Obama Ambushed Caterpillar CEO

RUSH: A fascinating story. Do you remember the Caterpillar incident? This is just an amazing story and another reason, another reason why I am so grateful for the Heritage Foundation. Man, I’ll tell you, they are just doing some fabulous, fabulous work in shoring up our end of things. You know, I say I’m The Last Man Standing here, but I have a support crew and a support staff at the Heritage Foundation which I cherish.

Let me give you the scenario of what happened, in case you have forgotten. One day, it happened to be a day prior to President Obama flying to Peoria to meet with the CEO of Caterpillar. The president announced that he had talked to the CEO of Caterpillar and the CEO of Caterpillar had assured him that he was going to start hiring people after the stimulus bill was passed, going to start rehiring laid-off employees. Well, we go to the next day, after the event is over and the reporters get to the chairman of the company, Caterpillar, he says, (paraphrasing) ‘Well, no, no, not really. We’re facing some more hard times before we can actually start hiring people back.’ But that didn’t make much coverage in the Drive-By Media because all they were interested in was promoting Obama’s photo-op and his lie. As it turns out, it was a bold-faced lie, it was a bold-faced ambush, it was a bold-faced example of manipulation, where the CEO of Caterpillar was tricked into saying that he would hire new workers if the stimulus bill were passed.

The Heritage Foundation put on a conservative bloggers briefing yesterday and a congressman showed up, Aaron Schock. Now, Aaron Schock is 27. He visited the conservative bloggers briefing at Heritage yesterday, and he spoke on a range of issues, but he told a particularly interesting story regarding a visit of President Obama to the Caterpillar plant in Peoria, which is Aaron Schock’s district. Now, the giant plant’s on the east bank of the Illinois River, it’s home to Caterpillar. By the way, Caterpillar makes more than just heavy equipment. They make construction mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines. They make industrial gas turbines. The CEO is Jim Owens, and in response to Obama’s claims that the stimulus bill’s power to create jobs, remember he said, (paraphrasing) ‘I think realistically, no, the truth is we’re going to have to have more layoffs before we start rehiring again.’ This happened on February 12th. The February 12th speech in Aaron Schock’s home district merited him a ride on Air Force One, which Aaron Schock took, said the president didn’t lobby him heavily, it was really when they got in front of everyone that he began doing that.

So believing he was on friendly turf, Obama called out the young congressman at the beginning of his speech. Obama said, ‘Congressman Schock — where is he? He’s back here. He’s right here. Stand up, Aaron.’ There was applause. Aaron is still trying to make up his mind about our recovery package. So Obama said, ‘He has a chance to be in the mold of Bob Michel and Ray LaHood. And so we’re, we know that all of you are going to talk to him after our event, because he’s a very talented young man. I’ve got great confidence in him to do the right thing for the people of Peoria.’ Schock said yesterday at Heritage, ”I was surprised to be called out the way I was.’ His next line drew hearty laughter from the surrounding bloggers. ‘The funny part was, I stuck around for 45 minutes while he was in there taking pictures…and [the Caterpillar employees] came up to me and said ‘Hey Aaron, stick to your guns. This is a bad bill.’ The irony was the local UAW did not endorse the stimulus bill.’

‘Later, through calls and emails, Caterpillar employees continued to urge Schock not to vote for the stimulus bill. ‘I had fourteen hundred Caterpillar employees alone urging me to vote against it,’ he said. After the rally, Schock, the President and CEO Jim Owens boarded Air Force One. Schock said he sat nervously next to Owens, having believed Obama when he said Owens supported the stimulus. ‘I know Jim Owens, guy’s a PhD, graduate of Wharton. This guy’s smarter than this. I don’t think this is something he’d say. So I got on the plane and leaned over to him and said: ‘Jim, are you really promoting this bill?” Schock paraphrased Owen’s response: ‘Aaron, I got ambushed. The President called me up and said, ‘Jim, what would it take for you to rehire people at Caterpillar?” Owens responded by saying if a ‘responsible stimulus bill’ was passed, he would be able to rehire workers. ‘And so the President left that phone call and went out and said ‘The CEO of Caterpillar said if my bill passes –‘ well, he made a couple of assumptions: first, that his stimulus bill was responsible — which it wasn’t. And number two, that it was going to get the economy going again — which it didn’t,’ concluded Schock.’

So, Obama tricked the CEO of Caterpillar into supporting publicly his stimulus, and Aaron Schock revealed this at a little seminar at Heritage yesterday. ‘What would it take, Mr. Owens, to get you to support my stimulus, a responsible one?’ So Obama goes out the next day, ‘He supports it, he’s going to rehire workers.’ Well, he hadn’t started rehiring workers. This is Barack Obama, this is the White House of Rahm Emanuel and Barack Obama, manipulating, ambushing supposed supporters, misleading them and using them to advance an agenda they do not support. This kind of thing is starting to happen more and more. There’s not massive fallout right now, but there is not unity in the Democrat Party. Do not believe for a moment that there is. Opportunities abound, ladies and gentlemen, to stop this. Opportunities abound to at least put some boulders in the road and slow this down. At some point, the America that we know, the America that we love, the America that we all want to succeed, its survival is going to depend on this administration being stopped.