GOP lawmaker says Trump's media bans are against Republican values

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump listens to reporters at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 8, 2026.

A Republican lawmaker, Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, is accusing President Donald Trump of betraying Republican values by banning media outlets — including CNN, MS NOW and Politico — because they frequently criticize the president.

"I say this as an old school Republican, I find it so unnecessary," Bacon told CNN anchor Erin Burnett. "We want a free media. It's competitive media. You guys compete with each other and the truth comes out. Even if one media source is not on target, the other ones will cover it."

He added, "And it's good for democracy. And I find that picking a fight with the media is beneath what the White House should be doing and we're better than that. And all these petty fights — it's the media, it's Canada, it's Greenland, it's Canada, or Denmark, it's President Macron and his wife — it's just so unnecessary. I think most of us prefer the president focusing on what we need."

Bacon concluded, "We want to be victorious in Iran and get past this. And we need to also stand up better to Russia and President Xi. I think that's what most Americans want, not petty fights."

Burnett then compared Trump's creation of a news channel entirely devoted to himself, TrumpTV, to North Korea's similar propaganda station that is entirely focused on promoting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Bacon replied by saying he is encouraged that other media outlets have stood up for CNN, MS NOW and Politico.

"We have a First Amendment that we should protect," Bacon told Burnett. "I know there's a debate whether this is a violation of the First Amendment or not, but when you restrict some media over other media in the White House, the courts have ruled in the past that that's not right. I think they will do so here as well."

He then said, "But in the end, I think this will backfire on the President and even most Republicans."

This is not the first time that Bacon has opposed Trump over behavior that the Nebraskan characterized as petty or beneath the presidency. Earlier in September, he similarly criticized the president for renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America.

"Some of the things he’s done, it smells like chaos, it smells destructive,” Bacon said, describing the renaming as “silly” and adding that “most people think it’s dumb.”

Even when Bacon has agreed with a Trump policy goal, he has often been critical of how the president has pursued it. For example, in August said that he supports Trump's war against Iran but is highly critical of how he has sold it to the public.

“The case was there, but the president tried to go it alone, and that it was going to be a quick fight. ‘We're gonna make a deal tomorrow. We're going to make a deal next week. A deal is imminent,’ [Trump said]. I think these things have undermined this effort,” Bacon said at the time.

“But if we stop this now, Iran wins and Iran could still produce a nuclear weapon," Bacon continued. "Maybe not as soon as it could have, but with China’s or Russia’s help or north Korea’s help, they can rebuild this capability and they will still be the leading exporter of terrorists. I think the president has to keep this blockade on. He's got to prevail in this fight. Because if he doesn't, we're going to have a worse threat on our hands down the road. But he's sort of put us in a spot where he's backed into a corner with this being an unpopular war. And I just – it goes back from the beginning: He had to this had to be a bipartisan effort, not a one man band. But that's what it became.”

https://youtu.be/3A4RdFkpiJw

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