US President Joe Biden put aside international jet lag on Saturday and flew directly from the G7 summit in Italy to Los Angeles to attend a star-studded fundraising event that will bring millions of dollars to his electoral bid against Donald Trump in November.
The president was accompanied by former Democratic President Barack Obama at an event that included the presence of actors Julia Roberts and George Clooney, as well as Barbra Streisand.
Surrounded by Hollywood stars, Biden became very serious when referring to his rival Trump, saying that whoever wins the election will likely have to make at least two new nominations to the Supreme Court.
“If he is re-elected he will nominate two more upside-down flags,” Biden said, referring to the sitting conservative judge who in 2021 had an upside-down American flag in front of his home, a symbol of Trump’s false claims of election fraud.
Trump, in an unprecedented attempt to return to the White House after being convicted in a criminal case, was also campaigning in Detroit, Michigan, where he boasted that his own fundraising is “the highest in the history of politics”.
Michigan is a state that Biden must win in the November elections.
Aiming to gain electoral support from African Americans, Trump visited a church in Detroit, where he told hundreds of voters that “corrupt Joe Biden has done nothing for you except talk.”
Trump then addressed a convention of high-profile far-right Republicans and supporters of his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
There, Trump criticized Biden’s climate protection package, mocked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “sellout” and renewed his incendiary rhetoric about what he calls “Biden’s immigrant invasion,” saying he will stop it with the biggest deportation. in American history.
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Biden, meanwhile, hoped to inject cash into his campaign.
Hollywood stars joined Obama at the gala evening that has already raised $28 million, according to Biden’s campaign team.
“It’s the biggest Democratic fundraiser ever,” Clooney said.
Outside the event, groups of protesters chanting slogans were moved away by riot police.
Meanwhile, Obama took the stage with Biden, his former vice president, for a conversation moderated by American comedian Jimmy Kimmel.
“We have someone to worry about,” Obama told donors, referring to Trump. “And there is a whole agenda that should concern us. But we can be proud to affirm the extraordinary work that Joe has done,” he exclaimed.
Biden’s appearance among the stars marked his absence at the international peace conference on Ukraine on Saturday in Switzerland, which Vice President Kamala Harris attended.
Biden, 81, has had a recent streak of grueling foreign trips focused on the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza and this appointment with the stars marked a change in his schedule.
At the G7 summit of nations, Biden helped seal a deal for a $50 billion loan to Ukraine using frozen Russian assets and signed a 10-year security agreement with Zelensky.
And the week before he was in Normandy, France, for the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings of World War II.
Biden was joined for the evening by family, including his daughter Ashley and granddaughters Maisy and Naomi. A show of family support after a difficult time for Biden due to the conviction this week of her son Hunter on weapons charges.
Polls show that Biden and Trump are largely tied, and many voters are disappointed by this rematch between the oldest president in US history and a controversial 78-year-old tycoon convicted after a high-profile court case.
Both candidates have fought a fundraising battle: Biden managed to raise more for several months, but Trump has fared better of late, as his supporters rally behind him following the guilty verdict in his trial for paying money secretly to a porn star to buy her silence.
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THE NATION
