Politics

McAuliffe says Obama ‘has put a tremendous effort on small businesses’ [VIDEO]

Nicholas Ballasy Senior Video Reporter
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When asked by The Daily Caller, former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe did not disagree with President Barack Obama’s statement that “if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

“I’ve started 30 companies. In fact, I’ve just started a couple new — aggressive, as you know, announced last week — a deal I actually negotiated with [Mississippi] Gov. Haley Barbour, the former chair of the Republican National Committee,” McAuliffe, the chair of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign for president, told TheDC after attending a panel discussion with Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs. “I went to China and bought their most advanced electric car company, moved the entire operations to the United States of America.”

“We just opened our production line in Mississippi the other day. We’re going to have — by the end of the year — close to 940 new employees making products — state of the art employees — that were once made in China, so, but I didn’t do it alone. There are a lot of pieces involved in it. I’m founder and chairman but we’ve got a lot of people involved in all these operations.”

McAuliffe, who ran for governor of Virginia in 2009, was also asked for his response to some Republicans saying that Obama’s comments are evidence that he believes in a government-centered society.

“I don’t think he does,” he told TheDC. “Everybody in this public arena makes statements and gets interpreted different ways. He’s put a tremendous effort on small businesses. As you know, small tax cuts for businesses and all that. He has continually pushed that for tax cuts for businesses.”

“The average individual in America’s got $3,600 in tax savings,” he continued, “because of the tax cuts so, you know, listen — there’s going to be statements here, there’s going to be statements there. We’ve got a long way to go but I’d rather be in President Obama’s shoes than [former Massachusetts] Gov. Romney’s today.”

McAuliffe said Romney has to “do a better job” of “explaining” his offshore bank accounts.

“You’re running for president,” McAuliffe said. “People just don’t get that. I mean, why do you have an offshore bank account? So, we’ve got a long way to go.”

“I remind everybody that most of the independents who truly make up the voting electorate — because we’re unfortunately so divided in this nation today — it’s the independents who will make, and they’re not even going to begin to look at this until after Labor Day [on Sept. 3]. So, I mean, I like the position we’re in.”

UPDATE: “Terry McAuliffe, a lifelong businessperson and entrepreneur, believes that companies succeed based on the merits of their business plans, access to capital, long-range forecasting and intangibles like perseverance,” a spokesperson for the former DNC chair emails. “If you’ve got a business, you did indeed build it, just as he has done himself–over 30 times.”

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Nicholas Ballasy