“It’s my belief that we need to provide assistance to the auto industry.” “But I think that it can’t be a blank check.”"My hope is that over the course of the next week, between the White House and Congress, the discussions are shaped around providing assistance but making sure that that assistance is conditioned on labor, management, suppliers, lenders, all of the stakeholders coming together with a plan — what does a sustainable U.S. auto industry look like?

Obama added:

“So that we are creating a bridge loan to somewhere as opposed to a bridge loan to nowhere. And that’s, I think, what you haven’t yet seen.”
“The challenges that we’re confronting are enormous,”. “And they’re multiple. And so there are times during the course of a given a day where you think, ‘Where do I start in terms of moving — moving things forward?’
“And I think that part of this next two months is to really get a clear set of priorities, understanding we’re not going be able to do everything at once, making sure the team is in place, and moving forward in a very deliberate way and sending a clear signal to the American people that we’re going to be thinking about them and what they’re going through.”