Mark Haines Thinks Auto Promises Are Baloney

CNBC Squawk On The Street anchor and reliable curmudgeon Mark Haines doesn't trust the Big Three automakers -- Ford, GM and Chrysler -- to behave with government aid. He predicts that the automakers will promise to make environmentally-friendly cars and won't ever actually do it.

Then CNBC auto reporter Phil LeBeau comes in, trying to defend the long lead time the auto industry would need to create "green cars," and Haines railroads him, too. Erin Burnett tries, as she often does, to keep the peace.

WATCH:

HAINES: Never. They will never make good on those promises. They will do what the banks have done and what everyone else has done -- they'll tell us one thing to get the money and once they get the money, forget it.

LEBEAU: Mark, it's a long-lead business. I mean you can say you're gonna make green cars, who's gonna be able to check for another two or three years?

HAINES: You know what, Phil? I mean, I'm sorry. But the American auto industry drove itself off a cliff, OK? It drove itself off a cliff.