President Barack Obama met with a group of small-business owners Wednesday in a sub-shop in Edison, New Jersey to discuss his plan to support small businesses. The plan, which he proposed to Congress to help fuel economic recovery, would seek to encourage small businesses by facilitating access to investment capital.

“The recession has meant that folks are spending less. It means that small businesses have had a tougher time getting credit and getting loans,” President Obama said. “And that’s why when I took office, we put in place an economic plan specifically to help small businesses.”

At the meeting, the President ordered the “Super Sub,” with ham, salami, cappacola, proscuttini, cheese tomatoes and toppings.

Crowds, both supporters and protestors, awaited President Obama’s arrival. In his statements after lunch, the President expressed hope that both Democratic and Republican lawmakers would be able to reach an agreement on the policy. “This is as American as apple pie,” Obama remarked. “Small businesses are the backbone of our economy. They are central to our identity as a nation. They are going to lead this recovery. The folks standing beside me are going to lead this recovery.”

The daytime talk show hosts of ABC’s “The View” have a new guest today—the 44th president of the United States.

In the first interview of a sitting president in The View’s history, Obama faces the show’s women co-hosts, including renowned interviewer Barbara Walters, to discuss the administration’s accomplishments, jobs, the economy, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and family life inside the White House.

Obama has been on the show before, once in 2004 to promote his book, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, and again in March 2008. Michelle Obama also made a guest appearance on the show in June 2008, where she was spotted fist-bumping with the co-hosts.

But how did a daytime talk show appearance get on the president’s busy schedule? Going on the show, which has a largely female audience, is a way for Obama to “talk to the people where they are,” Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in a press briefing Tuesday.

Watch when the show, filmed Wednesday, airs at 11 a.m. EDT or check back later to watch the episode online.

Hello! My name is Ned Collins-Chase, and I will be contributing to the Obama Today blog with Michelle while I work as a State Department intern for the rest of the summer. I have been interested in Obama’s career ever since watching his address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. More recently however, his stance on healthcare has been of particular interest. As a student who graduates college within a year, I have a lot of questions about how the new healthcare bill will affect me personally, so I was eager to learn more when I heard he was launching a new site.

President Barack Obama released a video today, explaining the new Healthcare.gov website, a part of the new Affordable Care Act signed into law in late March.

The new website, which Obama demonstrates in the video, is designed to make it easier for consumers to view their healthcare options, as well as their rights under the new legislation. It allows users to search for their best insurance options based on their location and employment status, and for businesses to shop for healthcare options for their employees.

Price estimates will be available on the site by October 2010. President Obama expresses hope that users will find Healthcare.gov an easy tool for finding answers to all their healthcare questions in one place. “That’s why we passed this reform,” the President commented in the video. “[T]o put Americans in control of their healthcare.”

More facts on the new website are available at the White House website.

The world gets a sneak peek into the day-to-day schedule of President Obama in the latest move to make Obama’s presidency the most transparent ever.

Obama’s and Vice President Biden’s daily schedules went online Monday for your curiosity-driven, RSS-following, calendar-adding reading pleasure. The calendar, updated daily, lets you track Obama from his morning briefing in the Oval Office to an afternoon press statement in the Rose Garden to a nighttime fundraising dinner at a local hotel (and that’s just today in Washington).

What serves up tantalizing clues for the press reads like a reality show splurge for Obama fanatics. Already, I’m hooked. What do you think?

The White House condemned the leak of about 900,000 classified U.S. military records posted online by Wikileaks Sunday.

The documents, which cover a time period from January 2004 to December 2009, contain information about U.S. military efforts on the ground in Afghanistan, including information about civilian deaths and details about Taliban use of heat-seeking missiles, according to The New York Times, which received early copies of the reports along with London’s the Guardian newspaper and Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine.

In a statement released Sunday, President Obama’s national security advisor, Gen. James Jones, said the disclosure of these documents could put the lives of Americans and U.S. partners at risk and threaten the nation’s security.

“These irresponsible leaks will not impact our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan; to defeat our common enemies; and to support the aspirations of the Afghan and Pakistani people,” he said.

The reports cover a time period before Obama announced a new strategy on Dec. 1, 2009 to increase resources in Afghanistan and increase focus on al Qaeda and Taliban safe-havens in Pakistan. While challenges lie ahead, Jones said Obama’s strategy aims to address conflicts presented by violent extremist groups, increase bilateral efforts, and support the local people.

“We are now focused on breaking the Taliban’s momentum and building Afghan capacity so that the Afghan government can begin to assume responsibility for its future,” he said. “The United States remains committed to a strong, stable, and prosperous Afghanistan.”

President Obama put the U.S. government on a fiscal diet Thursday, signing a bill designed to cut down on government waste, fraud and abuse and ensure the most efficient use of American tax dollars.

The Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act reflects promises Obama made on the campaign trail—to make the government more transparent, efficient and responsive to the needs of the people, he said.

“The reality is that right now, in these difficult economic times, families across this country are cutting every frill and stretching every dollar as far as they can—they should expect no less from their government.”

The bill includes cuts to unnecessary or wasteful programs (including money to build a new presidential helicopter fleet) and a budget that will reduce non-defense discretionary spending to its lowest level in 50 years.

Obama said the bill puts the government on track to reach the goal of saving $40 billion by the end of the next fiscal year.

For more information on Obama’s recent economic recovery efforts, check out a video of the president’s statements today.