The veep wars continued on Tuesday, with Rep. Paul Ryan responding to Monday’s comment from Vice President Joe Biden that “Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive,” by noting that in his hometown in Wisconsin, GM is actually quite dead.
“General Motors isn't alive in my hometown,” Ryan said on ABC’s Good Morning America. “The president came to Janesville before the plant shut down and said he would lead an effort to retool the plant. After the plant was shut down, he said he would retool the plant to get people back to work. They're still not back to work.”
The attack on Obama was a reiteration of an angle Ryan used in his convention speech last week, one that was disputed by fact-checkers.
On another appearance on NBC’s Today show, Ryan defended his GM claims. "What they are trying to suggest is that I said Barack Obama was responsible for the plan shut down in Janesville. That's not what I was saying. Read the speech."
Host Matt Lauer said Ryan left the impression that Obama failed on a promise to save the GM plant, even though it closed before he came into office. “The promise was that he was going to open the plant," Ryan responded. "The promise was he was going to lead an effort to retool the plant so that people would be open and go back to work and it would be open for another 100 years. The point is he filled people with hope as he traveled around the country running for president making grandiose statements and promises which are just not true.”
ON CBS’s This Morning, Ryan was asked about his support of a December 2008 auto bailout package, which Mitt Romney opposed. When asked if he would have withheld his support now, Ryan responded: “No, I supported the bailout that was in the House as a means of preventing TARP from being used for the bailout. I did not think we should open up TARP because we would have had unlimited exposure for taxpayer dollars.” He added that his position was similar to Romney’s proposal for “managed bankruptcy.”
Ryan was also asked about Obama grading himself an 'incomplete' once again on the economy. "Four years into a presidency and it’s incomplete? The president is asking people just to be patient with him?" He added that the economy should be "bouncing out" of the recession, not lagging in job growth.
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