MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript

Interview

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REP. GARY PETERS (D), MICHIGAN: Well, Ed, this is a huge success. Just a couple of years ago, we were looking over a cliff into the abyss, as a result of the unbridled greed on Wall Street that brought our economy to its knees. The auto industry was in shape. Hundreds of thousands of jobs could be lost.

The president stepped up to the plate and said, "I will not let the American middle class down, American workers, and American companies," made an investment in the auto industry, and now that investment is coming back. Not only paying back the taxpayers, but as you mentioned, with real jobs. General Motors adding up to 4,000 jobs just recently. Chrysler now on track almost to have the same number of jobs they had back in 2008.

We are seeing jobs being created, and not just in the big three, but all of the auto suppliers, which is even a larger number of jobs. Those jobs would have disappeared if it wasn"t for the president standing up for the American worker.

SCHULTZ: Well, Congressman, how it is that every single Republican could be wrong on this? It wouldn"t have anything to do with them wanting to see President Obama fail, would it?

PETERS: Well, I think it had a lot for that to do. In fact, it shows the blindness of ideology, when you look at just ideology and not about practical problem-solving, the president said we"ve got a problem here, we"ve got to solve it, we"ve got a road to do it. But most importantly, we"ve got to put people back to work and get this economy going. Forget ideology, this is about results.

SCHULTZ: And, Congressman, to your knowledge, the money is being paid back. The loan is being paid back. Even though G.M. right now still has common stock, the plan is that they will divest that, correct?

PETERS: Right. The treasury will be continuing to sell that stock. There"s still a percentage in there. Probably this fall, although that will depend on where the stock is and the price before that, the decisions made.

SCHULTZ: OK.

PETERS: Chrysler"s on track to pay back the money early well this summer.

SCHULTZ: So, that would mean the sound bite I played a minute ago of Senator Kyl, is it fair to say that he"s dead wrong?

PETERS: He"s wrong. We"re on track to get that money back or get a large portion of that money back. But, again, the important thing is, we"ve got a healthy domestic auto industry, and with that, we have a manufacturing center. We have a manufacturing industry. You could not have that without a healthy auto industry.

And without manufacturing, we can"t be a great country, and we can"t have a great middle class.

SCHULTZ: And how much do the workers deserve credit in this deal? I mean, you know, they took a haircut. Nobody in Congress, I don"t think, is taking a pay cut, because we know how great they"re all getting along, no offense. But the fact of the matter is: there is a lot of Americans out there that think that the Congress isn"t functioning very well. I mean, we just had a record number of filibusters by the Republicans in the last session of Congress.

PETERS: Right.

SCHULTZ: That"s dysfunctional. They, of course, didn"t take a pay cut. But these autoworkers did. And to save their jobs and to make sure that there would not be a ripple effect, so there would be a multiple loss of jobs.

So, it was pretty lonely at the top when this decision was made. What about the workers?

PETERS: Absolutely. The workers, there was shared sacrifice across the board, blue-collar, white collar, while the auto suppliers, a lot of folks stepped back and said, we will sacrifice because it is important to save this industry.

This industry"s not just about Detroit, it"s not about Michigan. It is about the United States of America. It"s about having a manufacturing industry in this country.

SCHULTZ: So, I think there"s a parallel here, I really do. I think we can--we can make a correlation here. We have seen middle class workers in this country to save their industry take a pay cut--

PETERS: Right.

SCHULTZ: -- give in on health care, give in on retirement pension, and give in on the daily salary.

PETERS: Absolutely.

SCHULTZ: Yet, to save the country, we haven"t seen the Congress step up at all and say, you know what, we need a little bit of that out of the top 2 percent if we"re going to get our treasury in order. Do you think there"s a parallel there?

PETERS: When we talk about shared sacrifice, it truly has to be shared sacrifice for everybody. That means from top to bottom, and everybody in between.

SCHULTZ: Shared sacrifice works.

Congressman, great to have you with us tonight. And I commend you, Gary Peters. You were one of the lone voices out there in the midst of all of this. You were always willing to come on the air and talk about how we"ve got to do this, it was not a bailout, it"s a loan. You did the job for those middle classers and I appreciate it. Thanks so much.

PETERS: Thank you, Ed. I appreciate it.

SCHULTZ: You bet.

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