--- title: GOP Senator Says Trump Is Not a Role Model For Young People description: In an interview with Face The Nation, Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma said Trump isn't a good role model for young people canonical: https://time.com/5757125/gop-senator-lankford-trump-not-role-model/ author: Jasmine Aguilera article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-12-31T17:27:50.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T08:03:50.320Z article:section: Politics og:title: GOP Senator Says Trump Is Not a Role Model For Young People og:description: "I don't think that President Trump as a person is a role model for a lot of different youth." og:url: https://time.com/5757125/gop-senator-lankford-trump-not-role-model/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt36ba5477fd0aa123/698a0835929fad4cb2bf579a/James-Lankford-Faith-Trump-Role-Model.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: CC Chairman Ajit Pai Testifies On Capitol Hill After Senate Democrats Won A Vote To Preserve Net Neutrality og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: GOP Senator Says Trump Is Not a Role Model For Young People twitter:description: "I don't think that President Trump as a person is a role model for a lot of different youth." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt36ba5477fd0aa123/698a0835929fad4cb2bf579a/James-Lankford-Faith-Trump-Role-Model.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # GOP Senator: President Trump 'Not a Role Model For Young People' > Sponsored content. 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Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=9bf6a03d-b065-4beb-bc09-6afdf9977339&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: 2019: A Year In Review [Watch (HLS stream): 2019: A Year In Review](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/MD3Qp2EI.m3u8) (5:36)  _Published 2019-12-20. 2019: A Year In Review_ by [Jasmine Aguilera](https://time.com/author/jasmine-aguilera/) ## Jasmine Aguilera Dec 31, 2019 5:27 PM UTC  Senator James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma and chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, speaks during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, May 17, 2018. Senator James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma and chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, speaks during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, May 17, 2018. Zach Gibson/Bloomberg via Getty Images by [Jasmine Aguilera](https://time.com/author/jasmine-aguilera/) ## Jasmine Aguilera Dec 31, 2019 5:27 PM UTC In an interview with [CBS’s _Face The Nation_](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-chris-coons-and-james-lankford-on-face-the-nation/), Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma said he does not consider President Donald Trump to be a good role model for young people. In a 30-minute long interview primarily about [faith in politics](https://time.com/5615617/why-evangelicals-support-trump/), Lankford told CBS’s Margaret Brennan that he had hoped to find a “role model candidate” running in the 2016 primaries, and ensuing presidential election. Trump wasn’t that person. Before becoming a Congressman and then later a Senator in 2014, Lankford was the director of Student Ministry for the Baptist Convention of Oklahoma. “I don’t think that President Trump as a person is a role model for a lot of different youth,” he said. “That’s just me personally. I don’t like the way that he tweets, some of the things that he says. His [word choices](https://time.com/5644361/el-paso-shooting-donald-trump-democrats/) at times are not my word choices.” “Saying that, there are policy areas that we agree on, and when we agree on those things we work on those things together,” Lankford adds. “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 that he… was more of a role model in those areas.” Lankford was joined Democratic Senator Chris Coons of Delaware for the interview, where they discuss hosting prayer groups for other Senators of faith, and common ground between them despite their parties’ differences — both Coons and Lankford oppose a decrease in the number of [refugees admitted into the U.S.](https://time.com/5694866/refugee-resettlement-numbers/), for example. “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, adding that it is sometimes a challenge in his job to have to answer for some of the president’s actions. “The president has a spokesperson and I’m not the president’s spokesperson,” he said. “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.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5757125/gop-senator-lankford-trump-not-role-model/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5757125/gop-senator-lankford-trump-not-role-model/"},"headline":"GOP Senator: President Trump 'Not a Role Model For Young People'","datePublished":"2019-12-31T17:27:50.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T08:03:50.320Z","description":"In an interview with Face The Nation, Republican Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma said Trump isn't a good role model for young people","url":"https://time.com/5757125/gop-senator-lankford-trump-not-role-model/","keywords":["politics","Oklahoma","Religion","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt36ba5477fd0aa123/698a0835929fad4cb2bf579a/James-Lankford-Faith-Trump-Role-Model.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jasmine Aguilera","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/jasmine-aguilera/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt36ba5477fd0aa123/698a0835929fad4cb2bf579a/James-Lankford-Faith-Trump-Role-Model.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"CC Chairman Ajit Pai Testifies On Capitol Hill After Senate Democrats Won A Vote To Preserve Net Neutrality","caption":"CC Chairman Ajit Pai Testifies On Capitol Hill After Senate Democrats Won A Vote To Preserve Net Neutrality","creditText":"Zach Gibson/Bloomberg via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/politics/","name":"politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5757125/gop-senator-lankford-trump-not-role-model/","name":"GOP Senator: President Trump 'Not a Role Model For Young People'"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"2019: A Year In Review","description":"2019: A Year In Review","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/MD3Qp2EI/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2019-12-20T20:58:45.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/MD3Qp2EI.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/5757125/gop-senator-lankford-trump-not-role-model/","duration":"PT5M36S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/5757125/gop-senator-lankford-trump-not-role-model/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}}] ```