Reacting to Detroit's recently announced bankruptcy, Fox News' Gregg Jarrett and Chris Stirewalt repeatedly conflated Detroit automakers with the City of Detroit in order to attack President Obama for breaking a campaign promise to not “let Detroit go bankrupt.” However, the President's statement was clearly in reference to the Detroit automakers that received government assistance, not the city itself.

According to The New York Times, “Detroit, the cradle of America's automobile industry and once the nation's fourth-most-populous city, filed for bankruptcy on Thursday, the largest American city ever to take such a course.” After it was reported that the White House did not plan to offer financial assistance to the City of Detroit, Jarrett and Stirewalt questioned whether President Obama had gone back on a statement he made in October 2012 when he said, “We refused to let Detroit go bankrupt.” Jarrett asserted, “The president did vow, 'I will not let Detroit go bankrupt.' But you know, he did, didn't he?”

But, as CBS News reported at the time, Obama's statement was in reference to an op-ed written by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney in which Romney said, “Let Detroit go bankrupt.” According to CBS, the president was responding to that op-ed by pointing to the success of his administration's bailout of the auto-industry."

OBAMA: Just a few years ago, the auto industry wasn't just struggling - it was flatlining. GM and Chrysler were on the verge of collapse. Suppliers and distributors were at risk of going under. More than a million jobs across the country were on the line - and not just auto jobs, but the jobs of teachers, small business owners, and everyone in communities that depend on this great American industry.

But we refused to throw in the towel and do nothing. We refused to let Detroit go bankrupt.

As Slate's Matthew Yglesias wrote, President Obama and others often used the term “Detroit” to refer to the auto industry. According to Yglesias, “If you or someone you love is going around and finding old quotes in which the words 'Detroit' and 'bankruptcy' appear but it's absolutely clear from context that 'Detroit' is being used as metonymy for auto companies rather than as a way of referring to the municipality then please stop.”