A prominent House Republican in a vulnerable swing district who is retiring at the end of this term has a message for his party: stop being so subservient to President Donald Trump — not just for their own sakes, but for Trump’s sake too.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) made the comments to The New York Times in an article published on Friday evening.
“The president would be better off if the Republican House pushed back more,” Bacon said. “I think his tariff policy would be better. I think it would be better on Ukraine. I think we could push him in a much better direction if he was open to it.” In contrast, he added, “If you feel like you have a bunch of lackeys that are going to do whatever you say, then he doesn’t feel constrained.”
All of this comes after a year in which House Republicans did little to defy the president.
“President Trump barreled ahead with scant deference to the House and Senate. He abruptly changed the statutory name of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, summarily withheld funds from congressional priorities, claimed broad tariff power that the Constitution invests in Congress, and launched military attacks off South America without authorization from the legislative branch,” noted the report. And now, facing polls that show voters angry about cost of living and leaning toward giving Democrats a majority, “Congress must decide whether to try to assert itself more and reclaim some of the power it has ceded to the president, or to continue to accept a shrinking role and diminished status.”
One of the most notable exceptions to congressional deference last year was the Epstein files, where after months of Trump’s own voters howling for more transparency, all but one Republican in Congress voted to compel the administration to release every document.
Bacon also expressed frustration that Congress, by its structure, just isn’t equipped to respond to all the chaos that Trump has created.
“He was doing so much stuff up front, whether it was tariffs, DOGE, you name it,” said Bacon. “An activist president — they are going to have the advantage. You have 435 members of Congress. We are not going to be nearly as fast as the president.”
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