Republican Senator James Lankford Says Donald Trump Is Not a Good Role Model for Young People
Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma has revealed he does not think Donald Trump is a good role model.
Lankford, 51, said in a recent interview with CBS’s Face The Nation that the president’s vocabulary in speeches and on social media did not set an example for “the way that I’m raising my kids.”
“I don’t think that President Trump as a person is a role model for a lot of different youth,” he in the segment that aired on Sunday. “That’s just me personally. I don’t like the way that he tweets, some of the things that he says. His word choices at times are not my word choices.”
“He comes across with more New York City swagger than I do from the Midwest,” he added.
While Lankford criticized the president’s rhetoric, he admitted he agreed with some of Trump’s policies.
“Saying that, there are policy areas that we agree on, and when we agree on those things we work on those things together,” he added. “But it’s also been a grand challenge to be able to say — for a person of faith, for a person who believes that there is a right way to go on things — I wish he did and was more of a role model in those areas.”
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As noted by Time, Lankford — the former director of Student Ministry for the Baptist Convention of Oklahoma — said that he held out hope the party would select a “role model candidate” during the 2016 primaries that saw the likes of Ted Cruz, John Kasich and Marco Rubio vie for the Republican presidential nomination.
“In a campaign year full of lies, personal attacks, vile language and immoral behavior, today was yet another reminder that there is no role model, from either party, running for President this year,” Lankford wrote on his campaign Facebook page before the 2016 election, according to The Oklahoman.
“I think he’s throwing gasoline on the fire with his communications,” he said a year later of Trump’s rhetoric. “I don’t want my children to speak that way. I don’t think it helps.”
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Lankford spoke to Face the Nation alongside Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware for a discussion about faith in politics. He said he is continually asked about Trump’s controversial comments by the media and his constituents.
“At the end of the day, what we’re really looking for in an Administration is folks that allow us to be able to live our principles,” Lankford said in the interview.
“The president has a spokesperson and I’m not the president’s spokesperson,” he continued. “One of the interesting things about Washington, D.C. is I don’t get to pick the people that I work with. The American people pick the people that I work with.”
