After stepping away from Congress in 2015, Mike Rogers, a former traditional Republican, had reservations about Donald Trump. However, as he embarks on his second Senate campaign, Rogers has embraced a worldview aligned with the MAGA movement.
This transformation in Rogers’ political stance can be interpreted in two ways: as a genuine shift toward the far-right or as a strategic move to appeal to Trump supporters.
A notable example of this change is Rogers’ opinion on former FBI Director James Comey. In 2017, Rogers defended Comey against Trump’s criticisms, but he now asserts that Comey harmed the FBI. Rogers, who was an FBI investigator in the 1990s, remarked, “When James Comey got in, he just destroyed 70 years of what was a culture of staying out of politics, being law enforcement,” while also stating he consistently “opposed Comey.”
Back in 2017, when Comey testified about Trump pressuring him to halt an investigation into his campaign, Rogers found Comey’s testimony “credible.” “I do believe James Comey,” Rogers informed CNN. “I think James Comey is a very good man. The FBI agents loved James Comey.”
Rogers has also shifted his stance on cryptocurrency in a manner similar to Trump. In 2017, he authored two op-eds cautioning that Bitcoin could be a national security risk due to its association with money laundering and the drug trade. “Hackers collect ransomware profits in bitcoin to protect their identities and locations,” Rogers wrote in the New York Daily News. “Others use bitcoins to buy and sell illegal drugs and weapons on the deep and dark web. Terrorists can finance operations using digital currency. Why would an average person want to use bitcoin? Because it’s largely unregulated, and many people believe that’s a good thing.”
Trump initially expressed skepticism about cryptocurrency but has since embraced it, including launching his own cryptocurrency, Trumpcoin, which has earned the Trump family millions of dollars. Rogers has adjusted his views accordingly.
In May, Rogers wrote on Facebook, “Making America the crypto capital of the world should be nonpartisan. But now, the same Democrats who claimed to support America’s crypto future are trying to tank it. Once again, Democrats prove that they would rather watch President Trump fail than America succeed.” A few weeks later, Rogers attended a Bitcoin conference in Las Vegas.
Rogers’ changes in stance are not always prolonged. In June, he initially suggested that Trump should seek congressional approval before initiating a strike on Iran, but days later, he commended Trump for acting without it. “I think this was exigent circumstances,” Rogers stated in a June 23 radio interview. “I mean, there was a unique window in order to do this. You can’t do that by committee. You have to be able to take action in that window.”
A CNN poll indicated that 56% of Americans opposed the Iran strikes conducted by Trump.
Rogers narrowly lost the 2024 U.S. Senate race in Michigan by 19,006 votes. He is once again running in 2026, this time with Trump’s endorsement.
—
Read More Kitchen Table News
