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Who really said it

It pains me to see my old company, which has meant so much to America, on the ropes

Written by Lee Iacocca 1924–2019 · Ford and Chrysler executive; Chrysler chairman and CEO 1979–1992
Verified In copyright

It is the second sentence of a statement Iacocca issued on 30 April 2009, the day the Obama administration announced that Chrysler would file for Chapter 11 — thirty years after Iacocca had talked Washington into the loan guarantees that saved the same company. Newsweek published it ↗ the same day, in a piece by Julie Halpert, and is careful about the form: Iacocca “issued the following statement”. He wrote it; he did not say it in an interview.

Last verified 25 Sep 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“It pains me to see my old company, which has meant so much to America, on the ropes” Lee Iacocca, in a statement issued 30 April 2009, the day Chrysler's Chapter 11 filing was announced; published by Newsweek. Verified by quotle.info

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Still under copyright (rights held by Newsweek LLC (the article) and the estate of Lee Iacocca (the statement)). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Lee Iacocca — Ford and Chrysler executive; Chrysler chairman and CEO 1979–1992. Theme: "It pains me to see my old company, which has meant so much to America, on the ropes". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Provenance

The source

Issued
30 April 2009 — the day Chrysler’s Chapter 11 filing was announced
Published in
“It Pains Me”: Lee Iacocca on Chrysler’s slide into bankruptcy, Newsweek Web Exclusive
Reported by
Julie Halpert
Form
A written statement, quoted in full — not an interview answer

This is a sad day for me. It pains me to see my old company, which has meant so much to America, on the ropes. But Chrysler has been in trouble before, and we got through it, and I believe they can do it again. If they’re smart, they’ll bring together a consortium of workers, plant managers and dealers to come up with real solutions. These are the folks on the front lines, and they’re the key to survival. Let’s face it, if your car breaks down, you’re not going to take it to the White House to get fixed. But, if your company breaks down, you’ve got to go to the experts on the ground, not the bureaucrats. Statement continues

The statement runs on: “Every day I talk to dealers and managers, who are passionate and full of ideas. No one wants Chrysler to survive more than they do. So I’d say to the Obama administration, don’t leave them out. Put their passion and ideas to work.” Read in full from Newsweek’s page of 30 April 2009 ↗. The famous sentence is the setup; the point of the statement is the request that follows it.

The original article
Newsweek’s page as it stood in May 2009
Julie Halpert, "It Pains Me", Newsweek, 30 April 2009 (archived)

How we verified this

  • We read the source. “It Pains Me”: Lee Iacocca on Chrysler’s slide into bankruptcy ↗, by Julie Halpert, Newsweek Web Exclusive, dated 30 April 2009, captured by the Internet Archive on 4 May 2009. It introduces the quotation with “Iacocca took time to reflect on the demise of the company he once led and rescued and issued the following statement”, then prints it whole.
  • The sentence is verbatim in that statement: “This is a sad day for me. It pains me to see my old company, which has meant so much to America, on the ropes.”
  • Wikiquote’s sourced Lee Iacocca page ↗ carries the same quotation and cites the same Halpert article, giving the date as 30 April 2009.
  • The framing matters and the article supplies it: Halpert notes that the last time Chrysler faced bankruptcy was in 1979, when Iacocca — one year into his tenure as CEO — “convinced the government to bail out the company and provide $1.5 billion in federally backed loans”, and that the loans were repaid early. Wikipedia ↗ dates his Chrysler chairmanship and CEO tenure to 20 September 1979 – 31 December 1992.
  • “My old company” is Chrysler, not Ford. The statement names Chrysler in its next sentence, and Halpert’s article is about Chrysler’s filing throughout.
In copyright

Written and published in 2009, so firmly in copyright: quote the sentence with attribution rather than reproducing the statement whole. The excerpt above is quoted here for commentary and provenance. This is not legal advice.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

What gets lost

The attribution is not in doubt — this is Iacocca’s own sentence, dated and sourced. Two things about it do get mangled in reuse.

A written statement Mis-sourced

Newsweek is precise about this: Iacocca “issued the following statement”. It is not a remark from a sit-down interview, and a page quoting it as speech is quoting it wrongly. See the article ↗.

The half-quote Context stripped

Cut at “on the ropes”, the sentence reads as an elegy. In the statement it is the opening of an argument: bring in “a consortium of workers, plant managers and dealers”, because “if your company breaks down, you’ve got to go to the experts on the ground, not the bureaucrats.” Iacocca was lobbying, not mourning.

Ford Later variant

Iacocca is equally famous for the Mustang, so “my old company” can read as Ford. It is Chrysler: the next sentence of the statement names it, and the whole article is about Chrysler’s Chapter 11 filing.

Lee Iacocca wrote it, on 30 April 2009, about Chrysler, in a statement issued to Newsweek — read the original ↗.

Context

Why it mattered

In 1979 Iacocca had argued Washington into $1.5 billion in federally backed loans, then built the company back with the K-car and the minivan and repaid the money early. It made him the most famous businessman in America and the standing proof that a government rescue could work.

Thirty years later the same company was filing for Chapter 11 and he was eighty-four and had no part in it. That is what gives the sentence its weight: the man who wrote the playbook, watching from outside while someone else ran the same play.

The man who wrote the playbook for rescuing Chrysler, watching from outside while someone else ran the same play.

Read the full story

Halpert’s article makes the contrast explicit: “on Thursday, as President Obama announced the plan for Chrysler to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy, there is no white knight like Iacocca to save the company.” She attributes the collapse to Chrysler’s reliance on minivans and sport-utility vehicles and its neglect of fuel-efficient cars — which is to say, to the commercial logic of the vehicles Iacocca himself had introduced.

The advice in the statement is the part worth reading twice, because it is a specific procedural objection rather than sentiment: consult the dealers, plant managers and workers instead of the administration’s task force. “Let’s face it, if your car breaks down, you’re not going to take it to the White House to get fixed.” Coming from the man whose rescue depended entirely on Washington, it is a more complicated remark than it first sounds.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Leadership Failure

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Newsweek — "It Pains Me" (30 April 2009, archived)web.archive.org

The primary source: Julie Halpert’s article, printing Iacocca’s statement in full on the day Chrysler’s Chapter 11 filing was announced.
Wikiquote — Lee Iacoccaen.wikiquote.org

Sourced quotation page, citing the same Halpert article and date.
Wikipedia — Lee Iacoccaen.wikipedia.org

Biography (15 October 1924 – 2 July 2019): Ford president 1970–1978, Chrysler chairman and CEO 1979–1992.
Wikipedia — Chrysleren.wikipedia.org

Company history, including the 1979–80 federal loan guarantees and the 2009 bankruptcy the statement responds to.

The author

About Lee Iacocca

Lee Iacocca

1924–2019 · Ford and Chrysler executive; Chrysler chairman and CEO 1979–1992

Lido Anthony “Lee” Iacocca (15 October 1924 – 2 July 2019) was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, made his name at Ford with the Mustang, rose to its presidency and was fired in 1978. He moved to Chrysler, won federal loan guarantees that kept it alive, and built the company back on the K-car and the minivan before retiring at the end of 1992. He was his own pitchman on television and one of the few industrialists Americans could name. He founded the Iacocca Foundation for type 1 diabetes research after his wife Mary died of complications of the disease.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

Halpert, Julie. “‘It Pains Me’: Lee Iacocca on Chrysler’s Slide into Bankruptcy.” Newsweek, Web Exclusive, 30 April 2009. Quoting a statement issued by Lee Iacocca the same day. Consulted in the Internet Archive’s capture of 4 May 2009.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘It pains me to see my old company, which has meant so much to America, on the ropes’?” Last verified 25 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/it-pains-me-to-see-my-old-company-which-has-meant-so-much/

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