MSNBC "The Ed Show" - Transcript

Interview

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Congressman, good to have you with us tonight. I appreciate your time.

REP. GARY PETERS (D), MICHIGAN: It`s always a pleasure to be with you, Ed.

SCHULTZ: Well, I want to take you back to what was written today, we know what was written by Mitt Romney back in 2008 as we just showed it to you, but he`s still at it. He says today, instead of the free market doing what it does best, we got a major taste of crony capitalism Obama-style.

What`s your response to that?

PETERS: Well, he just doesn`t know what he`s talking about and he`s really forgetting a lot of history about what was happening back in 2009, as Chrysler and General Motors were heading towards bankruptcy, there simply wasn`t private capital available to get out of the bankruptcy. Mitt Romney says he should have gone to the private markets.

Well, he has to remember that Wall Street was frozen. We just got through this debacle on Wall Street, where greed went wild, the markets had collapsed. There simply wasn`t money available, particularly in the
billions of dollars necessary for both Chrysler and General Motors.

In fact I sat in the board room when Mr. Nardelli, who was the CEO of Chrysler at the time. And he said, Congressman, if we don`t have federal loans, we will not have the money necessary to get through bankruptcy and to restructure. The private markets are simply not there for us, I`m going to be forced to liquidate this company.

And if Mr. Romney had his way, that`s exactly what would have happened. These companies would have liquidated. And with that, hundreds of thousands of jobs would have been lost not just in Michigan but all
across the country. Not just the two major companies but also with all the suppliers that supply parts to those major companies.

SCHULTZ: Is there any down side to what has transpired in the automobile industry? Look at the other side of the spectrum, what the Republicans are talking about. Where is the downside? I`m looking for it.
Where is it?

PETERS: I don`t see the downside, Ed. I mean, we`ve saved critical industry, which is all about American manufacturing. And these are great middle class jobs that are being saved as a result of that. Jobs are being
added.

In fact, I was just at a meeting in Michigan earlier in the week, Ed, I had auto suppliers telling me they are in a situation right now where they can`t find enough people, enough engineers -- they are hiring people
and they can`t find enough people.

Two years ago, those same companies were laying off people. Now, they are in the position where they`re hiring and looking for even more. This is a great success story.

We`ve got to remind everybody of the success story about President Obama taking a risk. He took an awful lot of heat from around the country to make this decision, but it was the right decision and it`s always right
to bet on the American workers because every time they will do it -- especially the men and women of the UAW who made significant sacrifices and are now building world class cars.

And in fact, in my district, they are building car that General Motors thought they could only build profitably in China, that`s the Chevy Sonic. It`s being built in Michigan with UAW labor and it`s being made at a
profit. It is a great American success story.

SCHULTZ: Your colleague, Republican Congressman Bill Huizenga is a Romney supporter. But he said something very interesting about the candidate. About Romney, he said "It would be a huge embarrassment if he`s not able to win the Michigan primary."

Is this really going to be the thorn in his side in Michigan if he doesn`t come to grips with how positive this has been? Because it would seem to me the independent voters are going to be honest brokers when it
comes to what`s economically good. And now, you have a chance of seeing Mitt Romney losing to Rick Santorum in Michigan. Sort that out for us.

PETERS: I think it would be a devastating blow. I don`t pretend to know Republican politics and primary politics.

But here is a man who says he was raised in Michigan, he has Michigan values, he understands the auto industry, and yet when the auto industry really needed help -- he wasn`t there. In fact, he said, let the auto
industry go bankrupt, let it disappear, if the government supports this industry, it would be a mistake.

Well, he was proven wrong, and had he been president at the time, it would have been catastrophic, not just for my state but for the whole country.

SCHULTZ: Congressman Gary Peters, great to have you with us tonight, tell them the story. Thanks so much.

PETERS: Appreciate it, Ed. Thank you.

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