Biden calls Trump elitist during hometown visit
SCRANTON, Pa. — President Joe Biden returned to his workingclass childhood hometown of Scranton on Tuesday to call for higher taxes on the rich and cast Donald Trump as an out-of-touch elitist, part of an attempt to blunt the populist appeal of his predecessor’s comeback bid.
Biden’s stop opened three days of campaigning in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania while his opponent spends much of the week in a New York City courtroom for his first criminal trial.
Biden used Scranton, a city of roughly 75,000 people, as the backdrop to argue that getting rich in America is fine, but should come with heftier tax bills. He dismissed Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee and a billionaire, as a tool of wealthy interests.
It’s all aimed at reframing the conversation around the economy, which has left many Americans feeling sour about their financial situations at a time of stubborn inflation and elevated interest rates despite low unemployment.
“When I look at the economy, I don’t look at it through the eyes of Mara-Lago. I look at it through the eyes of Scranton,” the president said, contrasting his modest upbringing with the Florida estate where the former president now lives.
Biden has proposed a 25% minimum tax rate for billionaires, which he said would swell federal coffers by hundreds of billions of dollars. He added such levies are “how we invest in the country.”
“Scranton values or Mar-a-Lago values,” Biden said. “These are the competing visions for our economy that raise questions of fundamental fairness at the heart of this campaign.” He spoke at a community center from a stage flanked by a banner reading “Tax Fairness for All Americans.”
The president said decades of GOP policies that cut taxes for the wealthy with the idea of stimulating the economy “failed America, and Donald Trump embodies that failure.” He detailed his own working class upbringing while scoffing that Trump’s background taught him little more than “the best way to get rich is to inherit it.” Along the way, Biden worked in jokes about the sharp fall in market value of the former president’s social media platform.
Biden was taking part in a training session for grassroots organizers at a union hall before swinging by his old house, which has served as a touchstone for him through the years, according to a person familiar with the plans who declined to be identified ahead of Biden’s arrival.
“Joe Biden has never forgotten where he’s from,” Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti said before Biden’s speech. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro echoed the idea, saying, “This is a guy who has never forgotten the people he grew up with.”
“They’re the people on his mind, and they’re the people in his heart,” Shapiro said, adding Biden administration polices are “putting money back in your pocket every day.”