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T he potential collapse of the auto industry would be "a disaster" amid today's economic crisis, President-elect Barack Obama told CBS' "60 Minutes" in a wide-ranging interview airing Sunday. "It's my belief that we need to provide assistance to the auto industry," Obama tells veteran correspondent Steve Kroft, according to excerpts released by CBS. "But I think that it can't be a blank check." The Senate is expected to vote this week on emergency loans to the auto industry, though the measure faces strong opposition from many Republicans. The bill would authorize loans to the auto industry from the Treasury Department's $700 billion fund to bail out the financial services industry. Detroit auto executives are scheduled to plead their case in public hearings in the House and Senate. Obama, in the "60 Minutes" interview, says, "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? "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." Obama, joined by his wife Michelle, discusses the impact his election victory has had on his family, as well as his priorities, including the economy and the Iraq war. "The challenges that we're confronting are enormous," he says. "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."
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