Mike Rogers
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Mike Rogers is a former Republican congressman from Michigan who left the House, ran for the Senate and lost, and was running again in 2026. Kiriakou believes he chaired the House intelligence committee but flags his own uncertainty rather than asserting it: "I believe he was the chairman of the House intelligence committee. I may be wrong on that." The 2024 race he narrowly lost was to Elissa Slotkin, whom Kiriakou identifies as "a former CIA colleague of mine." On the 2026 primary, Rogers polls well against Abdul El-Sayed and less well against Haley Stevens.

The Trojan horse advertisement

Rogers released an advertisement using generated imagery that called El-Sayed a Trojan horse, "not for Islam but for communism." Kiriakou's verdict is that "that ad counts on Michigan voters being morons," and his objection is definitional: he has "a hard time believing that so many Republicans are so stupid as to not know that there's a difference between communism, socialism, and democratic socialism." To many Republicans, he argues, "anything that is not Republican" is communism, but Bernie Sanders "is not a communist. He's a socialist, a democratic socialist, which really is capitalism light," meaning a robust social safety net. His conclusion about the advertisement's premise is unsparing: "Mike Rogers is hoping people are stupid or reactionary."

See also

- Abdul El-Sayed
- Michigan 2026 Democratic Senate Primary
- Americans and the word socialism
