Walker Says New Campaign Ad Is Not An Attack On Trek Bicycle Corporation

Gov. Scott Walker told reporters on Thursday that he’s not using his campaign to attack the Trek Bicycle Corporation, even though it began airing a 30-second commercial this week that blasts Democrat Mary Burke and her family business for outsourcing jobs.

Walker’s comments came as Mary Burke’s brother John Burke, who is Trek’s current CEO, blasted the Walker for making what he said were false statements about the Wisconsin company.

After Burke’s campaign said Walker should be ashamed for attacking a Wisconsin company like Trek, Walker told reporters he was just giving voters both sides of the story.

“I’m not attacking anything,” he said. “I’m just saying the facts are the facts, and if people want to measure her work at Trek — she’s taking credit for building that company into what it is today — people should also know that she has personally profited from a company that took taxpayers’ money and then sent jobs overseas.”

Trek CEO John Burke shot back, releasing a statement Thursday accusing Walker of making false claims “to try to harm the company” that his family had worked hard to build.

“Mary Burke did not make any manufacturing decisions; I did,” said Burke. “If I had not made the decision to source product globally, including from the United States, Germany, Holland and China, there would be no Trek and no 1,000 Wisconsin Trek jobs today.”

Walker’s own Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) produced a promotional video for Trek last year featuring John Burke, in which the CEO describes the company as a Wisconsin success story.

WEDC has also given state grants to two companies that outsourced jobs, and WEDC CEO Reed Hall told Madison’s ABC affiliate WKOW-TV this week that “some companies, to be successful financially, need to outsource.”

You can watch the Walker campaign’s new ad criticizing Burke and Trek, as well as the WEDC video promoting Trek, below: