LANSING — In the final two weeks of his second U.S. Senate campaign, Mike Rogers is facing intense backlash following a wave of resurfaced clips. The unearthed recordings capture Rogers proposing to intimidate Detroit voters, calling to protect associates of Jeffrey Epstein, admitting he only entered the race because Donald Trump asked him to, and dismissing Michiganders’ concerns regarding Social Security cuts, healthcare costs, and rising gas prices.

Yikes!

Learn more about the unearthed clips that have the Rogers campaign sweating:

Mike Rogers was caught saying he wants off-duty police officers to intimidate Detroit voters at the polls.

• [AUDIO] MIKE ROGERS: “You know what, let’s put police officers—retired or off-duty police officers—as our poll watchers in Detroit. Because, go ahead, try to intimidate them. Please… I mean, they wouldn’t be able to wear their uniforms, but they would, you know, all you got to do is open your jacket and you see the badge on the belt, right?”

Mike Rogers was caught saying the Epstein files should be redacted to protect Epstein plane passengers and that he would have voted against releasing them.

• [AUDIO] MIKE ROGERS: “I do believe you have to protect victims. You also have to protect somebody who got on an airplane and rode with him… I don’t think a big, ugly vote on the House floor was the right way to do that… People who just want to be after Trump are just going to beat this drum all day long, because they don’t have anything else. They just can’t help themselves.”

Mike Rogers was caught (twice) saying the only reason he ran for Senate again was to please Trump.

• [VIDEO] MIKE ROGERS: “Why would somebody do this not only once, but twice? You gotta be nuts to do it the first time. You gotta be really nuts to do the second time. But when the President called and said, ‘Mike, I need you to do this. I need you in the Senate and here’s the only thing I’m going to ask you, win.’ I said, ‘Mr. President, we’re all in. We’re going to do this.’”

• [AUDIO] MIKE ROGERS: “One of the reasons my wife and I not only did it once, by the way, which is nuts, we decided to do it twice… When the President called and said, ‘Hey, I need you to do this again.’ You know, when the President calls and asks you anything, you got to stop for a second.”

Mike Rogers was caught mocking voter concerns about Social Security cuts. 

• [AUDIO] MIKE ROGERS: “Anytime you talk about, okay, they’re going to, you know, get the screwdriver in there and adjust it a little bit, the other team goes, ‘Oh my God, you’re trying to kill seniors, and you don’t care about people.’”

Mike Rogers was caught saying he wanted to kick “the sickest part of our society” off their health insurance plans.

• [AUDIO] MIKE ROGERS: “The sickest part of our society ends up consuming the most, so what we ought to do is have these catastrophic funds. So we’re going to pay our premium based on what a normal life would be, not including these people who are really, really sick. We take the really sick people and put them in this fund.”

Mike Rogers was caught saying he wants to force Michiganders to pay new out-of-pocket costs for basic healthcare services.

• [AUDIO] MIKE ROGERS: “Imagine a healthcare plan—or an auto insurance plan that would pay for your blinker lights going out, right? We need to start changing the way we look at healthcare. You know, if you go up and have to pay the doctor $50 for your annual physical, that’s probably okay, right? Honestly. You think about it?”

Mike Rogers was caught mocking Michiganders’ concerns while Trump’s tariffs were hiking the price of groceries. 

• [AUDIO] MIKE ROGERS: “The Democrats start getting at us, ‘Oh my gosh, coffee went up.’ You know, horror.” 

Mike Rogers was caught dismissing Michiganders’ concerns about skyrocketing gas prices, caused by the Iran war he supported from the start. 

• [AUDIO] MIKE ROGERS: “By the way, you’ll get your oil, because we’re going to pump our oil right here in America, and we got plenty… We’re gonna be fine, we got plenty of oil.” 

Mike Rogers was caught saying Michiganders are “nuts” and have “Trump derangement” if they blame his and Trump’s policies for driving up costs. 

• [AUDIO] MIKE ROGERS: “What they’re betting on is that people are not going to stop for a minute. They say, ‘Trump caused high prices,’ and people go nuts, they lose their mind. I do believe there is this Trump derangement.” 

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