U.S. Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) blasted President Donald Trump and his administration, decrying a lack of “moral clarity” from the White House while denouncing the “populist” President as “not unifying.”

Congressman Bacon said “absolutely” that President Trump should tone down his rhetoric.

“He’s a populist. He centers on anger and opposition. That’s what he does. But he had a chance to be more Ronald Reagan and try to unify both sides on this,” Bacon said of the Charlie Kirk assassination.  “It would be one thing that was old Republicans being murdered, but it’s not.”

He also said he hopes the Trump makeover of the Republican Party is “not a permanent remaking.”

READ MORE: ‘Fan the Flames’: White House Pushes Antifa Terror Label and ‘Transgender Violence’ Claim

Hate Speech and Threatening the Media

“There have been some wrong statements made, to say the least. When Attorney General [Bondi] said that they were gonna go after hate speech — she backed off of that. But it was wrong,” Congressman Bacon, who is retiring at the end of his term, told CNN’s Manu Raju on Monday. “And I think the president doing threats against media is also wrong. We don’t threaten the media.”

“To threaten media, and so you’re gonna pull their license, that’s not what America’s about. And we do have a freedom of speech, freedom of the press. We should defend that.”

“We have to acknowledge, Republicans and Democrats have been murdered in the last year. And someone tried to burn the house down of the governor of Pennsylvania — wasn’t a guy from the right, it was a antisemitic guy, going after Governor Shapiro, because he’s Jewish.”

“From the White House, we’re hearing, this is just a liberal problem,” Raju said.

“That’s… Not very unifying,” Bacon said. “I don’t think it’s accurate, for one, and it’s not unifying. He had the opportunity here to say, to acknowledge a couple of Democrats were murdered in Minneapolis. Right? By a guy who called himself pro-life. We don’t really know his motive, but still, he surely was more on the conservative side, it seems, from what we know.”

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“I do think that we, as officeholders, though, should there should be a line we draw.”

Bacon denounced both Democrats and Republicans using extremist words to characterize each other.

“My point is, we’ve overdone it,” he said, while warning that “there’s a small part of our population that, yeah, they take it serious, and they’re radicalized. So I think we owe ourselves better at how we treat each other.”

Tariffs

“I think he is, by far,” overreaching on tariffs, Bacon continued.

“Article I of the Constitution clearly gives us, the Congress,” he said, power over tariffs.

“Iowa and Nebraska are really struggling right now with our farm economy. We are not growing markets for corn and soybeans. The president’s making trade deals, but not a single country that I can see has bought more corn soybeans. That’s what we really need right now.”

Russia

“Reagan stood up to Gorbachev,” Bacon said of the late GOP and Soviet Union Presidents.

“I don’t I don’t see the moral clarity right now out of the White House. Ronald Reagan had moral clarity.”

“Now, he also was willing to negotiate and try to lower the tensions, but he knew that communism was evil, and he, and he, it was clear that he stood steadfast with our NATO allies. And the president sends out such mixed messages on NATO, and totally moral, ambiguous messages about Ukraine and Russia.”

When asked about the President’s “moral character,” Bacon refused to answer directly.

Don Bacon, a retiring R in swing district, says:
-Trump missed chance to unite country. “He centers on anger and opposition”
– Faults Trump on 1A
-Says tariffs hurting voters
– Says Trump lacking “moral clarity” on Russia
-Won’t say if Trump’s character is what he wants in POTUS pic.twitter.com/9fSJSzi7f2

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) September 22, 2025

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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt argued that addressing the small number of mass shootings committed by transgender Americans begins with designating Antifa, a loosely organized anti-fascist movement, as a domestic terrorist group.

President Donald Trump on Sunday was asked about “transgender extremism,” and whether the FBI should be investigating. “We’re looking at it very strongly,” he said. “Something seems to be going on but you can’t make that statement yet.”

Factcheck.org reported last week that the Gun Violence Archive “lists five mass shootings by transgender or nonbinary people since January 2013. That’s less than 0.1% of the mass shootings it says happened in that period.”

The Daily Wire’s Mary Olohan on Monday asked Leavitt the question again.

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Listing three incidents, including the Charlie Kirk assassination which reportedly was not committed by a transgender shooter, Olohan said: “I asked the president last night on Air Force One about this pattern of transgender violence, we’re seeing, um, you know, Charlie’s, Charlie’s killer, lived with his boyfriend, who identifies as transgender, and then we have the Annunciation shooting. Covenant shooting. All of these incidents. The president said that we’re looking into transgender violence. Does that mean the FBI is looking into it, and can you give any more clarity on how the administration is viewing this uptaking, specifically, transgender violence?”

Leavitt responded, calling it “definitely something worth looking into, and I think anyone who denies that at this point is being willfully ignorant.”

Professing that the “administration is taking it seriously, all causes of violence, and why these people would be driven to such evil and such hatred.”

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She said that “there’s probably many answers to that question, but the administration is really focused on all of them.”

“For individuals, investigations, and cases, of course, the FBI and the Department of Justice are leading those.”

“But as for this overall, violence and domestic terrorism that we’re seeing, the White House and the president’s policy team will be leading the charge, and that really begins with designating Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization.”

Attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick remarked, “In a time when we should be bringing down the temperature, the White House is deliberately choosing to fan the flames of division.”

Q: Can you give clarity on how the administration is viewing this uptick in specifically transgender violence?

LEAVITT: It’s definitely something worth looking into and I think anyone who denies that at this point is being willfully ignorant pic.twitter.com/CQxEGCrKHQ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 22, 2025

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Image via Reuters

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s speech at Sunday’s Charlie Kirk memorial in Phoenix drew comparisons from national security experts to rhetoric used in 1930s Germany.

Miller portrayed Kirk, who was killed earlier this month, as a martyr and symbol for the MAGA movement. He described the commentator’s death as the catalyst for what he called a struggle between good and evil.

The Steady State, a group of more than 330 former national security officials, likened Miller’s remarks to those made by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

Miller presented a tribute that “mirrors Goebbels’ 1932 speech with storm/warrior metaphors, ‘good vs evil’ binaries, and turning adversaries into destroyers while glorifying martyrdom,” the group charged.

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“In a climate marked by rising authoritarianism,” they wrote, “reviving fascist rhetoric is a red flag as it conditions the public for authoritarian rule.”

In follow up, the group added: “Miller casts the opposition as envy, hatred, and pure destruction. That’s not mobilization—it’s dehumanization. Defining half the country as wicked and illegitimate is the core of fascism: exile and exclusion, not democratic contest.”

Anders Åslund, an economist and former senior fellow at the Atlantic Council wrote simply: “This sounds like Goebbels’ speech at Horst Wessel’s funeral in 1930.” After his murder, Goebbels made Wessel into a martyr.

The New Republic characterized Miller’s speech “deranged,” reporting that “MAGA ‘patriots,’ Miller claimed, have inherited a civilizing mission from their ancestors. To continue this mission, save humanity, and continue the legacy of Kirk, he said, they must vanquish the ‘forces of darkness,’ their political opponents.”

“The speech was consistent with Miller’s white nationalist sympathies, penchant for unhinged rants against his political enemies, and apparent mission to use Kirk’s murder as a pretext for broader crackdowns,” wrote TNR’s Robert McCoy.

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Miller’s speech included sweeping language about martyrdom, ancestry, and a battle between light and darkness.

“The day that Charlie died, the angels wept, but those tears have been turned into fire in our hearts. And that fire burns with a righteous fury that our enemies cannot comprehend or understand.”

“The storm whispers to the warrior, that ‘You cannot withstand my strength,’ and the warrior whispers back, ‘I am the storm.’ Erica [Kirk] is the storm. We are the storm. And our enemies cannot comprehend our strength, our determination, our resolve, our passion.”

Miller talked about “our” “lineage” and “legacy” — presumably MAGA’s — hailing “back to Athens, to Rome, to Philadelphia, to Monticello.”

“Our ancestors built the cities. They produced the art and architecture. They built the industry.”

“The light will defeat the dark. We will prevail over the forces of wickedness and evil,” Miller declared. “They cannot imagine what they have awakened. They cannot conceive of the army that they have arisen in all of us. Because we stand for what is good, what is virtuous, what is noble. And to those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us? What do you have? You have nothing. You are nothing. You are wickedness, you are jealousy, you are envy, you are hatred. You are nothing. You can build nothing. You can produce nothing. You can create nothing. We are the ones who build. We are the ones who create. We are the ones who lift up humanity. You thought you could kill Charlie Kirk? You have made him immortal.”

He did not specifically explain who “they” or “you” are.

Stephen Miller: “We will prevail over the forces of wickedness and evil. They cannot imagine what they have awakened…You thought you could kill Charlie Kirk? You have made him immortal!” pic.twitter.com/uMZfkmjSdF

— CSPAN (@cspan) September 21, 2025

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Image via Reuters