Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Kelly appeared with Fox News host Neil Cavuto on Saturday to defend himself and the automotive industry from bizarre charges made by Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters several days earlier on the House floor.
Kelly, who owns a car dealership, insisted that the industry does not discriminate on the basis of sex or color when making business decisions.
“We’re talking about thousands upon thousands of auto dealers and millions of people who work in the industry, and making a broad statement that these are people who discriminate against non-white buyers,” Kelly said. “That is absolutely preposterous.”
Calling Waters’ argument not one “based on fact,” and the study she cited “flawed” and “junk,” Kelly told Cavuto the “rates they pay” are based on “something called a beacon score” and have nothing to do with race or gender.
The two had clashed on the House floor earlier in the week during a debate about the repeal of Obama-era legislation protecting consumers from automobile dealer discrimination.
Contesting Waters’ charge that dealers “think women are stupid” and “have been taken advantage of,” Kelly said she was attacking “the integrity” of an entire industry, of which he is a part.
“To say that somehow what we do is we prey on non-white people is incredibly divisive,” Kelly said. “It’s not who we are as a country, and if we continue down this path, this cancer that’s working its way through our society and breaking us down as a people, you can’t talk that way.”
“As a person that works in the automobile industry you cannot sit there and listen to that kind of talk and not rise up and say that is flawed, that is false and that is untrue,” he continued.
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