Mike Rogers praised the Iran war for months. Now he says Michigan families can’t afford to wait for it to end

Jessica Koscielniak/Reuters

In 2024, then-Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers stood on camera in a zippered vest in a large grocery store.

“This is your grocery cart under a Trump economy,” Rogers said in the 13-second video , pointing to a normal-sized grocery cart. Rogers then pulled out a toddler-sized cart next to it: “This is your grocery cart under a Biden-Harris economy. Take note, in November.”

Two years later, Rogers is again running for Senate in Michigan as a Republican, and again running ads from grocery stores. Clad in a near identical outfit, in what appears to be the same grocery store chain, Rogers opens a new campaign ad by saying bluntly, “Groceries cost too much. We have to bring prices down.”

But this time, rather than calling out an unpopular presidential administration, Rogers blames the war with Iran for soaring prices.

“The war with Iran needs to end and end quickly,” Rogers says. “When it does, energy costs will plummet, but Michigan families can’t afford to wait for that to happen.”

The ad underscores the trouble Republicans face as they campaign to fix the affordability crisis worsened by the war. It also marks a notable shift in tone for Rogers, who has consistently supported President Donald Trump’s decision to attack Iran and whose national security background and hawkish foreign policy views have long been a central part of his political identity.

In the weeks and months after the war began on February 28, Rogers spoke in favor of Trump’s decision and called the war “ long overdue .” In April, he said the war had left Iran “ absolutely a toothless wonder” and called it “the best opportunity for peace in the Middle East I think I’ve ever seen in my lifetime” during an appearance on CNN contributor Scott Jennings’ radio show.

And in continued interviews on conservative talk radio in March through July, Rogers consistently defended the war and argued the United States should continue its effort against Iran, according to a CNN KFile review of his statements.

Rogers’s new ad comes just six weeks before he faces Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed, who has strongly condemned the war. Recent polling also indicates the war has become deeply unpopular with Americans. A new CNN poll conducted by SSRS found that nearly two-thirds of respondents said the US is not winning the conflict, and more than three-quarters said the war is not worth it.

For Rogers, the unpopular war presents one of the biggest challenges to his now years-long effort to win a US Senate seat in Michigan. Rogers first launched a campaign for Senate in September 2023, ultimately losing to Democrat Elissa Slotkin in November 2024.

Five months later, in April 2025, Rogers launched a second bid for Senate, this time to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters.

Rogers ran unopposed for the Republican nomination and has spent much of the general election portraying El-Sayed, a former Detroit public health director, as outside Michigan’s political mainstream. He has pointed to El-Sayed’s association with left-wing streamer Hasan Piker and progressive comments that El-Sayed scrubbed from the internet before launching his campaign.

A spokesperson for the campaign pointed to comments Rogers made at a press conference addressing his ad calling to end the war with Iran.

“We’ve been pretty patient on the timeline,” Rogers said on Wednesday. “I think the best option now is to wind it down. There’s still other things you can do to make sure that they can’t hurt their neighbors and can’t pursue a nuclear weapon.”

Noting the rising price of diesel, Rogers said it would take a “horrific toll” on farmers during harvest season and grocery prices. “You just can’t let it go and linger. Now’s the time to start winding this thing up,” he said, referring to the war with Iran.

Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images

As a Republican congressman for more than a decade beginning in the early 2000s, Rogers was a staunch supporter of America’s global war on terror launched in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, eventually chairing the House Intelligence Committee. Rogers was quick to come out in support of Trump’s decision to attack Iran in February.

He publicly backed the military action on the day it began, calling Iran an “imminent threat to our country” that “must not have a nuclear weapon” in a post on X.

A month later on a podcast from March, Rogers argued Americans should unite behind the military operation against Iran and “get it done right” before debating whether the intervention was wise.

“People say, well, ‘what date is it going to end?’ It shouldn’t be a date. It should be conditional,” Rogers said on the Joe Pags Show podcast. “When can they no longer mine the Straits of Hormuz? When can they no longer send drones into the side of commercial ships, which they have been doing, threatened to do and did before? …This is why Americans need to stop for a minute, come together and say, ‘let’s get this done, get it done right.’”

By April, Rogers suggested the war would be over soon.

“We’re not going to do this forever. I think this is the right thing to do. I do think it will be over quickly because the military piece of this, they’re getting down to the last targets,” he said on The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show in April.

In May, Rogers acknowledged the war’s economic costs, saying on a conservative podcast that the “Iran issue has caused gas prices go up” and that “hurts everybody.” But he also maintained his support for the war’s rationale, saying, “I also support the fact that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon.”

In July, Rogers emphasized that he wanted the war to wrap up, telling the Fox News Rundown podcast, “I want it over as fast as possible. I want the president to do the kind of actions he needs to do to get it done as soon as possible so we can get those prices coming back down.”

By the end of that month, however, Rogers said that he supported giving Trump more time on the war to finish negotiations: “I don’t mind giving the president authority to continue. You can’t stop in mid-negotiation. I think that would not be good for America,” Rogers told CBS Detroit in a TV interview. “But I want him to wrap it up. And my understanding is he’s doing just that.”

杰西卡·科斯切尔尼亚克/路透社

2024 年，时任密歇根州参议员候选人迈克·罗杰斯身穿拉链背心，站在一家大型杂货店的镜头前。

罗杰斯在一段13秒的视频中指着一辆普通大小的购物车说：“这就是特朗普经济政策下的购物车。”随后，他又拉出一辆幼儿尺寸的购物车放在旁边：“这就是拜登-哈里斯经济政策下的购物车。记住这一点，11月见分晓。”

两年后，罗杰斯再次以共和党人的身份竞选密歇根州参议员，并再次在超市投放竞选广告。他身着几乎相同的服装，出现在同一家连锁超市，在新一则竞选广告中直言不讳地说道：“食品杂货太贵了。我们必须降低价格。”

但这一次，罗杰斯没有指责不受欢迎的总统政府，而是将物价飙升归咎于与伊朗的战争。

罗杰斯说：“与伊朗的战争必须结束，而且要尽快结束。战争结束后，能源成本将会大幅下降，但密歇根州的家庭等不起这一天。”

这则广告凸显了共和党人在竞选解决因战争而加剧的住房负担能力危机时所面临的困境。这也标志着罗杰斯政治立场的显著转变。罗杰斯一直以来都支持特朗普总统攻击伊朗的决定，其国家安全背景和鹰派外交政策观点长期以来都是他政治身份的核心组成部分。

在2月28日战争爆发后的几周和几个月里，罗杰斯公开支持特朗普的决定，并称这场战争“早就应该发生了”。4月，他在CNN撰稿人斯科特·詹宁斯的广播节目中表示，这场战争让伊朗“彻底沦为无力抵抗的奇迹”，并称之为“我一生中见过的中东和平的最佳机会”。

据 CNN KFile 对其言论的审查显示，在 3 月至 7 月期间，罗杰斯在保守派电台的持续采访中，始终为这场战争辩护，并认为美国应该继续对伊朗采取行动。

罗杰斯的新竞选广告发布仅剩六周，届时他将与民主党候选人阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德展开角逐，后者强烈谴责了这场战争。近期民调也显示，这场战争在美国民众中已变得极其不受欢迎。CNN委托SSRS进行的一项最新民调发现，近三分之二的受访者认为美国在这场冲突中处于劣势，超过四分之三的受访者认为这场战争毫无意义。

对罗杰斯而言，这场不得人心的战争是他多年来竞选密歇根州联邦参议员席位的最大挑战之一。罗杰斯于2023年9月首次发起参议员竞选，最终在2024年11月败给了民主党候选人埃莉萨·斯洛特金。

五个月后，即 2025 年 4 月，罗杰斯再次竞选参议员，这次是为了取代即将退休的民主党参议员加里·彼得斯。

罗杰斯在共和党初选中没有遇到竞争对手，并在大选期间一直将前底特律公共卫生局局长埃尔-赛义德描绘成密歇根州政治主流之外的人物。他指出埃尔-赛义德与左翼主播哈桑·皮克尔关系密切，并且埃尔-赛义德在竞选活动开始前删除了网上一些进步派言论。

该竞选活动的发言人指出，罗杰斯曾在新闻发布会上就其呼吁结束与伊朗战争的广告发表评论。

罗杰斯周三表示：“我们在时间表上一直很有耐心。我认为现在最好的选择是逐步结束这个项目。我们仍然可以采取其他措施，确保他们不会伤害邻国，也不会继续研发核武器。”

罗杰斯指出柴油价格上涨，称这将在收获季节给农民和食品价格带来“可怕的打击”。他指的是与伊朗的战争，并表示：“你不能放任不管，现在是时候结束这场战争了。”

Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images

自2000年代初以来，罗杰斯担任共和党国会议员十余年，他坚定支持美国在9·11事件后发起的全球反恐战争，并最终担任众议院情报委员会主席。罗杰斯迅速公开支持特朗普在2月份对伊朗发动攻击的决定。

在军事行动开始的当天，他公开支持了这项军事行动，并在 X 网站上发帖称伊朗是“对我们国家的迫在眉睫的威胁”，并表示“伊朗绝不能拥有核武器”。

一个月后，罗杰斯在 3 月份的一期播客节目中表示，美国人应该团结起来支持对伊朗的军事行动，并在讨论干预是否明智之前“把事情做好”。

罗杰斯在乔·帕格斯秀播客节目中说：“人们会问，‘这到底什么时候结束？’不应该设定一个具体的日期，而应该设定条件。他们什么时候才能停止在霍尔木兹海峡布雷？什么时候才能停止用无人机撞击商船？他们一直在这样做，也威胁过这样做，而且以前也确实这样做过……这就是为什么美国人需要停下来，团结起来，说：‘让我们把这件事做完，而且要做好。’”

到了四月份，罗杰斯认为战争很快就会结束。

“我们不会永远这样下去。我认为这是正确的做法。而且我认为这件事很快就会结束，因为军方正在清剿最后几个目标，”他在四月份做客克莱·特拉维斯和巴克·塞克斯顿的节目时说道。

今年5月，罗杰斯承认这场战争造成了经济损失，他在一个保守派播客节目中表示，“伊朗问题导致汽油价格上涨”，这“损害了所有人的利益”。但他同时也坚持支持这场战争的理由，他说：“我也支持伊朗不应该拥有核武器这一观点。”

7月，罗杰斯强调他希望这场战争尽快结束。他在接受福克斯新闻播客采访时表示：“我希望战争尽快结束。我希望总统采取必要的行动，尽快结束战争，这样我们才能让物价回落下来。”

然而，到了月底，罗杰斯表示他支持给特朗普更多时间完成战争谈判：“我不介意授权总统继续谈判。谈判不能进行到一半就停止。我认为这对美国不利，”罗杰斯在接受底特律哥伦比亚广播公司电视采访时说道。“但我希望他能尽快结束谈判。据我了解，他正在努力做到这一点。”