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Adviser on president obama's auto task force and john heileman. msnbc political analyst and writes for "new york" magazine. gentlemen, i want to start with steve. take a look at something you wrote in today's "new york times." you wrote romney's managed bankruptcy plan, quote, sounds like a wonderfully sensible approach, except that it's utter fantasy. i've heard you say this before, but remind us. what is his plan and would it have killed the auto industry? >> you just heard him say he wanted them to go through bankruptcy and if government needed to help on the way out, they could. the proble...

There's he opposed president obama's bailout of detroit, while at the same time arguing that the bailout worked. because the president did exactly what romney said he suggested all along. here's romney taking a step at that argument at wednesday night's debate. >> i wrote an op ed in the paper and i said absolutely not. these companies need to go through a managed bankruptcy just like airlines have and other industries have. go through a managed bankruptcy. and if they go through the managed bankruptcy and shed the excess of cost put on them by the uaw and their own mismanagement, then if they...

>> i wrote an op ed in the paper and i said absolutely not. these companies need to go through a managed bankruptcy just like airlines have and other industries have. go through a managed bankruptcy. and if they go through the managed bankruptcy and shed the excess of cost put on them by the uaw and their own mismanagement, then if they need help coming out of bankruptcy, the government can provide guarantees and get them back on their feet. >> well, just the proof that he had that audience stacked out there. they applauded the word bankruptcy. no audience in america aplauds the word bankruptc...

On the auto task force. >> that's right and the reason i joined is i felt it was clear both the bush administration and obama administration was going to provide capital to the companies and i wanted to see it be done right. i led the general motors turn around, as well as the chrysler deal. that's the reason i felt comfortable with that. one, it was a once in a 75 year situation. >> yeah, but we're not going to get all the money back from gm, it doesn't sound like. >> if we had waited to stop, we would have. >> they jumped the gun. >> right. the reason they did that, they wanted to get out as...

I mean, republicans continue to fight it. in fact, even last week i continued to hear republicans talking about this bailout of gm and how the government shouldn't have done that. i just would challenge them to look in the faces of those millions of families that have jobs today and have a secure future and is getting brighter and brighter every day. that would not have been the case had the government not stepped up. >> so the republicans deregulated wall street. they went and played with their money. fell flat on their face. yet, when it came time to help the blue collar workers and middle c...