White House press secretary Jay Carney said Monday that the administration was not involved in the creation of the now-controversial Chrysler Super Bowl ad featuring Clint Eastwood.
"It was news to me," said Carney of seeing the ad.
The commercial, called "It's Halftime America," features the Academy Award winning-actor touting the recovery of the American auto companies after the bailouts of 2008 and 2009.
But the fact that the White House wasn't involved in the making of the two-minute spot didn't stop Carney from praising his boss's role in the car company bailouts.
"It does point out a simple fact, which is that the automobile industry in this country was on its back and potentially poised to liquidate three years ago," said Carney during his Monday press briefing.
"This president made decisions that we're not very popular at the time guided by two important principals. One, that he should do what he could to ensure that 1 million jobs would not be lost, and two, that the American automobile industry should be able to thrive, globally, if the right conditions were created."
Carney said these conditions included reforms made by Chrysler and General Motors in exchange for taxpayer assistance.
"He [Obama] did not believe it was necessary to allow the American automobile industry to collapse and disappear, so he made the decisions he made and believes they were the right decisions," Carney said.
Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne said in a radio interview in Detroit Monday that the commercial was not an endorsement of Obama.
"It has zero political content," Marchionne said of the Super Bowl ad in an interview with Detroit radio station 760 AM WJR.
For more on Chrysler's response to criticism over the ad on The Hill's Transportation blog,
click here.
