‘Middle class’ Joe turns to the Hollywood elite for donations: Biden to attend fundraisers with Steven Spielberg, Shonda Rhimes, Rob Reiner and singer-songwriter James Taylor to ask for cash for 2024

President Joe Biden is turning to Hollywood stars, rockers, producers and hitmakers to raise campaign cash for the 2024 election, where he faces Donald Trump and voters express dissatisfaction with their choices.

Biden began a string of nine major fundraisers on Tuesday when he left the White House and headed to Boston, where singer-songwriter James Taylor will perform in an evening concert.

The “You’ve Got a Friend” singer has performed for Biden in the past and defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Now he and other brave individuals are donating their time and star power in a third attempt to keep Trump out of the White House.

Biden, 81, has already begun television advertising earlier than usual, a sign that he intends to rely heavily on the airwaves even as he increases his campaign travel to raise funds.

Season of giving: President Joe Biden traveled to Boston on Tuesday for three fundraising events. He has campaign events planned

That will take him to Hollywood this weekend, now that the writers’ strike is over.

The sprint includes at least nine fundraisers before the end of the month, starting Tuesday. Biden will hold three events in the Democratic stronghold of Boston, capped by a Taylor concert.

He heads to California on Friday for a two-day stop, where he will tap into the deep pockets of Hollywood stars such as directors Steven Spielberg and Rob Reiner, who is taking a break from the reboot of the 1980s cult classic This Is Spinal Tap. ‘

Friday’s event in Los Angeles is also expected to attract wealthy donors from the legal, technology and political worlds to the home of Michael Smith, the famed interior designer, and his partner James Costos, a former HBO executive who served as President Barack Obama’s ambassador to Spain. sources said.

The president raises money in Boston and then in Los Angeles during a fundraising campaign for his re-election.

According to sources, musician Lenny Kravitz will perform at the event. He appeared at the Kennedy Center Honors and was at the White House under President Obama when his uncle, Private First Class Leonard M. Kravitz, was awarded the Medal of Honor.

Spielberg and his wife, actress Kate Capshaw, will host. TV producer Shonda Rhimes, the brains behind “Grey’s Anatomy” and other hits, will also be there.

Wendy Schmidt, wife of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Rick Caruso and former ambassador Robert Tuttle will attend the event, sources said.

En route to Boston, White House deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton said the president’s trip was “definitely covered under federal guidelines” when asked about the absence of an official event rather than a campaign one.

She said the president is president “wherever he is” and that there will be “some days in the future when it’s all political travel” and sometimes days when it’s a mix. (This allows the White House to cover most of the travel costs.)

“We are aggressively working on our fundraising program and hope to once again outperform MAGA,” Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said.

Next week, Biden will return to the battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, where he has visited multiple times as president, and Maryland with Democratic state governors Josh Shapiro and Wes Moore.

Vice President Kamala Harris and campaign confidants including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and California Sen. Alex Padilla, as well as Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, will also lead fundraising efforts in December.

Biden also campaigned at an event in Denver last week.

Biden will need a significant war chest to take on the general election, which could include a rematch with his predecessor Trump. Recent polls have shown the GOP frontrunner leading Biden in hypothetical matchups in key swing states and nationally.

Biden and Demo The Democratic National Committee reported receiving more than $71 million for his re-election bid in the quarter ending Sept. 30, even as polls show him leading a tight race against Trump in battleground states. They earned a similar amount in the previous quarter.

However, Republican donors are currently divided ahead of the party’s primaries, with billionaire Charles Koch’s political group backing Nikki Haley, casino billionaire Miriam Adelson waiting for a primary winner to emerge, and pro-Trump Super PACs spending millions attacking other Republicans .

It was ahead of Trump and the rest of the Republican primary over the same periods. The president’s political operation, along with the Democratic National Committee, ended the latest quarter with $91 million in cash on hand.

Hollywood and the entertainment industry as a whole are leaning toward democracy, at least when it comes to fundraising, according to OpenSecrets, which tracks campaign contributions. The entertainment industry provided $163.6 million in campaign contributions in 2020, with 88% going to Democrats.