WASHINGTON, D.C. — “A punch in the gut” is how Senator Rob Portman described Wednesday. He and Sen. Sherrod Brown have spent months trying to convince General Motors to stay in Lordstown, Ohio — but with little success.
- Last Cruze rolled off assembly line Wednesday
- Cruze production began in 2010
- GM reported selling 142,000+ Cruze models last year
The final Chevy Cruze rolled off the production line Wednesday afternoon, meaning 1,500 jobs are now gone. As the 6-million-square-foot plant slows to a halt, Ohio’s two U.S. senators have few answers about the future — except to say they’re continuing to push GM to bring a new product to the Mahoning Valley.
“I share the belief that it’s possible, and some hope, and we keep fighting,” Brown (D-OH) said in an interview with Spectrum on Wednesday. “I mean, we don’t give up on this. We keep talking to GM. The community keeps showing GM that this is the right community for them to be in — 53 years of doing it right.”
In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Portman (R-OH) echoed Brown.
“My hope is that will still happen,” Portman said, referring to GM bringing a new product to Lordstown. “We’re not giving up. They still own the plant. We’re still pushing them.”
But not much progress has been made since GM CEO Mary Barra visited Portman and Brown on Capitol Hill in December — and made no commitments.
“We are trying to do the right thing,” she said at the time. “We think Ohio is a very important auto state.”
In an interview with Spectrum in February, Portman mentioned he had met with GM officials just days before.
“We’re not getting any positive indications, so we need to have some help,” Portman said. “And maybe between the local government, state government and federal government, and the people in the community who are stepping forward, we can turn this around.”
Both senators said the workers at Lordstown and the surrounding communities have done their part to keep GM afloat, and now it’s GM’s turn to do its part before it’s too late.
“General Motors ought to put a new product there,” Portman told CNN on Wednesday. “I mean, if the Chevy Cruze isn’t selling, which I understand, then we ought to be rewarded by all the hard work and all the success they’ve had at that plant by giving us a new product.”
Brown said: “We know it’s not just the 4,500 jobs at Lordstown [that have been lost in the last few years]. It’s the thousands of feeder plants that are making the components and the supply chain, and it’s thousands of restaurant jobs and car dealership jobs and other retail jobs and schoolteachers and firefighters — and all the people that depend on a prosperous General Motors.”
Brown also blamed President Trump for not helping enough to keep the plant open. He said he doesn’t understand why the president has ‘been absent,’ especially after Trump told Ohioans during a rally that their jobs weren’t going anywhere.”