TOLEDO, OHIO — Faced with a dismal new jobs report, President Barack Obama said Friday that the economy “is taking a while to mend” and faces “bumps on the road to recovery.” But at an event at a Chrysler plant to celebrate the resurgence of the auto industry, he made no direct mention of the dour economic news that threatened to obscure his optimistic message.
Normally, Obama talks about the monthly jobs numbers the day they’re released, but he didn’t mention them directly Friday — an omission noted by Republicans who see the economy as Obama’s greatest weakness heading into the 2012 campaign.
The president focused instead on the turnaround in the auto industry and how the government has recouped much more money than anticipated from the capital it sunk into Chrysler and General Motors to save them from collapse two years ago. At the time, the bailouts were unpopular and controversial.
Chrysler employees Friday were grateful. “Thank you for bailing out Chrysler,” a woman told him as he shook workers’ hands at the plant’s exit turnstile during a shift change.
“Thanks for helping me keep my job,” added another worker.
Recently GM, Chrysler and Ford have been reporting significant increases in sales, although the industry this week reported a falloff in May.
“This industry is back on its feet, repaying its debts, gaining ground,” Obama told Chrysler workers. “Because of you, we can once again say the best cars in the world are built right here in the U.S. of A.”
Republicans, however, were more interested in what Obama didn’t say. The Republican National Committee wasted no time sending out a press release titled “Noticeable Omission” that chided the president for failing to address the jobs numbers.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said it would have been “a little technical to be citing specific economic statistics, given the rather informal setting,” but he said the president had the jobs numbers in mind when he spoke of bumps in the road and the headwinds in the economy.
Administration officials say the overall employment trend is moving in the right direction, compared with the level of job losses that were occurring a couple years ago, and sought to place the poor jobs report in the context of a continuing, if sluggish, recovery.
