Celebrities and elites at the highest levels of American society and industry have expressed their views on the occasion. President Biden’s re-election campaign With donations galore, that could undermine the 46th president’s down-home “Scranton Joe” and “Amtrak Joe” image.
Biden takes the stage Peacock Theatre of Los Angeles earlier this month, when he was accompanied by former President Obama and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. Audiences, performers and others who attended the event in support of Biden included Hollywood heavyweights such as George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Barbra Streisand, Jack Black, Jason Bateman, Kathryn Hahn and Mindy Kaling, reports Vanity Fair. The Biden campaign said earlier this month that the star-studded fundraiser was a monetary success for the president’s re-election campaign, shattering the previous Democratic fundraising benchmark with $30 million in donations.
However, this lavish fundraising campaign is taking place at a time when inflation is hurting the average American family, and the President is presenting himself to voters as a common man from a modest background in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
“2024 will be a choice between two very different challenges” Economic outlook for the US“Donald Trump, who looks at the world from his country club at Mar-a-Lago, and President Biden, who looks at the world from his kitchen table in Scranton,” Biden’s campaign website reads.
President Biden laughs with former President Obama during a campaign fundraiser at the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles on June 15, 2024. (MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
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Former President Trump, UFC President Dana White during the UFC 295 event at Madison Square Garden on November 11, 2023 in New York City. (Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images)
The 2023-2024 election cycle is projected to be the most expensive in history, with Forbes reporting that political ad spending across the White House and congressional races will exceed $10 billion.
After Biden announced in April last year that he would “finish the job” and run for re-election, the Biden-Harris campaign ramped up fundraising for an anticipated re-election runoff against former President Trump.
President Biden speaks to host Jimmy Kimmel during his first in-person appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” in Hollywood, California, June 8, 2022. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
Last year, during the Hollywood writers’ strike, Biden reached out to Broadway stars to raise money for the campaign, with actors such as Sara Bareilles, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Ben Platt appearing at a star-studded fundraiser on Biden’s behalf in September. The AP reported,
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As 2023 drew to a close, Biden embarked on a Hollywood-focused fundraiser campaign. Singer James Taylor performed during a Boston fundraiser in December before the president traveled to Los Angeles, where he held multiple fundraisers that included appearances by filmmaker Steven Spielberg, director and actor Rob Reiner and producer Shonda Rhimes, as well as California politicians such as Governor Gavin Newsom and Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff. Singer Lenny Kravitz performed during the event, which cost between $1,000 and $500,000 per ticket, the Los Angeles Daily News reported at the time.
Vice President Kamala Harris also attended lavish fundraising events last year, including one held on Martha’s Vineyard. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Vice President Kamala Harris He also participated in a number of great fundraisers last year, including one on Martha’s Vineyard with the “Suits” actor During Wendell Pierce An event that was described as a “grassroots” event, tickets sold from $50 to $10,000.
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Hollywood stars and executives were among the first to fill Biden’s campaign coffers before the election cycle began this year. Jeffrey Katzenberg, chairman of Walt Disney StudiosFor example, the N.C. contributed $889,600 to Biden last year, as did Lin-Manuel Miranda when he donated $20,000, Deadline reported last year. Other Hollywood and tech leaders made sizable donations to the Biden Victory Fund, the DNC or other Democratic initiatives in 2023, such as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman who donated $200,000, actor and voice actor Seth MacFarlane who donated $100,000, and musician Michael Skloff who donated $100,000, the outlet reported.
The Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee announced earlier this year that they had raised $97 million in the final three months of the 2023 campaign. PBS reported that Biden’s glitzy events with Hollywood stars provided a “boost.”
President Biden and former Presidents Obama and Clinton during a campaign fundraiser event at Radio City Music Hall in New York on March 28, 2024. (Reuters/Elizabeth Frantz)
The Biden-Harris campaign continued to attract celebrities and other wealthy elites this year, including an event in March at Radio City in New York City hosted by actress Mindy Kaling, with late-night host Stephen Colbert moderating a conversation with Biden, Obama and former President Bill Clinton. Special guests such as Queen Latifah, Lizzo and Ben Platt were also in attendance, according to media reports. The event raised more than $26 million, according to the campaign.
Harris also attended fundraising events in her native California earlier this year, where she joined a clean energy leader in San Francisco, followed by a stop at the home of author Robert Mailer Anderson and Oracle heiress Nicola Miner in the city’s Pacific Heights neighborhood. The Pacific Heights fundraiser raised more than $100,00 per person for attendees, and included endorsements from theater director Jonathan Moscone and Mayor London Breed, as well as a performance by singer Carole King. San Francisco Standard It was reported at that time.
Trump, whose real estate background and reality TV success put him in Hollywood’s orbit before he entered politics, has also held high-profile fundraisers this election cycle, but rarely with movie heavyweights. Instead, he has held lavish events at his Mar-a-Lago estate, met with residents of wealthy neighborhoods such as Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood, and attended high-profile public events at Madison Square Garden, but not for fundraising purposes.
President Biden is seen speaking in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovergenes)
Fox News Digital reported this weekend that Biden previously had a massive fundraising edge over Trump in the 2024 White House race, but recent gains following Trump’s conviction in a New York criminal trial have nearly eliminated Biden’s lead. Trump and the RNC raised more funds than Biden and the DNC for the second consecutive month in May, despite not yet having begun buying ads for the general election. Biden’s campaign, in contrast, has spent at least $65 million on ad buys.
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“The only people in America supporting Joe Biden’s failed campaign are Hollywood elites,” Trump spokeswoman Caroline Levitt said in a statement earlier this month.
Biden’s spectacular fundraising was also criticized in a Wall Street Journal article by Fox News contributor Daniel Henninger last week, in which he said that after decades of the Democratic Party benefiting from Hollywood money, the 2024 election cycle could change the game for the left-wing party as inflation continues to rise.
Protesters rally ahead of President Biden’s fundraising event at Radio City Music Hall on March 28, 2024 in New York City. (Alex Kent/Getty Images)
“The The Democratic Party’s celebrity dependency That has been background noise for decades and has not been a problem until now. This presidential election is a closely contested one. With cost of living being the No. 1 issue, every swing-state vote demands attention. In this high-stakes context, the spectacle of the incumbent president crisscrossing from Europe to Hollywood is something Mr. Biden and his party do not need. That is Hollywood Joe,” Heniger wrote.
“But note that on the same day that Mr. Biden tapped a Hollywood ATM, Mr. Trump preached at a black church in Detroit. It is becoming harder to suppress the reality revealed in polls that Mr. Trump, the former host of “The Apprentice,” is peeling away the layers of the traditional Democratic coalition — blacks, Hispanics, young Americans and possibly Jewish voters. The Democratic base used to have something resembling a common identity, but it doesn’t anymore. And it’s too late to fix that,” He continued,
Biden’s campaign faced criticism last month when actor Robert DeNiro headlined a campaign event outside the Manhattan courthouse where Trump faced — and was ultimately convicted of — 34 counts of falsifying business records.
Actor Robert De Niro points to a supporter of former President Trump after a news conference outside the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse on May 28, 2024 in New York. (Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
,Donald Trump not only wants to destroy Not cities, but countries. And ultimately, he can destroy the world,” De Niro said at the press conference. Biden and Harris were present during the campaign event.
Following his remarks, De Niro was called “a bad actor” and “trash” by supporters, and was accused of being a “paid actor for the DNC”.
De Niro yelled at one of the pro-Trump protesters, saying, “You’re an idiot.”
Critics on social media subsequently slammed the event, calling it a “terrifying event for Democrats” and comparing it to the satirical political comedy show “Veep.”
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Fox News Digital reached out to the Biden campaign for comment about recent star-studded fundraising events and asked if they could tone down the president’s “Scranton Joe” image while inflation is on the rise this election cycle.
