Biden Courts Mega-Donors at Luxury Washington Hotel
With his 2024 reelection bid firmly launched, President Joe Biden is taking part in an April 28 Democratic National Committee (DNC) reception at the luxury Salamander D.C. Hotel in Washington.
It’s part of a multi-day meeting with 150 top Democratic donors, as reported by the Associated Press (AP).
First Lady Jill Biden accompanied her husband in the motorcade to the event.
AP reports that the summit will feature sessions on Saturday focused on helping Democrats “fund winning campaigns from the top of the ticket on down,” according to Biden’s reelection campaign.
“We’re at the beginning of the beginning. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. And we are in an enviable position in that we’re singularly focused on running and winning in November 2024 and all of our efforts and resources are really focused on that,” said Dreamworks mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, a Biden campaign co-chair, according to the AP.
An in-depth story from Fox News expands on Katzenberg’s close ties to China, including his work with China’s government on a Shanghai production studio and his formal and informal meetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
After his election in 2020, Biden reportedly considered naming Katzenberg or then-former Disney CEO Bob Iger ambassador to China.
The AP reports that the donor summit is not itself a fundraiser.
Biden’s involvement in its Friday evening kickoff is a relative rarity in his schedule.
Axios reported on April 28 that Biden held “just a dozen public events after 6 p.m.” in 2023.
Biden’s Heavyweight Donors in 2020
The president has set a strong precedent for fundraising in 2024.
Biden’s 2020 campaign broke fundraising records. It amassed over $1 billion, hundreds of millions more than President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign.
The Biden 2020 war chest included more than $93 million from Bloomberg LP and more than $63 million from Future Forward USA.
According to OpenSecrets, top 2020 donors to that organization included Facebook billionaire Dustin Moskovitz. More than $45 million also came from Asana, the project management software company Moskovitz founded after leaving Facebook.
Future Forward USA also received millions from accused FTX fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried. Significant sums came through both direct donations from Bankman-Fried and through his cryptocurrency trading firm Alameda Research.
Priorities USA Action, which gave more than $26 million to help get Biden elected in 2020, received millions that election cycle from various mega-donors, including Michael Bloomberg, Paloma Partners’ Donald Sussman, hedge fund manager James Simons, and Hollywood producer Jeffrey Skoll.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
