Fact-checking the Michigan Senate debate between Mike Rogers and Elissa Slotkin

Former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers and Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin met Oct. 8 in their first debate, trading attacks over national security, immigration and the cost of living. 

The two are competing for Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat held by outgoing Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow.

Slotkin argued that Rogers’ record on topics like abortion and Medicare while in Congress was unpopular. Rogers accused Slotkin and Democrats of backing policies that drove costs for groceries and gasoline higher.

The pair will participate in a second debate Oct. 14. We fact-checked a few of their statements:

Slotkin: Mike Rogers "voted and sponsored bills that would make it impossible to have IVF and contraception."

We rated a similar claim Half True.

Rogers has supported strict abortion bans in the past, and throughout his 14-year career in Congress he voted for and co-sponsored abortion restrictions. He supported "life at conception" laws that would define personhood as starting at conception. 

These laws, which would give embryos constitutional rights, would present legal challenges to in vitro fertilization, known as IVF, and some forms of birth control, experts told us. 

Although it may be possible for IVF to continue under a personhood law, such a law would present practical challenges and open providers to liability. 

Some forms of birth control that work by blocking fertilized eggs from implanting in the uterus could also be restricted under such a law. But most hormonal birth control methods, such as the birth control pill, work by preventing an egg from being fertilized. Based on that understanding, legislation that grants legal rights at contraception should not affect these forms of birth control. 

Slotkin: Rogers "was the chief security officer of AT&T when they were actively working to get Chinese companies into our telecoms."

We checked a similar claim in August and rated it False. 

After leaving Congress in 2015, Rogers worked in cybersecurity consulting for several businesses and nonprofit groups. He was a sales consultant for AT&T’s managed cybersecurity unit in 2016 and 2017, a company spokesperson told us. 

Although some biographical blurbs connected to 2017 and 2019 conferences Rogers attended described Rogers as "chief security adviser" for AT&T, a spokesperson for the telecommunications company described Rogers’ role as a sales consultant and told us he had "no role in business or purchasing decisions with the company." 

During Rogers’ consultancy with AT&T, the company was in talks with Chinese tech company Huawei on a deal to sell its phones in the U.S. The company had also begun selling devices made by ZTE, another Chinese tech company. We found no evidence that Rogers was involved in these deals. 

U.S. security experts have long had security concerns related to Huawei’s ties to the Chinese government. As House Intelligence Committee chair in 2012, Rogers oversaw an investigation that led to the committee labeling Huawei and ZTE as national security threats.

Rogers: Slotkin "signed a nondisclosure agreement to facilitate a Chinese Communist Party company going up near Big Rapids." 

This lacks evidence. Local news outlets have reported extensively on lawmakers’ discussions about a plant that Gotion, a China-linked electric vehicle battery company, plans to build near Grand Rapids. Rogers and other Republican candidates and activists have criticized the company, and Slotkin has called for more national security vetting of the project. 

In 2022, Slotkin signed a nondisclosure agreement with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, a public-private partnership that encourages business development in Michigan. The agreement precluded her from publicly discussing certain projects the organization was considering. 

The nondisclosure agreement initially dealt with two projects referred to only by code names. But neither of them was the Gotion plant, according to Detroit News’ reporting. Slotkin’s agreement was later amended to include "any potential Development Project identified as confidential," which Slotkin’s opponents have argued covers the Gotion plant. However, that amendment was added in December 2022, two months after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer publicly announced the Gotion development. 

The Detroit News reported in September "there's no evidence currently available" that Slotkin’s nondisclosure agreement named Gotion. 

We can’t know for certain what was discussed under the amended agreement, but there’s no evidence Slotkin’s signature helped facilitate the Gotion deal, as Rogers said. Rogers’ campaign pointed us to a Foreign Agents Registration Act filing by Gotion that showed it had conversations with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation after the deal was publicly announced; the filing did not name Slotkin. 

Rogers: "FEMA spent almost $700 million on housing illegals, and now just told North Carolina they don't have enough money to take care of American citizens who are in desperate need in the middle of a disaster."

This is misleading.

Congress in 2023 appropriated $650 million to FEMA’s new Shelter and Services Program. Customs and Border Patrol funds the program; FEMA administers it. The program gives money to state and local governments and nonprofit organizations that temporarily shelter, feed and transport migrants.

None of that money came from FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund, which is a separate program that Congress funds each year. 

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said this month that the agency does not have the funding to make it through the hurricane season and the department has requested more funding from Congress, but Mayorkas did not say FEMA does not have the money to care for current hurricane victims. He said FEMA is "meeting the immediate needs with the money that we have."

Slotkin: "Mike Rogers voted five times against allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices."

This is generally accurate. Rogers opposed allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of drugs when he was in Congress, and he has opposed the policy while campaigning for Senate this year. 

Rogers supported the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act, which created the Medicare Part D drug benefit and expressly prohibited Medicare from negotiating drug prices. 

He also voted against the Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act of 2007, which would have changed the Part D program and allowed Medicare to negotiate drug prices, and against multiple amendments offered in the House to do the same thing. 

Medicare was allowed to negotiate drug prices for the first time because of the Inflation Reduction Act, which Democrats passed and President Joe Biden signed in 2022. Rogers has said on the campaign trail he does not believe Medicare should be negotiating drug prices, arguing it will raise the costs of Medicare Part D premiums.

Slotkin: Mike Rogers "voted to raise the retirement age."

This is misleading. 

People born after 1960 can start to receive Social Security retirement benefits at 62, with full retirement benefits starting at age 67. Rogers never voted to raise that age. Congress last changed the retirement age in 1983, when it was gradually increased from 65 to 67. 

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., proposed broadly overhauling Medicare when he House Budget Committee chair from 2011 to 2015, and a Congressional Budget Office analysis in 2011 said his "Path to Prosperity" plan called for raising the age for Medicare eligibility, not Social Security, from 65 to 67 over several years.

Based on that plan, Rogers voted in favor of fiscal year 2013, 2014 and 2015 budget proposals. The legislation covered broad statements of priorities rather than specific policy details, though, and the bills voted on in the House did not set a specific Medicare eligibility age. 

President Barack Obama didn’t sign the Republican budgets into law, and the final budgets Congress approved those years did not include raising the age for receiving Medicare benefits.