In a show of force his campaign is calling the “most successful political fund-raiser in American history,” President Biden was slated to raise more than $25 million during a New York event Thursday featuring former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
More than 5,000 people were expected to attend the sold-out event at New York’s Radio City Music Hall, Biden’s campaign said, with guests paying anywhere from $225 to $500,000. The massive haul comes as Biden and his allies have sought to present their growing financial advantage in the race against former president Donald Trump as a broader sign of strength and momentum.
The highest-paying donors at the event will have access to perks such as a photo with the three presidents. Legendary photographer Annie Leibovitz is on tap to take portraits of donors with Biden, Clinton, and Obama.
The event caps a stepped-up stretch of campaign activity for Biden in the wake of his fiery March 7 State of the Union address, and it is the latest push by the president’s allies to counter concerns about his advanced age and sagging approval ratings. Biden is 81 and Trump is 77.
If Democratic voters at large are wary of Biden’s political standing, the star-studded event in New York was designed to offer a joyous counterpoint to the sense of angst. It was to feature musical guests including Queen Latifah, Lizzo, and Ben Platt. Mindy Kaling served as host. An after-party for 500 VIP guests was co-hosted by first lady Jill Biden and DJ D-Nice.
For the evening’s main event, comedian Stephen Colbert was slated to moderate a conversation among Biden, Obama, and Clinton.
The Biden campaign has begun relying more on Obama to boost its fund-raising in recent months, after the former president came to the White House last year to express concerns about the state of the race. In a private lunch with Biden, Obama urged Biden to bolster his campaign apparatus and move more aggressively to block Trump’s planned march to the White House.
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Biden officials said fund-raising efforts that feature Obama or his signature have already generated $15.4 million for Democrats. Obama participated in a “Meet the Presidents” fund-raising drive in December that brought in nearly $3 million, they said.
Biden has also used Obama as a sounding board, as both men see blocking Trump’s return to the White House as key to securing their own political legacies.
Washington Post
Trump attends wake for officer killer in line of duty
MASSAPEQUA PARK, N.Y. — Donald Trump attended Thursday’s wake of a New York City police officer gunned down in the line of duty and called for “law and order,” as part of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s attempt to show a contrast with President Biden and focus on crime as part of his third White House campaign.
The visitation for Officer Jonathan Diller, who was fatally shot during a traffic stop on Monday, was held in suburban Massapequa on Long Island. Police said the 31-year-old Diller was shot below his bulletproof vest while approaching an illegally parked car in Queens.
Diller, who was married and had a 1-year-old son, was rushed to a hospital, where he died.
Trump’s visit came as Biden was also in New York for a previously scheduled fund-raiser with Democratic former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Trump has accused Biden of lacking toughness and his campaign sought to contrast his visit with Biden’s fund-raiser.
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White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that the president has spoken with New York City’s mayor, but she said she didn’t have any “private communications to share” when asked if Biden had spoken to the family of the officer who was killed. Jean-Pierre said the administration’s hearts go out to the officer’s family.
Speaking aboard Air Force One, she said Biden has supported law enforcement throughout his entire career and took a dig at Trump’s record. “Violent crime surged under the previous administration,” Jean-Pierre said. “The Biden-Harris administration have done the polar opposite, taking decisive action from the very beginning to fund the police and achieving a historic reduction in crime.”
Associated Press
Ky. lawmakers move to take power from governor
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Kentucky lawmakers gave final approval Thursday to a bill stripping the state’s Democratic governor of any role in picking someone to occupy a US Senate seat if a vacancy occurred in the home state of 82-year-old Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.
The legislation calls for a special election to fill any Senate vacancy from the Bluegrass State. The special election winner would hold the seat for the remainder of the unexpired term.
“So it would be a direct voice of the people determining how the vacancy is filled,” Republican Senate President Robert Stivers said while presenting the bill to his colleagues.
The state Senate voted 34-3 after a brief discussion to send the bill to Governor Andy Beshear. The governor has denounced the measure as driven by partisanship, but the GOP supermajority legislature could override a veto when lawmakers reconvene for the final two days of this year’s session in mid-April.
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The bill’s lead sponsor is Republican House Majority Floor Leader Steven Rudy. He has said the measure has nothing to do with McConnell, but instead reflected his long-running policy stance on how an empty Senate seat should be filled.
Rudy refers to McConnell as a “great friend and a political mentor,” and credits the state’s senior senator for playing an important role in the GOP’s rise to dominance in the Kentucky legislature.
Rudy has said his bill would treat a Senate vacancy like that of a vacancy for a congressional or legislative seat in Kentucky — by holding a special election to fill the seat. The bill includes an emergency clause, meaning it would take effect immediately if enacted into law.
Associated Press
GOP official voted illegally 9 times, judge rules
A Georgia Republican official who pushed false claims that the 2020 election was “stolen” was found to have voted illegally nine times, a judge ruled this week.
Brian Pritchard, first vice chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, was ordered to pay a $5,000 fine, as well as investigative costs, and be publicly reprimanded.
Pritchard had been sentenced in 1996 in Pennsylvania to three years’ probation for felony check forgery charges. His probation was revoked three times — once in 1999, after he moved to Georgia, and again in 2002 and 2004. In 2004, a judge imposed a new seven-year probationary sentence on Pritchard, thus making him ineligible to vote until at least 2011 in Georgia, where state law prohibits felons from voting.
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Despite that, court documents showed that Pritchard signed voter registration forms in 2008 in which he affirmed that he was “not serving a sentence for having been convicted of a felony involving moral turpitude.” He then cast ballots in four Georgia primary and general elections in 2008, as well as five special, primary, and general elections in 2010.
Washington Post