May 23 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said General Motors Corp. will reemerge from financial turmoil a “strong company” and that permitting it and Chrysler LLC to collapse could have triggered an economic depression.

GM got $4 billion in additional assistance to continue operations, the U.S. Treasury Department said yesterday. The assistance brings to $19.4 billion the total GM has received from the government so far, according to a Treasury Department document.

Allowing either automaker to liquidate would have been a “huge anti-stimulus on the economy as a whole and could have dragged us deeper into recession or even depression,” Obama told C-SPAN in an interview.

“Ultimately, I think GM is going to be a strong company and we are going to be pulling out as soon as the economy recovers and they’ve completed their restructuring,” Obama said in the interview.

The two troubled car companies are under pressure from the Obama administration to reduce costs and come up with a more economically viable business plan. GM faces a probable bankruptcy filing by June 1, a deadline set by Obama.

Chrysler is reorganizing in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. A Treasury document released yesterday says Chrysler got $757 million in bankruptcy financing. The new Chrysler is going to be called Chrysler Group LLC.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kim Chipman Washington at KChipman@Bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: May 23, 2009 11:20 EDT