A prominent Hollywood megadonor is putting the screws to vulnerable Senate Democrats by pressuring them to publicly abandon Joe Biden, saying he won’t give them another dime unless they call on the president to quit his bid for re-election.
Tom Strickler — who co-founded the Hollywood talent agency WME, which is now part of Endeavor — has launched an all-out assault on Joe Biden’s campaign, according to a New York Times report. He has already met with Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), delivering the senator an ultimatum.
“If you don’t publicly call for Biden to step aside,” Strickler said he told Sen. Heinrich’s team on Thursday morning, “you are not getting a dime from me.”
Strickler told the Times that he had also been planning to give the maximum legal amount in August to each of the seven most vulnerable Democratic Senate candidates, but that as of now, he would not be supporting them because they have not broken with Biden.
“It’s a message that I’ve encouraged my friends to send as well,” he told the newspaper. “If you back Biden, you will lose our support. Over and out.”
This comes just as Jeffrey Katzenberg, who serves as Biden’s campaign co-chair, held an emergency meeting Wednesday with the 81-year-old president in Las Vegas where he warned that donations are drying up due to ongoing concerns about the president’s age, according to a Semafor report.
"They say money is the mother's milk of politics, and it has really dried up," says @semaforben after Jeffrey Katzenberg reportedly warned Pres. Biden that donors' patience is wearing thin. "People have stopped writing checks." pic.twitter.com/tjhpLoJJl3
— Last Call (@LastCallCNBC) July 17, 2024
Tom Strickler is the latest Hollywood Democrat megadonor to bail on Team Biden following the president’s humiliating debate performance during which a clearly disoriented Biden had trouble completing sentences, lost his train of thought multiple times, and blurted out gibberish (“we finally beat Medicare”).
His jaw-droppingly awful performance has set off a civil war among Democrats over who will be the party’s nominee to face off against former President Donald Trump in November.
Hollywood donors are abandoning the Biden campaign in droves.
They include George Clooney, Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, veteran studio boss Barry Diller, and Lost creator Damon Lindelof., Rob Reiner — one of Biden’s most loyal Hollywood supporters — has also called on the president to “step down.”
But so far, Joe Biden is refusing to relinquish up his grip on power, vowing to remain on the Democrat ticket despite growing calls for him to quit.
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