Soledad O'Brien challenges Romney advisor on public sector hiring comment

CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien asks Mitt Romney Senior Economic Advisor Jim Talent if the federal government supports public sector hiring and job retention. When Talent answers “No,” O’Brien lists several federal programs that support this claim.

O’Brien asks, “Aren’t firefighters, and police officers and teachers hired or kept from being fired by some federal dollars?”

Talent says, “No, it hasn’t been the practice of the federal government to pay local salaries and really shouldn’t be because the problem is of course it’s so unstable. The federal program runs out and then the job runs out. So I think Governor Romney’s certainly been right as a traditional matter of policy.”

After listing federal programs that support the public sector, O’Brien follows up with, “Many programs… actually support the hiring or re-hiring of teachers, or firefighters or police officers. So it sounds to me like what [Mitt Romney] is saying is not actually true. That the federal government does in fact fund that. That he’s wrong.”

Starting Point with Soledad O’Brien airs weekday mornings from 7-9am ET on CNN.