President Obama is pressing the accelerator in criticizing Republican nominee Mitt Romney's opposition to the $80 billion bailout of the U.S. auto industry.
Obama’s reelection team released a second ad Thursday afternoon in response to a Romney TV spot claiming companies that benefitted from the bailout are moving jobs overseas.
“Wholly inaccurate. Clearly misleading: That’s what news outlets are calling Mitt Romney’s latest ads suggesting auto jobs are being sent to China," a narrator says in the ad, titled "Cynical."
“GM calls Romney’s ads ‘politics at its cynical worst,' " the Obama commercial says. "And Chrysler’s CEO said it’s simply not true.”
The Romney campaign has defended the ad in question as factually accurate, noting that the auto industry does intend to build some cars in China.
But General Motors and Chrysler have pushed back, arguing that the cars built overseas will be for foreign consumers.
The ad is the latest salvo in the campaigns’ fight over the auto industry bailout.
Romney supported a managed bankruptcy process for the companies, which the White House put into action, but he opposed also propping them up with federal funds. He says the Obama campaign has mischaracterized his position by focusing on the bankruptcy.
The Obama campaign says the new ad will air in Ohio and Michigan, two states where both campaigns hope to swing voters who work in the auto industry.
Read more on The Hill's Transportation blog.
