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Joe Biden, Barack Obama And Jimmy Kimmel Warn Of Another Donald Trump Term; Star-Filled L.A. Fundraiser Expected To Raise At Least $30 Million — Update
UPDATED: President Joe Biden‘s star-filled fundraiser in Los Angeles — in which he took part in a conversation with former President Barack Obama and Jimmy Kimmel — is now expected to raise at least $30 million, according to a source close to the campaign.
During the roughly 40-minute sit down, Biden, Obama and Kimmel touted the current administration’s accomplishments, but a good part of the talk was devoted to warnings about another Trump term and even bafflement at the way that the former Celebrity Apprentice host has shattered so many political and institutional norms.
Biden said that “one of the scariest parts” of another Donald Trump is that he would likely have the ability to appoint two more Supreme Court nominees.
“The Supreme Court has never been as out of kilter as it is today,” Biden said. “…The fact of the matter is that this has never been a court that has been this far out of step.”
He noted that when the Dobbs decision was issued overturning Roe vs. Wade, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote that other decisions should be reconsidered, including IVF and contraception. Someone in the audience then shouted, “Gay rights.”
“By the way, not on my watch. Not on my watch,” said Biden, in a line that got one of the biggest cheers from the crowd in the 7,100-seat Peacock Theater.
Before Kimmel introduced the two presidents, he showed a video of Trump from 2020, where he predicted that if he was not elected, major holidays like the Fourth of July and Christmas would end. Kimmel had asked the president, “Is it satisfying to see that video to see how wrong Orange Julius Caesar was about your presidency?”At the outset, Biden wasted little time making a biting about Donald Trump shortly after he took the stage.
“I could have done nothing and done better than he was doing,” Biden.
The ABC late night host then went into a long list of Biden’s accomplishments, often interspersing them with irreverent quips.
Kimmel later noted that Biden said he was “fighting to restore the soul of America and lately it seems like we might need and exorcism. Is that why you visited the Pope?”
Biden laughed and said, “The truth is the way in which we communicate with people these days, there’s so much opportunity to just lie….If you have just one source you go to for your news, it’s just easy to convince people that that is the only truth that’s out there.”
Obama referred to Trump’s recent conviction, telling the audience that “Part of what has happened over the last several years is we have normalized behavior that used to be disqualifying. We have the spectacle of the nominee of one of the two major parties sitting in court and being convicted by a jury of his peers on 34 counts. His foundation is not allowed to operate because it was engaging in money business and not actually philanthropic work. You have his organization being prosecuted for not paying taxes. … There are certain standards and values that we should all abide by. Joe Biden has stood for those values and continues to do, and the other guy doesn’t.”
At times during the conversation, Biden tried out some of his own humor. With Trump and Biden neck and neck in the polls, Kimmel at one point asked, “Is this country suffering from Trump amnesia? Why do so many Americans seem to remember the Trump administration the same way we do a colonoscopy, like we know what happened. “
Biden responded, “All they got to do is remember what it was like. Remember the pandemic? He said, ‘Don’t worry. Just inject a little bleach in your body.”
“That worked for me, by the way,” Kimmel quipped. “Fair is fair.”
Biden then quipped, “By the way, it worked for him. It colored his hair.”
The event, which also featured celebrities such as George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Barbra Streisand, was being touted as the largest Democratic fundraiser ever. The sum is higher than a similar celebrity-filled event the campaign held at Radio City Music Hall in New York in March, when $26 million was raised.
The Biden campaign has been marketing the star-studded event for weeks, with supporters being offered a chance to win a trip to attend and meet some of those on the bill. “It’s amazing how many people will show up to an event when you send 5,000 emails reminding them about it,” Kimmel quipped.
Jill Biden also spoke, introduced by Streisand, who said that the first lady is “the neighbor everyone wishes they have, not the type who suddenly flies an American flag upside down.”
“Trump has told told us again and again why he wants the White House — to give himself absolute power,” the first lady said.
Among the thousands attending the event were industry figures including Damon Lindelof, Marta Kauffman, CAA’s Bryan Lourd and Craig Gering, Kathy Griffin and Jim Gianopoulos, as well as politicos including Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, among a group of lawmakers participating in a photo line with Biden and Obama. Also at the theater: Los Angeles City Councilman Kevin de Leon.
As expected, there was a heavy police presence, with loud pro-Palestinian protesters gathered on Olympic Boulevard. Demonstrators have tried to block entrances at previous Biden fundraisers, including a Holmby Hills event in December. Protesters disrupted the Radio City event at points, but it went on as scheduled.
Also appearing at the Los Angeles event were Sista Strings (singing “Lift Every Voice”), The Silhouettes, Sheryl Lee Ralph (singing a rousing rendition of “God Bless America”), Jason Bateman and Kathryn Hahn. Jack Black wore stars and stripes overalls over a Dark Brandon T-shirt.
Republicans tried to turn their tables on the expected Trump bashing at the fundraiser. Jessica Millan Patterson, chair of the California Republican Party, said in a statement on Friday, “Democrat presidents have long had expectations of a warm welcome from Californians, but unfortunately for President Biden, his own actions and failed agenda – from rampant inflation to an open border and detrimental foreign policy – have deprived him of that reality. No amount of Hollywood magic or celebrity cameos can disguise the fact that Joe Biden is a failed president who will be retired by voters once and for all this November.”
A judge on Wednesday permanently dismissed federal corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
The Department of Justice moved to dismiss the charges in February, saying that continuing them interfered with the mayor’s ability to govern, thereby threatening “federal immigration initiatives and policies.”
The department asked that the charges be “dismissed without prejudice,” allowing for the case to be potentially carried out at a later date.
But the judge disagreed, clearing Adams of the charges in perpetuity.
The Department of Justice and the mayor’s office did not immediately return a request for comment.
Adams has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
President Trump intends to nominate T. Elliot Gaiser, the conservative solicitor general of Ohio, to be the assistant attorney general leading the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, according to a Justice Department official. That position has traditionally often had the final say on legal debates within the executive branch.
The Office of Legal Counsel issues authoritative interpretations of the law for the executive branch through courtlike opinions. Its view of what the law permits is binding on other agencies and officials unless the attorney general overrides the office or the president opts not to take its advice.
The office was at the center of many legal and policy fights during Mr. Trump’s first administration. Led by the Trump appointee Steven Engel, it signed off on the ordering of the targeted killing of a top Iranian official and the Treasury Department’s withholding of Mr. Trump’s tax returns from Congress.
Mr. Gaiser, whose selection as the forthcoming nominee was provided by the official on condition of anonymity to discuss a matter that has not yet been announced, has a strong conservative legal résumé.
He clerked for Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. during the Supreme Court’s 2021-2 term, when Justice Alito wrote the majority opinion overruling the Roe v. Wade abortion rights precedent.
Mr. Gaiser had previously served two clerkship years with prominent conservative appellate court judges, Judge Neomi Rao of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and Judge Edith H. Jones of the Fifth Circuit, alternating with short stints at law firms.
He did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment late on Tuesday.
A native of Ohio, Mr. Gaiser attended Hillsdale College, a Christian liberal arts college in Michigan, and graduated in 2012 with a degree in political economy and speech studies. He spent a year at Ohio State University’s law school before transferring to the University of Chicago to finish his degree, according to his LinkedIn profile.
After his Supreme Court clerkship, Mr. Gaiser spent a year as an associate at the law firm Jones Day before the Ohio attorney general, Dave Yost, appointed him as the state’s solicitor general, representing the state government in appellate matters. Mr. Gaiser had clerked in that office after his second year in law school.
In announcing the appointment in October 2023, Mr. Yost called Mr. Gaiser “a master craftsman of ironclad legal arguments rooted in originalist principles and constitutional restraint.”
He argued before the Supreme Court in February, defending a state agency in a discrimination case brought by a heterosexual woman who twice lost positions to gay colleagues.
His arguments attracted puzzlement from the justices because he disavowed lower-court rulings in favor of the state that had turned on the idea that a member of a majority group must provide extra evidence of discrimination, compared to a member of a minority.
Mr. Gaiser told the Supreme Court that the plaintiff could not establish that she was discriminated against based on her sexual orientation so should lose the case — but also that the state agreed with her that “it is wrong to hold some litigants to a higher standard because of their protected characteristics.”
That prompted Justice Elena Kagan to ask whether the appeals court — which had ruled for Ohio — was wrong. Mr. Gaiser said it was.
“The idea that you hold people to different standards because of their protected characteristics is wrong,” he said.
The website for the Federalist Society, the conservative legal network, shows that Mr. Gaiser has participated in numerous events sponsored by the group in recent years. And the Heritage Foundation, where he was an intern in the summer of 2013, honored him last December as a distinguished alumnus.
He told a Heritage Foundation-linked online publication in December that Ohio was suing the Biden administration in 44 cases, while expressing conservative views on issues like environmental regulations, illegal immigration and transgender rights.
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Elon Musk’s preferred candidate has been trounced in a pivotal Supreme Court race in Wisconsin that was widely seen as a referendum on the controversial billionaire and the Trump administration’s agenda.
Conservative Brad Schimel, whom Musk, the world’s richest man, backed with an unprecedented $25mn, lost on Tuesday to liberal judge Susan Crawford, according to the Associated Press.
The race became the most expensive judicial contest in US history and was seen as a test case for Musk’s political might outside Washington.
Musk, who campaigned in the state in person over the weekend, handing out two $1mn cheques to Schimel supporters, had cast the election as crucial to maintaining or enlarging the Republican’s razor-thin majority in Congress.
“Losing this judge race has a good chance of causing Republicans to lose control of the House. If you lose control of the House, there will be nonstop impeachment hearings. There will be nonstop hearings and subpoenas,” Musk, who is running Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, told Fox News on Tuesday.
In Florida, Republicans managed to fend off two Democratic challenges in special elections to the US House of Representatives, although the races proved tighter than expected.
Randy Fine, a Republican Florida state senator, won the House seat previously held by Trump’s national security adviser Mike Waltz, Jimmy Patronis, Florida’s Republican chief financial officer, won the seat formerly occupied by Trump’s initial nominee for attorney-general Matt Gaetz.
Gaetz withdrew from consideration for the cabinet role following allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use, which he denies
The Republican wins will raise the party’s majority in the House to 220 against the Democrats’ 213, easing the task of Speaker Mike Johnson as he seeks to push Trump’s legislative agenda through Congress.
Trump hailed the wins, writing on his Truth Social platform: “BOTH FLORIDA HOUSE SEATS HAVE BEEN WON, BIG, BY THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE. THE TRUMP ENDORSEMENT, AS ALWAYS, PROVED FAR GREATER THAN THE DEMOCRATS FORCES OF EVIL.”
But Democrats performed much better than expected in both races, with the party emboldend by voter discontent with Trump’s agenda 10 weeks into his presidency. Republicans’ margins of victory were narrower November’s presidential election despite the contests being held in deep-red strongholds.
The result in Wisconsin will also solidify a liberal majority on the swing state’s high court, which is expected to hear cases in the coming months on abortion rights. The court could also be asked to weigh in on attempts to redraw Wisconsin’s electoral map ahead of the midterm elections in 2026.
The Wisconsin Democrats had cast the contest — which is technically non-partisan — as a referendum on Musk and Doge’s influence on the federal government.
The party ran a campaign called “People v Musk”, which featured the billionaire wielding a chainsaw and celebrating cuts to the administrative state.
The party and Crawford attracted large donations from other billionaires, including George Soros and Michael Bloomberg.
Underscoring Republicans’ jitters, Trump last week withdrew the nomination of New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik as UN ambassador over fears that the race to replace her could also prove competitive.
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