"Praying for the president is probably one of the greatest spiritual challenges I've had to work through in my life,” Sen. Lankford said

President Donald Trump is not a role model for young people, according to Republican Sen. James Lankford.

“I always look for a president who can be a role model,” he said during a recent interview on CBS News’ Face the Nation. “I don’t think that President Trump, as a person, is a role model for a lot of different youth. That’s just me personally.”

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“I don’t like the way that he tweets,” the Oklahoma politician continued. “Some of the things that he says, his word choices at times are not my word choices.”

Lankford’s criticism of Trump was discussed during an interview about a weekly Senate prayer group that comes together to explore bipartisanship and faith.

Though he applauded Trump’s pro-life policy stance and said he works together with the president on issues they agree on, Lankford said he doesn’t approve of Trump’s demeanor on social media.

“I’ll tell you that praying for the president is probably one of the greatest spiritual challenges I’ve had to work through in my life,” he said. “For people of faith, it’s a bit of a conundrum at times.”

Evangelical Christians have been in the midst of a tug-of-war over Trump in recent weeks, following a Christianity Today editorial that called for the president’s removal from office over his impeachment.

Trump fanned the flames, calling the popular religious publication a “far-left “magazine and criticizing their anti-Trump stance. “No President has done more for the Evangelical community, and it’s not even close, You’ll not get anything from those Dems on stage,” Trump tweeted.

Christian Post, another faith-based publication, wrote a pro-Trump editorial in response, leading to editor Napp Nazworth leaving the religious news outlet.

“They’ve chosen to represent a narrow (and shrinking) slice of Christianity,” Nazworth wrote on Twitter, announcing his departure. “That might be a good business decision, short term at least. But it’s bad for Democracy, and bad for the Gospel.”

Image zoom Republican Sen. James Lankford on Face the Nation on Sunday. CBS

The Republican senator’s comments come a few days after Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she was “disturbed” by comments from Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell saying he would be in “total coordination” with the White House during Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate.

Trump has been characteristically loud through December, as he became the third president in American history to ever be impeached. The president wrote an unprecedented scathing letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and has continued to attack her and the Democratic party on social media over his impeachment in mid-December.

“He comes across with more New York City swagger than I do from the Midwest,” Lankford said during the Face the Nation interview. “Definitely not the way that I’m raising my kids.”