. Wow!"
Fred Wellman, a Democratic candidate for the US House of Representatives in Missouri, noted that the GOP-run Congress isn't even having hearings where elected representatives can ask Trump administration officials about the war.
"People in the United States are literally skipping meals and the Republican Congress won’t even hold a hearing about this unplanned disastrous war," Wellman wrote. "No, we won’t accept anymore assurances or urges to sacrifice for the greater good when the leaders won’t even respect us enough to go under oath and tell us why."
Jennifer Schulze, a former local TV news executive, pointed out that the claims about the Iran War being essential to US security were totally false.
"Iran was not: 1.) close to having a nuclear weapon; 2.) Posing an imminent threat to the US," she wrote.
Jon Bauman, president of Social Security Works PAC, said Marshall's claim that high gas prices are worth the cost of launching an unprovoked war with Iran was a "losing argument."
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