in their own words
 |
|
|
|
 Under Enormous Pressure - White House Press Briefing by Robert Gibbs 5/28/09 — Thursday, May 28, 2009 —  Q Okay, great. Two quick policy things. We had a conversation yesterday about closing Chrysler dealerships. A gentleman named Leonard Bellavia, who has deposed Chrysler executives on behalf of some dealers, told Reuters, "It became clear to us that Chrysler does not see the wisdom of terminating 25 percent of its dealers. It really wasn't Chrysler's decision. They're under enormous pressure from the President's automotive task force."MR. GIBBS: Under enormous pressure? Q To close dealerships that Chrysler itself, according to this man who has deposed Chrysler senior executives on behalf of dealers -- MR. GIBBS: In the absence of seeing -- since we're talking about the law, I obviously haven't seen what affidavit he refers to. The President's task force on autos did not pick individual dealerships. It hasn't -- it isn't involved in picking what plants may or may not be closed. That's not the job of the President's auto task force. That's the job of the individual car company. They've got to figure out in their newly restructured world, based on the market, what their central supply chain is. And I think those are the decisions that they made. Q Related to that, there is some concern in the blogosphere that -- of the Chrysler dealerships being closed -- a disproportionate number appear to be dealerships in which the operators contributed to Republicans, and hardly any in which contributions to Democrats have been closed down. I'm not saying the White House knows anything about this. I'm just asking, would you be concerned about any taint of politics whatsoever in any of these decisions? MR. GIBBS: Look, again, Major, let me reiterate that we don't make those decisions, okay. Chrysler makes those decisions. So I'm sure you can send Chrysler the address of the blog that you refer to. I don't know whether that report is accurate, but I can simply say that since my first answer was we're not involved in making those decisions, I would think your question would be appropriately dealt with by the company that is. Automobile Industry | Obama Administration | Press Briefing | Robert Gibbs | White House Press Corps Labels: Automobile Industry, Obama Administration, Press Briefing, Robert Gibbs, White House Press Corps >> Full Story
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 8:57:00 PM
|
|
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
< whpc home