LANSING — According to new reporting from The Detroit Metro Times, multi-millionaire Mike Rogers has a new pitch to Michigan voters: “When you stand with my Senate campaign today, you are directly shielding Elon Musk” and DOGE from being held accountable for cutting critical programs and harming Michiganders.
In a fundraising email sent last week, Rogers urged potential donors to contribute to his campaign so that he could “protect Elon,” the world’s richest man, from potential congressional inquiries into Musk’s role with DOGE. As the report notes, DOGE’s cuts hurt Michiganders and affected “heating assistance, Social Security, veterans’ services, public health programs, addiction treatment, and Great Lakes research in Michigan.”
READ THE REPORT AND THE FUNDRAISING APPEAL BELOW:
Detroit Metro Times: Mike Rogers begs Michiganders for money to ‘protect’ Elon Musk
- Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers has found a new reason for Michiganders to open their wallets: He wants them to help protect Elon Musk from congressional accountability.
- In a fundraising appeal sent Saturday, Rogers warned supporters that Democrats would use control of the Senate to subpoena Musk over his role in the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which carried out sweeping cuts across the federal government.
- “When you stand with my Senate campaign today, you are directly shielding Elon Musk,” Rogers wrote. He then asked for an “immediate, urgent contribution right now to protect Elon and save America.”
- Rogers described that fairly ordinary exercise of congressional oversight as a “socialist retaliation plot” reminiscent of “Soviet Russia and communist Cuba.”
- “They cannot control Elon, so they want to destroy him,” the appeal declared.
- What Rogers didn’t mention was why lawmakers might want Musk to answer questions in the first place.
- Musk, the world’s richest man, served as the public face of DOGE as it fired workers, dismantled programs, and gained access to sensitive government systems during President Trump’s second term. The cuts affected heating assistance, Social Security, veterans’ services, public health programs, addiction treatment, and Great Lakes research in Michigan.
- Rogers hasn’t just defended the draconian cuts. He has bragged about advising DOGE.
- At an April campaign event in Saginaw County, Rogers said he had spoken with DOGE officials early in the process and told them he “love[d]” the cuts. His complaint was that the reductions wouldn’t last unless Congress made them permanent.
- “I tried to talk to them earlier, and I kept saying, you’re going to cut it, and that’s great, and I love it,” Rogers said. “But if you don’t legislate that they can’t grow after this, then we’re going to be right back in the same boat.”
- He added, “I can’t wait to get my hands around that budget, then I’d start trimming it down as fast as we possibly can.”
- A Metro Times review of Rogers’ campaign remarks also found that he said in March that he had advised DOGE to permanently limit federal staffing and replace workers with technology. In February, he pledged to “protect” Trump’s reduction of the federal workforce if elected.
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