ICYMI: Rogers and Pompeo Hold Press Call on China Threat

OAKLAND COUNTY, MI – This morning, Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, Mike Rogers, and former U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, held a press call to discuss the growing threat of China. Rogers and Pompeo have spent their careers combatting Chinese aggression, working together on the House Intelligence Committee and in the private sector. During the call, Secretary Pompeo commended Mike for his foresight and willingness to combat the threat of China “before it was cool.”

Read more from their conversation below…  

Mike Rogers: “China is going to be an issue in this campaign and it’s going to be a big issue… One of the things that is really important to understand is the Gotion plant is the canary in the coal mine for a dangerous trend for jobs in Michigan. EV mandates have battled and rattled our car companies. For the first time, foreign auto companies are making more cars in America than our domestics. Ford lost $130,000 on these EV mandates per vehicle sold. Stellantis laid off 2,400, General Motors a 1,000… My opponent said she would not support EV mandates and then went to Washington DC and supported EV mandates.”

Secretary Mike Pompeo: “This will be a central issue in the campaign and ought to be a central issue in the campaign because it matters to Michigan and Michigan workers and importantly to American national security.

“I’ve known Mike now for 15 years… We worked together and we both had come to understand the Chinese Communist Party as the central threat to the American way of life long before it was cool to do so. Long before others were talking about their military buildup and importantly we could see the economic impact it was having on workers; stealing intellectual property, gathering up all the resources and making life difficult for American workers was the agent by the Chinese Communist Party that Mike and I had identified many many years ago.

“It was Mike who led an important effort that I then used as a tool when I was Secretary of State to try and convince the world that the Chinese were using communication equipment from Huawei and ZTE and to remove that from all of our systems. Now everyone is on board. But it was Mike who wrote the initial effort and the first piece of good intelligence collection analysis that pushed back against the Chinese Communist Party.

“I literally know no one who was out in front and worked harder to protect American workers and the Michigan people he represented… Democrats who have forced on America the worst mandate with respect to the energy and automotive sectors that I've seen in an awfully long time, in the pursuit of a radical climate change agenda…”

“Mike understands that in ways that his opponent never will. She’ll absolutely say one thing but make no mistake about it, as a United States Senator she will vote to support the Democrat position each and every time when it comes to these issues around electric vehicles and electric vehicle mandates. You can write it down, put it down as a Pompeo prediction and I am highly confident it will prove true no matter what she tells the voters in Michigan for the next handful of weeks… The people of Michigan deserve better. They deserve someone who understands the national security imperative and most importantly understands what this means for Michigan families…”

On the Middle East:

Mike Rogers: “The Biden administration with the support of Slotkin has gotten us entangled in a way that’s very dangerous for peace and prosperity… The Houthis were financed and trained through weapons from Iran. Then they took Yemen off of the terrorist list… Then you had a projection of weakness. Then you had Hamas and Hezbollah and the other seven proxies began to energies when all of that cash came flying in Iran's front door… My opponent was walking along when all of this happened.”

Secretary Mike Pompeo: “The Iranians believed that they could push the United States and Israel around. We shouldn’t forget this morning that we still have Americans held hostage by Iranians in Gaza.”

“I watched Mike for 15 years protect the people of Michigan, protect the people of America… Mike Rogers understands this in a way that is so fundamentally different from his opponent… The American people are more at risk from the combination of what we spoke about earlier China, Iran and Russian than we have been at any time… It’s a direct result of the kind of thinking of Mike Senate campaign’s opponents.”

Secretary Mike Pompeo on Economic Threats:

“Most of the risk that is presented to the United States of America from our adversaries is economic. There is certainly a military component… but we should be under no illusion that the Chinese Communist Party is not intent on undermining the American economy and destroying the automotive infrastructure that sits in the State of Michigan. Chairman Rogers understands that… and he’s worked tirelessly to defend that. His opponent has done just the opposite. She supported a set of policies that created this enormous risk to the infrastructure of the Michigan economy.”

Mike Rogers on Radical EV Mandates:

“When you look at the consequences of these EV mandates directly it will be the loss of tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs in this state… There is a better way to do it. The consequences of mandating a product that has to be processed in China is unwise and dangerous… Here in Michigan 41% of families are living paycheck-to-paycheck, we are going to put at risk those jobs that allow them to pay for their family… I’m going to fight like heck for these jobs in our state. There’s a better way that doesn’t include giving China a big fat check.

“We are going to continue to call out our opponents' lies. They were fact checked and found yet another lie… Why would you lie? It’s because they have a China problem.”

Learn more about Mike Rogers and his plan to Get America Back on Track at RogersForSenate.com.

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