© Reuters. U.S. President Joe Biden waves as he steps from Air Force One upon his arrival in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., December 5, 2023. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
By Jarrett Renshaw and Nandita Bose
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – President Joe Biden kicked off a three-day, star-studded fundraising journey in California on Friday by poking fun at Republican frontrunner Donald Trump for joking about becoming a dictator on his first day in office if he were to become president again.
Trump stated on Tuesday that he will not become a dictator if he becomes U.S. president again, except “on the first day.”
“Thank God, just one day,” Biden quipped at a fundraising event in Los Angeles at the home of Michael Smith, a star interior designer, and his partner, James Costos, a former HBO executive who was President Barack Obama’s ambassador to Spain.
Biden called Trump, who lost the 2020 election but sought to overturn the results, a threat to democracy. Trump was impeached in August for extensive efforts to overturn the election.
Biden’s journey comes a day after the Department of Justice filed new criminal charges against Biden’s son, Hunter, accusing him of failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes while spending thousands of dollars on a lavish lifestyle. The president did not mention his son during his remarks at the fundraising event.
California – and the deep-pocketed entertainment industry – has long served as a major funding source for Democrats, but prolonged strikes by actors and screenwriters had a chilling effect on fundraising.
The end of the labor unrest has unleashed bottled-up dollars, said Jeffrey Katzenberg, a film mogul and campaign co-chair who has emerged as a prominent voice in Biden’s bid to win re-election in November 2024.
“It will be the most powerful day and a half for the campaign to date and probably one of the most powerful day and a halfs before a general election, where things sort of kick into a whole ‘nother gear, that we’ve ever had out here for any candidate ever,” Katzenberg said in an interview with Reuters.
Biden was scheduled to take part in two Los Angeles fundraisers expected to include directors Steven Spielberg and Rob Reiner and musicians Barbra Streisand and Lenny Kravitz. The California swing is part of a blitz of at least 9 fundraisers Biden will hold before the end of the month.
The fundraisers in California and an earlier round in Boston are expected to raise at least $15 million, according to a source familiar with the events, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The total haul in the fourth quarter of 2023 is expected to be close to $67 million, the source said, adding that the amount will be similar to that raised by then President Obama during the same period in 2011.
Katzenberg, who is helping to organize one of the fundraisers, said the final number was still fluid.
