Campaign Check-In: Mike Rogers on the Senate Race and National Security

It's All Talk on a Tuesday morning. I'm Kevin Dietz coming to you from the Golden Tower of the Fisher Building. All Talk is bringing you all the major candidates and all the big races in this year's election. And the race for Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat is one of the most important in the country. Huge national attention, big money, and it could decide control of the Senate. And right here in the middle of it, former congressman, Army veteran, an FBI agent, a candidate backed by Donald Trump, Mike Rogers. He says he wants to lower costs, bring jobs back, strengthen national security, and protect Social Security. Let's bring in Mike Rogers. Good morning, sir. How are you? I am doing great, Kevin. How about you? I'm doing great. I appreciate you being here, taking some time, letting the audience get to know you a little better. Tell us a little bit about yourself and why you want to do this, why the time is right. Well, listen, Michigan is not doing well right now. So when I was going to school, we were in the top education system in the country. Now we're 44th. Remember, the Democrats have controlled Lansing for a decade, and they've controlled the Senate seat for just about 30 years. And in that time, we've lost 30,000 manufacturing jobs, our defense industrial base. has eroded. We used to make submarine components. We don't. We used to make the tank here. We don't. By the way, these things still happen. They just don't happen here in Michigan anymore. And so when you look at what's happening with our middle class, I mean, our wages have been flat. Our costs are all up. I just think, listen, we need somebody who's willing to go back and focus on Michigan and Michigan's future. You know, I'll bring back defense industrial-based manufacturing, which pays really well. I'm going to put shop back in every high school in Michigan to make sure that we have this next generation of really trained skilled trades where people have access to this opportunity. I mean, there's jobs out there that are paying six figures they can't fill because they just don't have enough skilled tradesmen. So you think about the opportunities here in Michigan. I'm all about it. We're going to make sure that the Chinese don't. build auto plants here in the United States and start eroding our ability to build things again. A lot to do and a lot to happen. And I'm going to be a big part of making sure that Michigan gets back up off of her knees. And we once again are the leader in manufacturing. We build things here. We educate our kids. And we make sure that you have an opportunity to move up into the middle class or better, hopefully. Why don't senators do more for... their states. It seems like senators nowadays run to have a national audience to get their name out there so that they keep getting reelected almost more so than they care about getting jobs back into their home state. Well, I think it's happened here for 30 years because we have in Michigan been sending the same party back there for 30 years to represent us in the Senate. So they take it for granted. And so when they go back there, they don't think they have to worry about the fact that the great example to me is that the Forest Service is going to close all three of its places here in Michigan. I wouldn't let that happen. You send me back there. I'm going to make sure that we have Forest Service representation here in the state.

I'm going to make sure that selfridge is alive and well. We have the next generation of technology also here. And so if you start thinking through the list, guess what? I mean, look at, we just sent a senator back who can't find the state in Michigan. They're often Iowa and want to be, I don't know what they're doing. Idaho, Iowa, Wisconsin, guess what? We need a senator who is going to focus on Michigan. And that's who I am. You know, I'm born and raised here and worked on a faculty floor here. I have a great fortune to serve in the military and serve as a special agent with the FBI. I know how important it is to have a senator who focuses on the state. Again, we used to build under 700-foot ships here, Kevin. We don't anymore. And that's because the two Democrats in the Senate were sleeping at the switch. We used to have an air base here in the UP gone. We used to have a naval subtracking station here. That's gone. You start thinking about all the things that we lost. By the way, again, all those things still happen. They just don't happen here anymore. That's why we need somebody who has actually worked on a factory floor, born, raised here, understands Michigan, understands how important these jobs are. We're fighting for it every single day. And that's why I want to go back. I'm not giving up on Michigan. I hope people don't give up on Michigan. I think our best days are going to be ahead. But we're going to need somebody who goes back to the Senate and makes the good pitch. And think of this. Why would we send another person back who's just going to poke the president the last two years of his term when you could have somebody who could walk into that Oval Office and say, Mr. President, here's what Michigan needs. We have to have this in Michigan. We didn't get on the list to build the Golden Dome. Indiana did. Well, guarantee you, you send me back. I'm going to get us on the list. We're going to be building those components for the Golden Dome here in the state of Michigan. Aerospace is coming back. We're going to do it. Again, all of this defense industrial-based manufacturing needs to come back, and we can do it. You're not going to get everything, but we're going to get a lot of it. We're certainly going to be in the components building to make sure that we're a part. of the national security and ecosystem here in the state of Michigan. Like we are the state that won World War II because of our manufacturing prowess. We need that back. People are worried about costs. They want things to cost less. People are worried about how much these military efforts are going to cost. What can you do about lowering costs? Well, a whole bunch of things. We came out, and I encourage people to go to Rogers for Senate.com. Take a look at our housing bill. Housing affordability is an issue I've heard all over the state, and we did something. We proposed to do something about it. It's pretty innovative. When I was in the state legislature, I created the 529 education plans that 400,000 Michigan citizens use today. Well, guess what? I'm going to take that, and I'm going to... ramp it up, you're going to be able to use the same mechanism to save tax-free for a down payment. Your company can put money in, your parents can put money in, your neighbors, your friends, however you want to do it.

and that grows tax-free and so that when you're ready for a down payment you'll have a nice down payment there and the second part of that is if you're a renter we have a lot of renters around the state right now you guess it's crazy you don't get that doesn't count toward your credit score making all of your rent payments on time it's nuts i think that's crazy and so what we're going to do is say nope that's not going to happen you you're going to get credit for paying your rent payment on time. So when you go to the bank, it will lower your interest rate, which lowers your monthly payment on a home. And so we've got a whole bunch of really creative ideas like that. We're going to make housing more affordable. We're going to make the jobs available here that allow better pay. So put pressure on prices and then have better jobs, better pay for the workers here. And that's how we're going to beat. uh you know what was really a god awful inflation rate for the biden years that biden inflation rate is long and lingering and we're going to have to continue to work to nick away at this thing and get it lower including energy rates by the way we you know all of these crazy regulatory schemes that the democrats put in place are costing us every single month on our electric bill in other ways that they put regulation in here, how we get fuels out. So we've got to start taking that away so it impacts people's ability to make, you know, to get ahead. Mike Rogers, veteran, former FBI agent, chairman of the U.S. Intelligence Committee, businessman, a Republican Senate candidate. Thank you for your time. Good luck with your campaign, sir. Hey, thanks, Kevin. Appreciate it. I'll talk. I'm Kevin Deetz.