should say whatever it takes to fool them. i accept that. that s a pretty cynical tough remark by the mayor who knows his politics. here s a guy who portrays himself as a boy scout, mr. clean, sterling reputation for having guts to do things and maybe not deserved, but here he is being lambasted across the spectrum. can he still be mr. clean? i m not going to call him lying ryan. somebody s going to come up with a nasty phrase for the guy. so far, there s cop flikt between the reality and pretense. i covered paul ryan for 15 years. i was shock that he went there. i you thought he d come on for what he was. my mom lives in his district. i was talking to her on thursday let s go to the real heart of this thing. the plant closing, gm plant,
closing that he talked about where he knew all these friends who lost their jobs. two reasons, that plant was shut down prior to president obama becoming president, number one. two, it failed to mention obama is criticized by ryan for bailing out gm. it would have been a lot more plants shut down across this country if he had his way. steve: okay. we ve got the sound bites. we re going to play it first for people who missed it last night. here is what joe is talking about. la lot of guys i went to high school with worked at that gm plant. right there at that plant, candidate obama set, i believe that if our government is there to support you, this plant will be here for another 100 years. that s what he said in 2008. well, as it turned out, that plant didn t last another year. it is locked up and empty to this day.
democrats are zeroing on two aspects of congressman ryan s speech, the first ever them concerns, what was once the largest employer in ryan s hometown of jamesville, wisconsin. a lot of guys i went to high school with worked at that gm plant. right there at that plant candidate obama said, i believe that if our government is there to support you this plant will be here for another 100 years. that s what he said in 2008. well, as it turned out that plant didn t last another year. it is locked up and empty to this day. reporter: it is true that president obama when he was running for the office in february 2008 toured that gm plant in jamesville. democrats point out this morning that the plant actually closed in december of 2008 under president bush who in that same month authorized an emergency loan of 14 billion to gm and chrysler but it wasn t enough to prevent gm with moving forward with announced in october of 08
obama s economic policy whatsoever. you can t get away from that fact. no, what i m saying is long term, not because of that plant then, but the idea of that coming back, the idea of the auto industry coming back is something that could have been more effectively done if they had more aggressively gone down the path of mitt romney s suggestion early on to go down a managed bankruptcy. are you making the case that that plant in janesville would have better employment today if they had followed mitt romney s theory of a managed bankruptcy? that you could guarantee in your economic model that that plant would still be employing and making things today? no. i don t think you can. that s the key here. the only one who made that promise was barack obama who promised the people in janesville that plant would still be open. before he was president. you re right, and he made that right or wrong. did it close if you re not going to let me talk, that s fine. apparently, that
family ran into adversity and his father unfortunately passed away. but he s still perpetuating the lie about the $716 billion. he s perpetuating the lie about the plant. he s passing himself off as a guy in the middle of the country in home spun janesville. one of the people from janesville said, people must know he lied about the plant. he ll go out and tell the red-meat conservatives exactly what they want to hear. he s their new hero. the base calculation was that they could neutralize the fact the only thing he is known for nationally is being the kill medicare guy. we have a young guy, energetic. he can spin the story better than anybody else. he s a great performer, a political lifer. he s got great connections. we have to deal with the kill medicare thing. here s the problem, so he gets up there and he and mitt romney