{"id":53133,"date":"2025-12-05T16:30:27","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T16:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/53133\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T16:30:27","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T16:30:27","slug":"biden-stops-by-pennsylvania-stores-to-talk-up-his-record-on-small-business-creation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/53133\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden stops by Pennsylvania stores to talk up his record on small business creation"},"content":{"rendered":"

EMMAUS, Pennsylvania (AP) \u2014 President Joe Biden<\/a> on Friday tried his hand at retail politics \u2014 stopping in a trio of Pennsylvania stores to stress the value of small businesses and talk up his economic record.<\/p>\n

It was a distinct change from the set speeches that the Democratic president usually gives to highlight his policies about an economy<\/a> with strong employment but levels of inflation<\/a> that worry voters. Biden gladhanded and joshed at a running shoe store, bicycle shop and coffee house in Emmaus, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy name is Joe Biden and I work for the governor and the senator,\u201d the president said as he stepped into the Nowhere Coffee Co. along with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pennsylvania. Biden ordered what appeared to be a mango smoothie. Obviously, the people in the coffee house knew who he was, with one of them joking, \u201cThis is a normal day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sauntering along Main Street, Biden seemed to be in full campaign mode several months ahead of the November election, which could rematch him against his 2020 opponent, former President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

Biden won the surrounding Lehigh County with 53.2% of the vote in 2020, helping him to secure a victory in Pennsylvania and the White House. It\u2019s a state that he will likely need again this year to win reelection.<\/p>\n

Biden\u2019s pitch Friday was that he\u2019s been better for small businesses than Trump, a billionaire, real estate magnate and reality television host who won the presidency in 2016 on the premise that he knows how to grow the economy.<\/p>\n

At the Emmaus Run Inn, Biden stressed what he saw as a key difference. There have been 16 million applications to start new businesses during the first three years of his presidency, which he noted is the highest number on record.<\/p>\n

Drawing on recent consumer sentiment data, Biden said during a later stop at a firefighter training center in nearby Allentown that people are starting to feel better about the economy as inflation has receded from its June 2002 high of 9.1% to 3.4%.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you notice, they\u2019re feeling much better about how the economy is doing,\u201d Biden said in response to a reporter\u2019s question. \u201cWhat we haven\u2019t done is letting them know exactly who got it changed. … Everybody\u2019s doing better and they believe it. They know it. And it\u2019s just beginning to sink in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shapiro, Pennsylvania\u2019s Democratic governor, said that Biden discussed with the shop owners the running habits of his wife, Jill, and the kinds of bikes that he enjoys riding.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was cool for him to be able to see the small businesses that power our economy and the folks behind that,\u201d Shapiro said.<\/p>\n

The president also faced national security questions from the scrum of reporters that trailed him. He said the United States and its allies were not in a proxy war with Iran after a missile strike on Houthis who have attacked ships in the Red Sea. He later said he was \u201cvery concerned\u201d about the risk of the attacks increasing oil prices.<\/p>\n

But Biden went back to some of his favorite lines while in Pennsylvania. As he left the coffee shop, the president noted that his birthplace was just 90 minutes away.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the way, we\u2019re almost in heaven, we\u2019re almost in Scranton,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Josh Boak reported from Washington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EMMAUS, Pennsylvania (AP) \u2014 President Joe Biden on Friday tried his hand at retail politics \u2014 stopping in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[60,34,10870,298,4481,1578,33,28,30,29,7103,2918],"class_list":["post-53133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-business","tag-donald-trump","tag-government-and-politics","tag-government-policy","tag-inflation","tag-joe-biden","tag-josh-shapiro","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-robert-casey","tag-small-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}