The Ben Shapiro Show - September 03, 2026


Mike Rogers Responds to Tucker Carlson Backing His Opponent


Episode Stats


Length

13 minutes

Words per minute

196.22

Word count

2,698

Sentence count

186


Transcript

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00:00:00.000 I believe the Michigan Senate race between Abdul Rahman El-Sayed and Mike Rogers is the most consequential midterm election race of the year.
00:00:07.000 As we head toward the 25th anniversary of 9-11, where, you know, Muslim terrorists flew 747s into entire buildings in New York, NDC, and killed some 3,000 Americans, Abdul El-Sayed is choosing to speak in a massive Islamic conference that is organized by a front organization for the Muslim Brotherhood.
00:00:23.000 Mike Rogers is not doing that because Mike Rogers is not pro-jihadi.
00:00:28.000 And yet I'm being told that one of those candidates is actually America first and it's not the one you think.
00:00:32.000 You tell me which candidate ought to serve in the United States Senate.
00:00:35.000 Joining us online is Mike Rogers, former FBI agent, Army veteran, and House Intel chair from Livingston County, Michigan, one of five boys, and worked on a factory floor to put himself through college.
00:00:44.000 And her father and husband is running for U.S. Senate in Michigan.
00:00:47.000 Mike, thanks so much for taking the time.
00:00:48.000 Really appreciate it.
00:00:49.000 Hey, Ben, it's great to be here.
00:00:51.000 Thanks for having me.
00:00:53.000 So, first of all, why don't we start with the state of the race?
00:00:56.000 I frankly am shocked that this race is even close, given the fact that the Democrats decided that instead of nominating a more mainstream candidate like Haley Stevens, they were going to nominate a person.
00:01:06.000 Who has expressed solidarity with a wide variety of terrorist groups, a person who has expressed anti American sentiments almost continuously, who campaigns with people like Hassan Piker, who openly says he hates America.
00:01:18.000 It's a pretty close race.
00:01:19.000 What do you think is happening right now?
00:01:21.000 Well, I mean, and you're exactly right about that.
00:01:24.000 I think he's the most anti American candidate in the race, in the country.
00:01:29.000 And this is why this is so dangerous.
00:01:31.000 He took Hassan Piker, the guy that said we deserve 9 11, that the streets of America should run red with capitalist blood.
00:01:40.000 That if you think he's a terrorist sympathizer for supporting the Houthis, then so be it.
00:01:47.000 He took them in front of kids, our kids at the University of Michigan, at Michigan State University, trying to infect them with this kind of thinking that America is a bad place.
00:01:59.000 That's why this guy is too extreme for the great state of Michigan.
00:02:04.000 And this is why we're going to beat him.
00:02:05.000 Here's the good news, Ben.
00:02:06.000 We've got Democrats, Jewish Democrats have come out and said this guy's too extreme.
00:02:11.000 We have regular Democrats that say his.
00:02:13.000 Democrat Socialist of America ideas that he's promoting is wrong for the country and is wrong for the Democrat Party.
00:02:21.000 They're voting for us.
00:02:22.000 So we really think, I mean, it's a close race.
00:02:25.000 All the polling shows it's tied.
00:02:27.000 It's Michigan.
00:02:28.000 But we think that we're building a coalition that is really going to get us across the finish line in November.
00:02:35.000 You know, Mike, a lot of people are focusing in on his association with Hassan Piker, but the stuff he said himself is just as extreme and insane.
00:02:41.000 I mean, on 9 11, just a few years back, he said that while he was paying homage to the 3,000 people who are killed in New York.
00:02:47.000 The truth is, we should be paying homage the rest of the year to the millions of Muslims around the world who are victims of Western civilization.
00:02:52.000 Apparently, he has suggested in the past, in the recent past, that an actual terror attack on a Jewish kindergarten in Detroit was actually driven by American foreign policy because hurt people hurt people.
00:03:04.000 I mean, he's extraordinarily radical.
00:03:06.000 And again, you have to wonder what is happening inside the Democratic Party that they have not only decided they're going to run him, but that no major Democrat has separated off from El Sayed.
00:03:15.000 You're getting some Democrats are trying to draw a distinction that El Sayed himself will not make.
00:03:19.000 Between El Sayed and Hassan Piker, but none of them seem to be willing, except for John Fetterman, to actually call out El Sayed for what he is.
00:03:28.000 Oh, completely.
00:03:28.000 The party has circled the wagons.
00:03:30.000 I think they're afraid of this Democrat socialist movement.
00:03:33.000 And you're right, so think about this.
00:03:35.000 A guy loads up his car with explosives, drives through the front door of a school, a day school at a synagogue, with the effort to kill 140 children.
00:03:47.000 And he says, hurt people, hurt people.
00:03:50.000 I can't tell you how offensive that is.
00:03:52.000 And it just tells you where his state of mind is.
00:03:55.000 That's why, which honestly makes him just so extreme.
00:03:59.000 He's got other things as well.
00:04:00.000 He doesn't like the symbols of America.
00:04:02.000 He doesn't like the Fourth of July.
00:04:05.000 He thinks that's a bad idea.
00:04:07.000 We should get rid of it.
00:04:08.000 Fireworks, all the kinds of things that most Americans would associate with the United States of America.
00:04:13.000 He doesn't like Ford pickup trucks, doesn't like Mackinac Island here in Michigan, doesn't like it.
00:04:20.000 I mean, it's starting to, you start getting the picture that this guy might, is not aligned with who we are in Michigan.
00:04:26.000 And he's just anti American.
00:04:28.000 And what worries us most is he's trying to talk to our kids.
00:04:32.000 About why this is the right path for the United States is to not like the United States.
00:04:38.000 That is what the problem is.
00:04:42.000 And now, Elsa had also happened to be a massive hypocrite in his own life.
00:04:45.000 And he obviously has cosplayed as sort of a blue collar figure.
00:04:48.000 He is not a blue collar figure.
00:04:49.000 He wears the expensive watches.
00:04:51.000 His wife refuses to take Medicare or Medicaid because she herself is in the medical industry, but she's only taking private insurance.
00:04:57.000 Well, he stumps for Medicare for all, suggesting, by the way, that Medicare for all will be incredibly cheap, which, of course, is a complete lie.
00:05:03.000 It is a complete fiscal fiction.
00:05:05.000 It is nonsense on stilts.
00:05:07.000 What do you make of his attempts to promote probably the most overt form of government interventionism in the American economy in American history?
00:05:15.000 This would be the largest single tax increase in American families in the history of the country.
00:05:21.000 And remember, everyone pays it.
00:05:22.000 So he's selling this siren song that if you're 25 years old, this is all free to you and nobody has to pay the price.
00:05:30.000 The cost alone is so prohibitive.
00:05:34.000 And when you talk to doctors and nurses who actually would have to deal with this, They're saying, I'm not doing this.
00:05:40.000 I am not going to have the government set my wages for what my intellectual value is, number one.
00:05:47.000 And number two, the employers are saying, my God, the amount of money we would have to take out of your paycheck would be four or five times what it is today in that FICA tax.
00:05:58.000 So you're talking about a 22, 23, 24 year old, maybe even a young couple or young married couple who's already looking at a prohibitive way to get into a house.
00:06:08.000 And now I'm taking all of that money away from you early on in your life.
00:06:13.000 For a program that will not give you good health care.
00:06:16.000 Matter of fact, they say Medicare for all is health care for none.
00:06:20.000 And so he is selling something that A, won't work for America, B, would be the largest government intrusion into your life ever, and the most expensive free stuff you'll ever get in your life.
00:06:33.000 And so we're out there trying to get people to understand that there is no free lunch.
00:06:38.000 And the cost of this to you personally, the average family, the low end I've seen is about $10,000 per family.
00:06:47.000 And the high end is closer to $20,000 per family.
00:06:50.000 And by the way, that won't pay for everything anyway.
00:06:53.000 Then you have other costs involved as well.
00:06:54.000 I mean, this thing is so outlandishly bad for America.
00:06:59.000 And we say here in Michigan, where would Canadians go for healthcare if we do this to a state like Michigan?
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00:08:10.000 Mike, what do you make of the fact that there is basically no systemic immunity inside the Democratic Party to a candidate like Abdul El Sayed?
00:08:16.000 No major figure has come out and said they will not vote for him except for John Fetterman, who's, of course, not in the state, but none of the other major Democrats have said that they will not support him, up to and including Chuck Schumer, who, again, El Sayed has openly said he wishes to remove from his Senate minority leader position.
00:08:30.000 If they were to win the Senate, he would not vote for him for Senate Majority Leader.
00:08:33.000 There's not a single major Democrat of whom I'm aware outside of Fetterman who has said that he will not support El Sayed or she won't support El Sayed clearly and openly.
00:08:41.000 What do you make of the fact that the Democratic Party seems to be circling the wagons around a candidate as radical as El Sayed?
00:08:48.000 Oh, they're definitely circling the wagons.
00:08:49.000 And this is what's so disturbing about this.
00:08:52.000 At some point, you have to put your country over your party.
00:08:56.000 They have decided that their party is far more important than the United States, the future, and what our kids kind of experience.
00:09:04.000 As far as a free and open America, they've decided their party is more important than that country.
00:09:09.000 That's what's so disturbing about this.
00:09:12.000 And if you think about it, they've completely collapsed.
00:09:15.000 They're spending money on the guy.
00:09:16.000 You know, all that corporate money that he said he doesn't like, they're spending on him right here in Michigan.
00:09:22.000 I mean, it is really troubling to see.
00:09:25.000 But I will tell you this, Ben, and this gives me hope.
00:09:28.000 My wife and I have been out talking in the black community in Detroit and around the state.
00:09:33.000 We've talked in the Jewish community.
00:09:36.000 All over the state of Michigan.
00:09:38.000 And Democrats are saying, I can't do this.
00:09:41.000 He is too extreme.
00:09:44.000 I can't allow somebody who doesn't believe in all of the tenets of America and who we are get back to the United States Senate.
00:09:52.000 It's so dangerous for the future of this country.
00:09:55.000 And so I do think that normal people who are here, who are even vote Democrats their whole life, we had a press conference in the city of Detroit with a A black elected official who said, Nope, not on my watch.
00:10:10.000 I'm not bringing a Democrat socialism of America to my city.
00:10:15.000 We had a rabbi come up and said, I've never voted for a Republican in my life.
00:10:19.000 I'm voting for Mike Rogers.
00:10:20.000 This is too important.
00:10:22.000 We had a single mom come up, same story.
00:10:24.000 Never voted for a Democrat in my life.
00:10:26.000 This race is too important.
00:10:28.000 He's too extreme.
00:10:29.000 When you get Van Jones of CNN saying, This guy, something's wrong with this guy.
00:10:35.000 If you lose CNN and you're a Democrat in this cycle, something's wrong.
00:10:39.000 You're too extreme.
00:10:42.000 So, Mike, obviously, a lot of headlines were made over the course of the last 24 hours when Tucker Carlson, who seems to desperately want Republicans to do poorly in this election, he came out and effectively, along with Sagar and Jetty, called El Sayed, in his words, America first, and suggested there is no reason for Republicans to back your candidacy.
00:10:58.000 What do you make of what Tucker is doing?
00:11:01.000 I don't know.
00:11:03.000 I don't know what Tucker's doing.
00:11:04.000 I think if you look at who Abdul El Sayed is, remember, taking a guy who is Openly anti American, putting him in front of our children with that same anti American message, that should tell you everything you need to know.
00:11:23.000 You know, we're getting ready to come up on the 25th anniversary of 9 11.
00:11:28.000 And as a guy that served in the Army, I served as a special agent with the FBI, I served as the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
00:11:36.000 It's just shocking to me that anyone, anyone could support a guy that believes and affiliates with a guy that says we deserve 9 11 or that a terrorist act in our state of Michigan at a synagogue, Temple Israel, was just hurt people, hurting people.
00:11:57.000 I mean, unbelievable to me that they could even come to this conclusion.
00:12:02.000 And I hope he checks himself a little bit, looks in the mirror, and understands what's important for America.
00:12:08.000 Who wants to hurt America?
00:12:09.000 The one democracy in the Middle East they want to dismantle.
00:12:13.000 They're doing a fine job trying to dismantle our democracy right here in Michigan in the United States.
00:12:13.000 And guess what?
00:12:19.000 My argument is I'm going to put faith in the people of Michigan to know the difference.
00:12:25.000 And I just think he's on the wrong side of history on this.
00:12:29.000 That's Mike Rogers.
00:12:30.000 Mike, what is the best way for people to contribute to your campaign?
00:12:33.000 Again, this one is really, really important.
00:12:35.000 I think it's the most important Senate election happening in America.
00:12:38.000 And every dollar is going to matter because this election is way, way, way too close.
00:12:41.000 Mike, what's the best way for people to give their support?
00:12:44.000 Yeah, thanks, Ben.
00:12:45.000 It is that important.
00:12:46.000 If you want, this is the one time to put your country over your party.
00:12:50.000 If you're a Democrat and for a Republican to get up off your duff and get to the polls, a little bit of money helps and goes a long way.
00:12:57.000 Rogers for F O R Senate.com.
00:13:00.000 Rogers for Senate.com.
00:13:02.000 We need your help.
00:13:04.000 This really is the heart and soul of America on the line in this race.
00:13:08.000 It's bigger than me.
00:13:09.000 I think it's bigger than.
00:13:11.000 Really, this race in and of itself.
00:13:13.000 It is about the direction and future of this country.
00:13:16.000 I think people are going to choose America, but we need your help.
00:13:20.000 RogersForSenate.com.
00:13:22.000 Let's communicate how important this is and we'll get it done.
00:13:26.000 That's Mike Rogers.
00:13:27.000 Folks, give him your support.
00:13:28.000 Again, really, really important race, the most important race in the country.
00:13:31.000 Mike, really appreciate the time and thanks for what you're doing out there.
00:13:34.000 Hey, thanks, Ben.
00:13:35.000 What an amazing video you just watched.
00:13:37.000 Wasn't that amazing?
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