Press Conference With Rep. Steve Latourette And Rep. Dennis Kucinich- Chrysler And General Motors

Statement

Press Conference With Rep. Steve Latourette And Rep. Dennis Kucinich
Subject: Chrysler And General Motors. Also Participating: Rep. Glenn Thompson (R-Pa); Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tx); David Regan, National Automobile Dealers Association

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REP. LATOURETTE: Thank you for coming. I'm Steve LaTourette from Ohio. Next to me is Congressman Dennis Kucinich, also from Ohio. And we expect to be joined by a representative of the National Automobile Dealers Association. Hopefully he will be arriving soon.

We are here to announce a letter that we have sent electronically to the White House and also by snail mail, signed by 36 members of Congress, 30 Republicans and 6 Democrats. And that margin shouldn't be construed to say that Republicans care more about this issue than Democrats, because we were running around on the floor during the last series of votes yesterday collecting the signatures, and we got basically who we could got -- get, excuse me. (Chuckles.)

The substance of the letter -- and the letter's available in press packets -- indicates that we are asking President Obama to call time out on his automobile task force. And we're asking him to call time out for a variety of reasons. And I'm going to go through those, and Congressman Kucinich is going to have some thoughts as well.

On the board to our left: On April the 30th, the president of the United States made an announcement concerning the bankruptcy agreement with Chrysler.

And the key part for our purposes was this quote that nobody should be confused, and there would be no disruption of the lives of people who work at Chrysler or the communities that depend on it.

Congressman Kucinich and I believe that the president meant it when he said it and that that was clearly his intention. Sadly speaking only for myself, I think that he has been ill-served by his non-elected automobile task force. And the reason that I come to that conclusion is as follows.

In the two days before the president's announcement, on the 28th and 29th of April, every United Auto Worker who works for Chrysler, in the United States of America, went to approve a new contract. That new contract required significant concessions in wages, pensions, benefits.

Overwhelmingly the 39,000 people who work for Chrysler, did work for Chrysler, and are United Auto Worker members approved that contract. They did that on the strength of the belief that the president was indicating that their jobs were safe and that no communities would be disrupted and their lives would not be disrupted.

Specifically not to be completely parochial but where Dennis and are from, in Twinsburg, Ohio, if you look at the Chrysler agreement, Chrysler-UAW agreement, there is a specific provision that not only talks about Chrysler Twinsburg staying open; it talks about bringing in more work, that the company agrees to bring more work to Twinsburg, Ohio.

So, and in Twinsburg, 88 percent of the people, 88 percent of the UAW members, voted to approve this new contract. The next day at 11:30, Congressman Kucinich and I were part of a press -- call, conference call with the White House task force. And my notes taken concurrently with that said, this is a great day; we have saved 30,000 jobs, and the president is going to issue remarks to reflect that.

At noon, the president made his observations, which are here. At 1:00, we participated in a conference call with Robert Nardelli, the former chief executive officer of Chrysler. And the first question came from Jennifer Granholm, the governor of Michigan, Democratic governor of Michigan. And her question to Chrysler was this:

We just heard the president's announcement. Congratulations. Good work. But he said 30,000 jobs have been saved. Thirty nine thousand people work for Chrysler in the United States; 47.5 thousand worldwide.

I just want to be clear that the president wasn't speaking in code, and that is that 30,000 jobs have been saved but we are going to shed 9,000 jobs.

He said absolutely not, the president just had a round number, and he didn't know -- he didn't -- well, all the jobs are saved.

Subsequent to that, Governor Granholm had a press conference, and these are her statements from that press conference on April the 30th. The governor said: So, not only does this agreement preserve jobs, the opportunity for expanding growth and jobs in Michigan is very real.

She called it a defining moment for Michigan, and a defining moment for Chrysler. This agreement that was announced today -- despite the bankruptcy -- this agreement and emerging from that will ensure that the jobs remain here.

An erstwhile reporter asked her a question about jobs. Her answer is: The agreement does not call for just additional job losses. It's very clear that this agreement preserves jobs. President Obama said in no uncertain terms that he's going to put the strength of the United States behind the auto industry.

She also goes on to indicate that the agreement calls for Fiat to bring 5,000 new jobs to the United States of America.

So from that conference call, because sadly the first observation -- the first observation that was made by the White House when we raised this issue on May the 1st was that we were somehow confused by what we heard. I would say that Governor Granholm was confused, as well.

Also during that telephone call -- and again, the folks in Chrysler, 88 percent of the people in Chrysler -- at Twinsburg voted to approve this new contract.

Representative Gwen Moore of Wisconsin, Democrat from Milwaukee, was on the conference call, and she asked about a plant in her district, Kenosha, Wisconsin, that employs 800 people. In that conference call, Mr. Nardelli went on to extol the virtues of the Kenosha plant, talk about the fact that we love it, it's part of the old Chrysler, it's going to be part of the new Chrysler.

And the next day, on May the 1st, when reporters dug through the bankruptcy filings -- that had already been written, obviously, on April the 30th, and were filed in the afternoon of April the 30th -- it was discovered that there were eight plants slated to be closed, 9,000 auto workers out of work, including Twinsburg, Ohio and Kenosha, Wisconsin.

In response to sort of that misunderstanding, Mr. Nardelli sent a letter to Congresswoman Moore and indicated that he mistakenly conveyed the status of the Kenosha plant, and he had confused it with the plant in Trenton, Michigan -- so not another Wisconsin plant, but a plant in a different state. And so he had misspoken.

Now, this week, we had the announcement of the forced closure of 789 Chrysler dealerships.

And if we could go to the next one.

According to our friends from NADA, there are -- approximately 60 people work at the average dealership -- auto dealership in the United States. And so the 789 times 60 indicates that this week, 47,340 people will be losing their jobs, on top of the 9,000 people at the eight plants that thought that their jobs were going to be preserved.

We, by reading the newspapers today, have seen that an agreement is near with General Motors, and it is predicted that 2,600 General Motor(s) dealerships across the country will be forcibly closed and their franchises will be removed. Two -- 2,600 times 60 is 156,000.

And you now have, just in the dealerships -- and we're not talking about the supply chain; we're not talking about the restaurants where they eat; we're not talking about the Little League baseball teams that they sponsor -- we're talking about 203 -- 203,340 direct jobs will be terminated as a result of these two agreements.

The reason that we're asking the president to sort of stop is, it specifically asks him to reflect back on the 1979 legislation passed by the United States Congress when Chrysler was facing difficulty before. And it says, just take a deep breath, if you would, and let's let the Congress look at it.

And here's what we're concerned about. One, I think it's a strange marketing plan that you think you're going to sell more stuff with less stores. I never saw anybody in business said, "Boy, if I could just have, you know, 3,000 less stores, I'll bet I could sell more cars."

Two, the task force, for some reason, is involved in micromanaging the way that Chrysler does business, not only during the bankruptcy but after. And I would fast-forward to May the 4th of this year. A fellow by the name of Robert Manzo testified in the bankruptcy proceedings in New York City.

He is the -- he's with Capstone Advisory Group, which is Chrysler's consultant.

And he testified on May the 4th that the task force believed that it was not feasible to spend anything on marketing and advertising during the nine weeks of the bankruptcy. When apparently it was indicated to them that that was just nuts, they permitted them to release half of it, half of the $134 million that Chrysler intended to spend on advertising to keep their market share in the United States.

So again, just like selling more cars with less stores, I don't know how you sell cars without advertising.

Also on the dealerships -- I just want to highlight a couple dealerships and then turn it over to my friend and colleague Congressman Kucinich. Dealerships don't cost the car company any money. They either pay directly in rent for signage and computers and things of that nature, or additional costs of Chrysler are built into the cost of the car that is sold by that consumer.

What sadly happened to some of these car dealers prior to the bankruptcy announcement -- and again, the car dealers believed that this announcement of bankruptcy was going to lead to a bigger, leaner, more efficient Chrysler and they'd have better product and they'd be able to sell stuff. They were likewise surprised that even though some of them paid $2 million for a franchise, that the thought was we could -- the government and the task force and the bankruptcy court could just take that away from them.

I want to highlight a -- one car dealership in Elyria, which is not in my district, nor is it in Dennis's district. Abraham -- hold on a second, got to find Abraham. (Pausing to look through documents). It is Abraham Chrysler-Jeep in Elyria, Ohio. And we have the number for Mr. Abraham if you're interested afterwards.

Just at this one dealership in northeastern Ohio, they have more than 100 unsold Chrysler vehicles, valued at $3.2 million, and about $300,000 in Chrysler parts. The large inventory, which is higher than they normally carry, is due to a plea from Chrysler to help them save Chrysler.

"The Chrysler factory said" -- this is Mr. Abraham's quote" -- "that they needed our help, and asked us to take on additional cars.

We helped, even though we knew it wasn't a good business decision. New cars were arriving from Chrysler the day that we were notified that our franchise agreement was going to be terminated."

From the State of Kentucky, in Congressman Geoff Davis's district, who's one of the 36 co-signers of this letter, Zimmer Chrysler Jeep. In their observation, putting Zimmer out of business would save Chrysler nothing. We own our building and our inventory. We pay Chrysler monthly rent on items for dealer signage and/or our computer system.

Any costs we don't pay directly to Chrysler are included in the price it charges us for each car. Taxpayer costs would average $15,000 for each of Zimmer's 65 employees in unemployment, increased health care costs and a loss to the local and state and federal government of $2,700,000 in payroll taxes.

Clearly this process isn't being well thought-out. And Congress now is about to embark on its Memorial Day district work period. We don't call it a recess. It's a district work period. And while the Congress of the United States is out of town, we face the prospects of an announcement that these 2,600 GM dealerships will close, with the resulting job loss that is occurring.

The letter signed by 36 members of Congress asks President Obama, because we do believe in a bipartisan way that his heart is in the right place, and when he made that observation on April the 30th, he meant it.

But nobody with a straight face can argue -- when you have eight auto plants already closed in the United States, and closed in a way that the workers who work there voted to end their jobs, just two days before they were notified that their job was going to be lost, and an additional 203,000 people that work at auto dealerships, plus whatever multiplier you think is appropriate, for the supply chain and everybody that services things -- will not disrupt communities. And it certainly, we can't say with a straight face, is not going to negatively impact the lives of the people that work for Chrysler and soon to be GM.

I want to turn it over to my colleague Congressman Kucinich.

REP. KUCINICH: Thanks very much, Congressman LaTourette and our colleague, and all of you.

I'd like to kind of sum up where we are right now. We have upwards of $70 billion of U.S. taxpayers' resources being used to close dozens of U.S. car manufacturing plants and thousands of dealerships, having the effect of putting perhaps millions of Americans out of work; all this being done to open up a market for China, so China can sell their cheap imports here in the United States, along with other companies that are making these imports, while we destroy our auto manufacturing and sales and distribution infrastructure.

Bankruptcy is not an industrial policy. It is the opposite of it. America has long needed an industrial policy where we maintain vigorously that steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping is vital to our national security. We're impairing our ability to defend ourselves by taking apart a manufacturing base.

Members of Congress including Congressman LaTourette have signed on to House Resolution 444, which seeks to declare an industrial policy for the United States that says that steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping ought to be kept intact to protect our nation. I talked to Senator Stabenow yesterday in the Senate, and she's prepared to participate.

Who's this auto task force, and who do they represent? They certainly don't represent workers in America. They don't represent investors. They don't represent dealerships. They represent various Wall Street interests who have long looked at exporting jobs out of this country, and hoping to send in cheap-labor products into the United States for sale here. And the biggest plum is the United States automotive industry.

Because of this sea change that's taking place, there's already people predicting that the baton of leadership in the world, in automotive, is now passing from the United States to China, and it's occurring with the help of U.S. tax dollars. What's going on here?

I joined Congressman LaTourette in circulating the letter to the White House, because I do not believe this auto task force has any legitimate or valid role in deciding the fate of automotive plants in this country and deciding the fate of communities across America. Our area -- and the greater Cleveland area that Mr. LaTourette and I represent has been greatly jeopardized. Our local economy is greatly jeopardized, because of the way this thing is proceeding. This whole idea about pushing people into bankruptcy -- this was some kind of a strategy that was developed by this auto task force to throw companies into bankruptcy, to force a restructuring that jettisons not just labor costs but all kinds of benefits.

What's happening in our country? We're letting go of what has made us great, and I'm not prepared to let that go without a fight, and that's why we're challenging the very existence of this auto task force, that it go slow on trying to push GM into bankruptcy. They should not have pushed Chrysler into bankruptcy. We should try to keep these plants open. If we're going to make a resurgence in automotive, you can't do it if you're destroying your infrastructure. It's just impossible. It defies logic. You can't get rid of all these dealerships and expect you're going to come back and sell cars. All they're doing is creating a market for imports. Well, that's not what the U.S. tax dollars should be used for, and that's not what U.S. policy should be about. But that's what's happening right now.

So I'm glad to join my friend Congressman LaTourette and other members of Congress who are here to challenge what's happening and to say that we're not just going to be happy to go around and collect funeral expenses for the auto industry; to say that, well, we're going to give $50 million, nationally, so we're going to help communities ease the way. They don't want that money, they want to keep their plants open. Don't just try to throw a few bucks at people's way and say, "We're going to help you retrain."

Look, people are trained to make cars. Let them make cars.

REP. LATOURETTE: Thank you, Dennis. Thank you, Dennis. I always do events with Dennis with trepidation, because he's much more quotable than I am.

So -- see, we're going to introduce another signer of the letter, a new member from Pennsylvania, Glenn Thompson. But -- and just a minute. Something that I forgot to remark on -- last night, if you -- if you or your news organization covers the United States Senate, you may have observed sort of a mini-sit-in by Senator Hutchison of Texas.

And it was in response to an observation that was made to her -- I'll say allegedly; check with Senator Hutchison -- by Chrysler that the February 17th viability plan that I mentioned a little earlier, that was rejected by the White House task force; one of the reasons it was rejected is because it did not expeditiously shut down enough auto dealers.

In response to that, Senator Hutchison last night was demanding a letter to Chrysler -- we'll make it available to you -- dated yesterday, May the 21st. And in that, they promise. But you know, I'm a lawyer by training. And you have to read letters very carefully. It promises that old company dealers receive a fair and equitable value for virtually all of their outstanding vehicle and parts inventory.

That's a little bit of a soup sandwich. These people are under pressure to sell all of their cars, all of their inventory by June the 9th. And I think our friends from NADA can tell you how many cars that is, across the country. I think it's about 150,000 cars.

Let me turn it over to Glenn, Glenn Thompson, Pennsylvania.

REP. THOMPSON: Thank you, Congressman.

My name is Glenn Thompson, Congressman, representing Pennsylvania's 5th District. And first of all, I want to thank my colleagues -- Congressman LaTourette, Congressman Kucinich -- for their leadership on this.

This is -- you know, the White House auto task force was supposed to drive us to better days and to help us protect our jobs and grow our jobs and to grow our economy, as opposed to driving jobs overseas. And I have serious concerns with the events that have been, as we've learned the facts of what's happened here.

In my -- in Pennsylvania, we have over 50 of these dealerships, well over 3,000 jobs, many of those throughout my district. Folks, these are dealerships that have been -- some of them have been in business for well over 100 years.

I mean, they are multiple generations. They've been successful. And they all the sudden find themselves in a situation of -- where the White House is hanging a Going Out of Business sign on their doors.

And that's just wrong.

The supplier side -- one of my counties alone, Elk County, it's been in the national news lately, featured regarding the stimulus package and the fact that they -- their unemployment there is 13.8 percent. They've -- and -- haven't been receiving any -- they had no bridge and highway projects for the stimulus.

Well, they've really -- being crushed with this latest move. The biggest industry -- Elk County, Pennsylvania is the world headquarters for powdered metals. The biggest customers of those -- powdered- metals industry are Chrysler, GM and Ford. And so the economic impact of what we're seeing today as -- goes right from the manufacturing of cars, the supply side, to dealerships.

And I just want to thank my colleagues for their leadership, of making sure that we're bringing this to the attention of the American people. And we do respect the intentions, as the president had, in setting this up, but we -- you know, frankly, we need to be doing better in terms of protecting jobs and keeping jobs in this country.

Thank you.

REP. LATOURETTE: Well, thanks, Glenn. Thanks very much.

Before I introduce our last speaker, before we take questions, I -- just two things. There was reporting in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on May the 1st, and a fellow by the name of Doug Rice, who's the president of Local 122, represents Twinsburg, his quote to the Plain Dealer -- and you can go look it up -- "I don't know if I was told the whole truth on everything," he said. "I don't feel like I was. And it would be a shame if this was something that was known for some time. If it was kept back from people, that's wrong."

He then appeared -- we appeared jointly on NPR a day after, and the host said, "Would the vote have been the same" -- again, Twinsburg UAW members voted 88 percent to take concessions -- "Would the vote have been the same had you had the information you have now?" "No. Needless to say, people ain't going to vote to eliminate their jobs."

Now it's my pleasure to introduce, from the National Automobile Dealers Association, David Regan. David?

MR. REGAN: Thank you, members of Congress, for your attention here today, and for the folks from the media. It's been a long week in Washington.

So we -- but quite frankly, it's been a longer week in the 789 communities across this nation that have Chrysler dealerships that were -- that learned just a week ago that they no longer have a viable business to operate. And that's really why we're here today. It is about not only those dealerships but about their employees and about their communities.

The most difficult aspect about this situation, quite frankly, is the timing: on such short notice, to have to sell the inventory which you own, to have to sell the parts with you -- that you own, between now and June 9th, or face the consequences.

And the consequences are: After June 9th, you will not be able to sell these parts at retail, you will not be able to sell these vehicles at retail; and yet, you still bear the risk of financial loss.

And that, quite frankly, is not consistent with standard business practice in the automobile industry. Standard business practice is, when a dealer goes out of business, the manufacturer buys the inventory back; the manufacturer buys the parts back. That has not happened in this case. And that is what has created so much angst among these 789 dealers. The threat of that potential liability -- and sometimes it may even come with a personal guarantee on that liability -- that complicates dramatically the ability to continue the business.

It complicates dramatically to continue the business even if you have another franchise, because in many instances these franchise -- these financing agreements for dealers contain cross-default clauses. And it's a problematic situation for continuity of business that needs to be addressed in the short term. And frankly, that's what we're asking the government to do, provide additional transitional assistance in the short term to help these dealers that have received these notices.

And the last point I would like to make is a reference to the power of the economic engine that is the local dealership. Pound for pound, dollar for dollar, there is no economic engine in this country that is more powerful, that has delivered more to local communities, has created more jobs. There are one million people in this country who have jobs as a result of franchise automobile dealerships. These are well-paying jobs, these are long-term career jobs. Many of these businesses have second- and third-generation employees, much less second- and third-generation owners.

They're integrally tied to their communities, integrally tied to the tax base of their communities. And they are extraordinarily -- extraordinary contributors to the economic fabric of Main Street all across America. And that's why we are here speaking on behalf of the 789 dealerships. Thank you.

REP. LATOURETTE: Thank you, David.

Just two pieces of housekeeping before we take your well thought- out questions.

One is, I mentioned Mr. Abraham from Elyria, Ohio. And I read the letter, that you'll get a copy of, to Senator Hutchison from Chrysler. And the reason I'm suspicious of words like "fair," "equitable," "reasonable," is that, in his particular case, he's already gotten a call from Chrysler, and they are willing to help him unload his cars. But he will pay a penalty, just for his dealership, of $200,000, which is about $200 a car -- $2,000 a car, excuse me. And then, on the parts issue, while they may be taking back the mufflers or the pipes or whatever is standard on any Chrysler, he also, to help out Chrysler, purchased $50,000 of specialty parts.

Chrysler has no interest in helping him with the $50,000 of specialty parts. You're now up to $250,000.

Also, the last thing is, today in Twinsburg, Ohio, the site of the closed plant, Ed Montgomery of the president's task force is there. And we're grateful. We believe that Mr. Montgomery's -- when he says what he says, that, just like the president of the United States, he believes it. He's there to announce $50 million for the entire country to help with displaced auto workers. And the press release put out by the White House says that the intention is to train them to do green jobs.

Sadly, $50 million for the entire country. And I'm still trying to get my arms around what a green job is. Dennis and I were talking yesterday, and we think that the only green jobs that are going to be left are cutting the grass of the guys on Wall Street who have gotten billions of dollars of bailout money.

Dennis, do you have any observation before we take questions?

REP. KUCINICH: (Inaudible.)

REP. LATOURETTE: Questions. Yes, sir?

Q Congressman, can you talk more about the GM situation? Should the bondholders take the 10 percent stake? And what would bankruptcy -- (word off mike).

REP. LATOURETTE Well, I think the reason that we're asking the task force to take a timeout is that nobody clearly knows what -- I mean, we've seen messages in print that it's going to be these car dealerships which are 156,000 jobs.

I would say that if I were a -- you know, the news in the paper today was that UAW and GM have reached a deal. If I was a UAW member who worked for General Motors, I would be very nervous about the Chrysler example, where 9,000 of them at eight plants were not told that their job was going to be terminated if they approved the contract.

So I think it's the fact that nobody can tell you what that means that's a problem.

The other thing is, the automobile task force in the Congress, headed up by Dale Kildee of Michigan, Democrat of Michigan -- we had Fritz Henderson, the new head of General Motors, in two weeks ago, and the question was put to him, there's a group of bondholders that would like to take a bigger stake than 10 percent in General Motors, and why is that not one of the plans rather than forcing the company into bankruptcy?"

And his statement to us -- there were 20 of us present -- is that the auto task force will not permit a structured deal that has more than 10 percent of bondholder interest in the car company.

Now, the public statements made by President Obama -- which, again, I believe the president -- he says we don't want to be in the car business. Well, if you don't want to be in the car business, why don't you let the bondholders who are willing to up their money in, not taxpayer money, to form the restructured General Motors? And so those are the types of questions that I -- they just got to slow down.

REP. KUCINICH: I'd like to -- I'd like to add to that. Think about this. If GM is thrown into bankruptcy and encouraged to go to bankruptcy by this auto task force, we know there's at least 16 manufacturing plants that are headed for extinction. Why wouldn't the goal of our government be to protect those plants? We know that, as part of the GM restructuring, this auto task force is encouraging GM to cut its costs. Cutting its costs means accelerating its imports from China.

So again, what we have here is a condition, where we're using U.S. taxpayers -- in terms of GM, ultimately we have $45 billion -- to help shut down an auto manufacturing, dealership, parts infrastructure, in order to open the door for China to flood the United States with massive imports.

Now, this isn't about some xenophobic point of view. China is holding a lot of U.S. debt. We understand that. But our obligation is to keep our manufacturing industries open, and we're not doing that. And this bankruptcy will not do that.

The push to bankruptcy is going to accelerate the closing down of plants, and it's going to limit the ability of our auto industry to recover. They're trying to pass it off as some kind of an auto recovery plan. This is as much as an auto recovery plan would be as if somebody came into a hospital room and put a pillow over somebody sleeping -- over the face of somebody sleeping in a bed. That's the kind of way that this is saving the auto industry.

REP. LATOURETTE: Thank you, Dennis.

Before we take the next question, we've been joined by another signer of the letter. I just wanted him to have the opportunity to make whatever remarks he feels are appropriate.

From the state of Texas, Louie Gohmert. Lou.

REP. GOHMERT: Thanks, Steve. And thank you, Dennis, Steve.

You know, if you go back a ways in history, you will find countries governed by a despot, corruption abounding everywhere, and they would have dukes who they looked on favorably because of the way they sucked up to the king. And they would take land away from dukes that bothered them on a given day and give it over to the ones that they liked.

You can find that in Third World countries today, where there is extreme corruption. Who would have ever dreamed that in the United States of America in 2009, we would have an administration that sets up a task force to run the auto industry and to work deals out and to say: You know what? You may have paid $2 million for your dealership, and you may owe a million and a half (dollars) on it, but we're going to take that away from you, close it for your sake, and give it over to somebody else who we'd rather have running that. I mean, that's a page right out of "The Prince," by Machiavelli. I mean, it was incredible. And that's going on.

And then when you look at the task force itself, we heard in our hearing we had, that Chairman Conyers called yesterday, that many -- of course we know that nobody on the task force has any experience in the auto business, and we heard at the hearing many of them don't even own cars! And they're dictating the auto industry for our future? What's wrong with this picture?

That's why I'm so pleased with the work that Steve has done to try to bring these issues to the light. We were told we wanted transparency. How about some transparency? Come out from behind the closed doors. Get the documents that helped you arrive at which dukes you were going to award the dealerships to and which dukes you were going to take them away from. How did you get to that? Those are the kind of things we need to know to get us back to the America that we all love and respect.

Thank you.

REP. LATOURETTE: Thank you very much, Louie.

We're now going to take questions from reporters with facial hair. Sir? (Laughter.)

Q I understand that you're trying to arrange a meeting this afternoon with the White House spokesman. Can you tell about that?

(Off-mike conferral among the congressmen.)

REP. KUCINICH: Yeah.

REP. LATOURETTE: Dennis will talk about that.

REP. KUCINICH: As soon as we leave this podium, we'll be going to meet with a representative of the White House to discuss our concerns.

Q Do you know who you're going to meet with or --

REP. KUCINICH: They're sending over some of their people. We -- you know, we'll be meeting with them. We'll -- and our offices will notify you about the meeting.

REP. LATOURETTE: Scott?

Q Sir, just two questions.

Do you realistically expect, and knowing everything that you know about the way this town votes --

REP. LATOURETTE: Yep.

Q -- especially in your own intellect, do you realistically expect the White House to say okay, yes, and if the White House did say okay, yes, what would be the litmus test that you would expect to have for a framework?

REP. LATOURETTE: Well, listen, I think we recognize this is a Hail Mary. But you know what? I -- as a Republican, I have faith in President Obama to do the right thing. And I'll say again, when he stood before the country and said on April the 30th that this would not disrupt lives or communities, I believe he meant it.

And I think that if he is given good advice by his advisers, he may come to the conclusion it's time to take a deep breath and slow down.

And the path that we would recommend -- and you know, he has the power to call us back into session and a whole bunch of things -- that won't happen, either -- but I -- we in our letter suggested that he follow the template that Jimmy Carter followed in 1979 with the impending collapse of Chrysler and have it be an orderly, bipartisan, widely publicly accepted plan that is crafted by thoughtful people. I didn't know all the things Louie just said about the members of the Chrysler -- or the auto task force, but if they don't have an experience in the auto industry and they don't own cars, I would prefer to have people that actually do those things help us make those decisions.

And you all remember in the Chrysler case, even though there were some objections, the United States made money. And for a while -- I was talking to an old appropriator -- because it came in, in a funny way, nobody could figure how to spend it. But -- this being Washington, it didn't take very long to figure out how to spend it. But we made money on that deal. And that's what we're asking the president to do.

Anybody else?

Q You mentioned before layoffs, plant closings. Do you know whether, after the GM-UAW agreement, that 16 plants with 21,000 job cuts are still part of the deal, or has that been -- do you know if those are changing?

REP. KUCINICH: We know what's been reported in the media, and that is that 16 plants --

Q (Off mike.)

REP. KUCINICH: -- we know what's been reported in the media, and that is that 16 plants are on the line. Keep in mind that I -- Congressman LaTourette and I were on that call where we were told that no plants are going to be closed. So if now they're offering that 16 plants in advance of any deal -- could go down, then we have every reason to be apprehensive.

Look, in my own district this is a matter of great concern. We have a plant that could be affected. This is a plant with a skilled workforce, a plant that there's been a major investment in, a plant that has produced a superior product and a plant that provides a living for over a thousand men and women, and a way to survive for their families.

So we don't -- we don't know exactly how this is going to work out. But we're here to talk about matters of policy. The -- bankruptcy has become a policy here. And with that, we're seeing legal obligations being jettisoned, obligations to -- for health care and pensions and salaries and dealerships and contracts and parts suppliers. The whole infrastructure's crumbling.

Now, I want to -- Congressman Gohmert raised a question about transparency. I just want to let you know, by way of background, that as chairman of the domestic-policy investigative subcommittee, my office has already sent to Chrysler a request for all the documents related in this decision-making process, including the transcripts of the discussion we had on the 30th of April.

There will be transparency, and we're going to get those documents. We'll do whatever we can to get them, but we will get it. Chrysler has agreed to cooperate with us so far. My investigative subcommittee staff met with Chrysler officials yesterday. But we're determined to get a close look at this decision-making process.

That's not going to bring these plants back. We can -- and we need to take a stand right now, as Steve said, to slow down what's happening with GM, because there are plants that have not announced a closing. I think there should be a way to still stop the closings of plants that have been announced, and to roll back the closing of dealerships.

But, you know, unless someone stands up and says "Halt," they might -- the White House might figure everyone goes along with it. Well, not everyone does go along with it. I happen to have been one of President Obama's supporters in the last election, but to me this is an issue that's bigger than the president.

This is about whether or not the United States is going to have an auto-manufacturing industry that's viable, or it's just going to be a new gateway for massive imports that end up using U.S. tax dollars to put U.S. workers out of business.

REP. LATOURETTE: Before we take the next question, Dennis brings up a great point on the transcript. And again, if -- I think if you really want to produce or write a very interesting story, the -- when we got on the phone call with Mr. Nardelli, the operator said, this call's going to be taped, and if you don't want to participate in the call, hang up now.

Well, we stayed on the call. And after this controversy came up, I called Mr. Bozzella, who's the vice president of Chrysler in charge of government relations.

And I said, that call was taped. And the first response was, no, it wasn't. And I said, well, do me a favor and check. I mean, I know, my hearing is bad. I've gotten this Miracle-Ear so I can hear better, when people say things that I think they've said.

He called back. And he said, there's a transcript. And I said, can I have the transcript? He said, yes. Then he went off the air. And I'm not criticizing Mr. Bozzella. And anytime somebody goes off the air, you know, something's up.

And he called me back. And he said, you can't have the transcript. You can have the piece that you're interested in, which is Governor Granholm's question. And I said, okay. Then he went off the air again.

And then he called me and said, I'm sending you a letter. I said, well, great, when are you sending me the letter? He said, now. He sent the letter over. And it was a question by a staffer, in Governor Strickland of Ohio's office, that had nothing to do with anything that we've just talked about. And Mr. Bozzella says -- again I'm not criticizing him -- that the lawyers of Chrysler won't let him hand it out.

If I wanted to crack this story, not only with Dennis's subpoenas that he will issue, I'd call Chrysler and say, hey, hand over the transcript. And it's going to say what it says.

REP. KUCINICH: And I want to ensure Mr. LaTourette and my colleagues here and those of you in the media that we are going to get that transcript.

REP. GOHMERT: When you talk about, you know, what hope do you have, do you know how often, as much as I admire and like Dennis Kucinich as a friend, do you know how often we agree on issues?

Yesterday in Judiciary hearing, you had agreement among people who don't normally agree. Ralph Nader was there. I was agreeing with Ralph Nader on a number of important points. You had John Conyers, Maxine Waters and me agreeing over concerns.

When you see that kind of bipartisanship, from different parts of the spectrum coming together, with similar concerns, then it ought to concern somebody in the administration that this is something that needs to be dealt with.

REP. LATOURETTE: Thank you, Louie.

Dennis tells me we have to go meet with the White House. If there's one quick question, we'll answer it. If not, thank you very much. Press packets are up on the steps that have all the enclosures. Thank you for coming.

REP. KUCINICH: Thanks, everyone.

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