Retiring Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said Sunday that potential Republican losses in Tuesday’s midterms would trigger an internal party debate over the MAGA movement — one he said the GOP needs.
“I do think there will be a debate in the party, and I think we need it,” Bacon said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Host Jake Tapper had asked whether major Republican losses in the House or Senate could mark “the beginning of the end” for MAGA.
Bacon — a retired Air Force general who has represented a swing district in the Omaha area since 2017 — pointed to the unpopularity of President Trump’s tariff policy as a major strike against MAGA.
He said Trump is “underwater quite a bit” in the Midwest’s purple areas, and he blamed tariffs, which he called “a tax on consumers.”
Tariffs, Bacon said, have left Republicans “in a weird spot.” His remedy is to return to the “Milton Friedman” and “Eisenhower-Reagan” era of free-trade Republican politics.
The Nebraska Republican has long been one of his party’s loudest dissenters on Trump’s import tax.
He was one of six House Republicans who voted in February to repeal the president’s tariffs on Canada. Shortly afterward, the Supreme Court ruled Trump had overstepped his executive authority in imposing his sweeping “Liberation Day” levies.
Bacon, a five-term congressman, announced in June that he would not seek reelection for his seat that Democrat Denise Powell is now favored to flip.
He’s been among Republicans suggested to be eyeing a possible 2028 presidential run.
When asked about 2028 during his Sunday interview, Bacon said he didn’t want it to be “about me,” and noted that the last House member to jump straight to the White House was James Garfield.
Tapper called his answer a dodge: “I don’t think you said yes or no on that.”
In September, Bacon said on the Our Republican Legacy podcast that he “would love to” run for president.
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