Biden and first lady Jill Biden were set to leave LAX Saturday afternoon aboard Air Force One, destination Joint Base Andrews, in Maryland, where he was to return to the White House after a massive global trip.
That trip went to Italy, for a G7 Summit, stopped at the Vatican, where Biden met with Pope Francis, and then journeyed to the Los Angeles, where he touched down early Saturday morning for 33-hours in the area.
Saturday night’s fundraising event at the Peacock Theater at downtown L.A.’s LA Live, was attended by more than 7,000 people, packing the room to see emcee and late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel interview Biden, as well as former President Barack Obama and Hollywood superstars Julia Roberts and George Clooney.
President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event with former President Barack Obama moderated by Jimmy Kimmel at the Peacock Theater, Saturday, June 15, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Joe Biden arrives for a campaign event with former President Barack Obama moderated by Jimmy Kimmel at the Peacock Theater, Saturday, June 15, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event with former President Barack Obama moderated by Jimmy Kimmel, right, at the Peacock Theater, Saturday, June 15, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event with former President Barack Obama moderated by Jimmy Kimmel at the Peacock Theater, Saturday, June 15, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event with former President Barack Obama moderated by Jimmy Kimmel, left, at the Peacock Theater, Saturday, June 15, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event with former President Barack Obama moderated by Jimmy Kimmel, right, at the Peacock Theater, Saturday, June 15, 2024, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
They all stressed the need to defeat former President Donald Trump in a race that’s expected to go down to the wire.
Kimmel asked the president what he was most proud of accomplishing, and Biden said he thought the administration’s approach to the economy “is working.”
“We have the strongest economy in the world today,” Biden said, adding “we try to give ordinary people an even chance.”
Even before it started Saturday night, the event had raised more than $30 million, making it the biggest fundraiser in Democratic Party history, according to a statement from party officials early Saturday.
That figure overtakes the $26 million Democrats raised from a fundraiser in March in New York featuring talk-show host Stephen Colbert moderating a panel discussion between Biden, Obama and former President Bill Clinton.
Tickets for the exclusive L.A. gathering began at $250, ranging as high as $500,000 for front-of-house seating, photo ops and an after-party.
Among the surprise attendees was actor/singer Barbra Streisand, actor/comedian Jack Black and actor/singer Sheryl Lee Ralph from the TV show “Abbott Elementary.”
Also in the house were Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, along with an array of Democratic elected officials. They included Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Manhattan Beach; Rep. Grace Napolitano, D-El Monte; Rep. Mark Takano, D-Riverside; Rep. Tony Cardenas, D-Panorama City; Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Long Beach.
President Joe Biden arrives in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2024. Biden will attend a star-studded campaign fundraising event in downtown Los Angeles that will also feature former President Barack Obama and celebrity
supporters George Clooney and Julia Roberts. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
Just after dawn, President Joe Biden exits Air Force One in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2024. After visiting Italy for the G7 summit, Biden touched down in Washington only long enough to refuel in a trip across 10 time zones; he was to attend a major campaign fundraiser on Saturday night. (Erin Schaff/The New York Times)
Air Force One with President Joe Biden arrives in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2024. Biden will attend a star-studded campaign fundraising event in downtown Los Angeles that will also feature former President Barack Obama and celebrity supporters George Clooney and Julia Roberts. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
President Joe Biden arrives in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2024. Biden will attend a star-studded campaign fundraising event in downtown Los Angeles that will also feature former President Barack Obama and celebrity
supporters George Clooney and Julia Roberts. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
Air Force One with President Joe Biden arrives in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2024. Biden will attend a star-studded campaign fundraising event in downtown Los Angeles that will also feature former President Barack Obama and celebrity supporters George Clooney and Julia Roberts. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
President Joe Biden arrives in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2024. Biden will attend a star-studded campaign fundraising event in downtown Los Angeles that will also feature former President Barack Obama and celebrity
supporters George Clooney and Julia Roberts. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
President Joe Biden arrives in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2024. Biden will attend a star-studded campaign fundraising event in downtown Los Angeles that will also feature former President Barack Obama and celebrity
supporters George Clooney and Julia Roberts. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
President Joe Biden arrives in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2024. Biden will attend a star-studded campaign fundraising event in downtown Los Angeles that will also feature former President Barack Obama and celebrity
supporters George Clooney and Julia Roberts. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
Protesters gather in Downtown L.A. on Saturday, June 15, 2024, as President Joe Biden and Democratic Party held a fundraiser at The Peacock Theater at LA Live. (Photo by Anissa Rivera)
Protesters gather in Downtown L.A. on Saturday, June 15, 2024, as President Joe Biden and Democratic Party held a fundraiser at The Peacock Theater at LA Live. (Photo by Anissa Rivera)
LAPD officers in riot helmets are being deployed outside prior to the Biden/Obama fundraiser outside the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2024. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/ SCNG)
A couple headed to the theater waits for LAPD and riot gear to pass prior to the Biden/Obama fundraiser outside the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2024. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/ SCNG)
LAPD stand watch out front of the theater prior to the Biden/Obama fundraiser outside the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2024. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/ SCNG)
People prep the theatre prior to the Biden/Obama fundraiser outside the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2024. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/ SCNG)
People post for photos in front of the sign for tonight‘s event prior to the Biden/Obama fundraiser outside the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2024. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/ SCNG)
LAPD officers in riot helmets are being deployed outside prior to the Biden/Obama fundraiser outside the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2024. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/ SCNG)
Actor Jon Cryer waits in line to enter the theater prior to the Biden/Obama fundraiser outside the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2024. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/ SCNG)
LA city councilman Kevin de Leon speaks prior to the Biden/Obama fundraiser outside the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2024. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/ SCNG)
People are interviewed by various news agencies as they arrive prior to the Biden/Obama fundraiser outside the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2024. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/ SCNG)
People start to arrive prior to the Biden/Obama fundraiser outside the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2024. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/ SCNG)
Video boards all around announcing that President Joe Biden with former president Barack Obama will hold a fundraiser inside the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2024. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/ SCNG)
Billie Greer, left of Los Angeles along with her friend Terry Rubinroit speaks prior to the Biden/Obama fundraiser outside the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2024. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/ SCNG)
Courtney Roberts, Eden Howard, center, along with Madison Beatty of Detroit speaks prior to the Biden/Obama fundraiser outside the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2024. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/ SCNG)
Guests begin to arrive prior to the Biden/Obama fundraiser outside the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles on Saturday, June 15, 2024. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Pasadena Star-News/ SCNG)
Along with Jill Biden, the crowd also included Biden’s son Hunter, who was found guilty last week in Delaware of lying on a federal firearms application.
A few hours before the start of the event, more than 100 pro-Palestine protesters were massed on the sidewalk near the Peacock Theater, where the event was set to take place. Many waved Palestinian flags and hoisted banners as attendees filed into the theater.
Dozens of police in riot gear were keeping protesters away from the barricades that surrounded the theater.
But the protest appeared to end later without incident.
With five months to the election, the fundraiser could be the last major event for Biden in the Southland, making it a critical moment for an incumbent dogged by continuing consumer complaints about inflation, the cost of groceries and gas, and rising division over the U.S. stance in the Israel-Hamas war.
Meanwhile, his opponent, presumptive Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, spent part of Saturday campaigning in the vital state of Michigan.
Trump used back-to-back stops in an effort to court Black voters in Detroit, including a conservative group that has been accused of attracting white supremacists, as the Republican presidential candidate works to stitch together a coalition of historically divergent interests in the battleground state.
He hosted an afternoon roundtable at an African American church in Detroit, then addressed the “People’s Convention” of Turning Point Action, a group that the Anti-Defamation League says has been linked to a variety of extremists.
Still, the money brought in from the L.A. event is sure to provide a timely infusion of cash in the final months of the campaign. Trump and the Republican Party outraised Biden in April, raking in $76 million as compared to $51 million for Biden and the Democratic National Committee that same month. Biden said he had a $192 million war chest at the end of April, the same as previous months, meaning he appears to be spending it as fast as it comes in.
AFP White House correspondent Danny Kemp, The Associated Press and City News Service contributed to this article.
