When Michigan Republican Rep. Mike Rogers leaves Congress after eight terms this year to pursue a career in radio, he won't be trying to compete with conservative talk king Rush Limbaugh, he says.
"I'm not trying to compete with Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Michael Savage," Rogers said in an interview aired Sunday on CNN's "Reliable Sources." "They have their own shtick and it works extremely well for them."
Radio is growing, Rogers said, and he will fill a niche not currently available on radio.
While Limbaugh is the "king" of talk, Rogers said he thinks people want to hear something "more engaging and challenging" that only someone with his background can bring.
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"I have a lot of influence in the one lane that I have," said Rogers, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee. "But I'm very worried about the isolationism that's creeping into my party, the Republican Party and exists in the Democrat Party. We've tried this before in America and it's always ended up badly for us."
Appearing Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation," Rogers said it is vital to help rescue the 200-plus Nigerian schoolgirls abducted by the terrorist group Boko Haram a month ago, but the United States should not forget the other women and individuals suffering at the hands of terrorists.
A new "ecosystem of terrorism" runs from Nigeria through Northern Africa all the way to Yemen to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Rogers said.
"Can we help with the girls? I think we can and we should and we must," Rogers said. "But we also have to worry about the women of Afghanistan, some 11 million. We're getting ready to walk away from them. In Syria you have 12 million women who are under siege."
The African nation of Chad has been "screaming for help from the United States for two years," Rogers said.
The U.S. has sent in a hostage negotiator and military advisers to Nigeria, he said, but added that the problem with Boko Haram began in 2010 when the group first wanted to become affiliated with al Qaida.
The United States and other countries have become involved weeks after the schoolgirls were abducted and Boko Haram threatened to sell them into slavery. The Twitter hashtag #BringBackOurGirls has brought the issue more public attention,
though critics have said that tweets and photographs don't help solve the problem.
Rogers appeared to be in that camp, telling host Bob Schieffer, "You can't base you policy on what's trending on Twitter. It has to be more than hashtags and selfies."
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