After dismissing Biden, Hollywood powerbrokers rally for Harris

Just a month ago, the who’s who of Hollywood filmmaking gathered for President Joe Biden. The event, hosted by former DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, drew George Clooney, Barbra Streisand and Julia Roberts.

Jimmy Kimmel hosted an interview with Biden and former President Barack Obama at the rally at the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles. Sheryl Lee Ralph sang and Jack Black entertained the star-studded crowd in overalls emblazoned with the American flag.

The night raised more than $30 million, the largest single-night haul in Democratic campaign history.

But behind the obsequious praise and laughter, cracks began to appear in the public façade.

Some of Hollywood's most powerful members, who had always supported the president, had serious reservations about the 81-year-old's mental acuity.

At times during the event, Biden's answers were confusing and Obama occasionally stepped in to redirect the conversation.

Then Biden had a disastrous debate performance. And the same industry stalwarts who had just celebrated Biden started saying he shouldn’t run for reelection.

Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof, who attended the fundraiser, was one of the first to publicly call for Biden to step down. Biden must go and Democrats must wake up. He wrote in a column for Deadline, adding that donors should hold back checks until he does. Days later, others followed suit. Netflix co-founder and major Democratic donor Reed Hastings also called on Biden to end his reelection campaign.

The hardest blow came a week later, when Clooney wrote a scathing article opinion piece for the New York Times, saying: “The Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe Big F-ing Deal Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all saw at the debate.”

Clooney’s public excoriation proved to be a tipping point, creating a public relations disaster for the Biden campaign, said a confidant close to a senior Democratic leader who was not authorized to speak publicly. Soon, others, including the actor-filmmaker Rob Reiner began to express similar sentiments, contributing to the pressure that culminated in the outgoing president's extraordinary decision to withdraw from the Democratic candidacy.

The remarkable turn of events underscored the outsized role that Hollywood, long known as the Democratic Party's ATM, plays in political campaigns and the money that fuels them.

In the world of politics, money is what drives these things, and the fact that many actors in Hollywood have closed their checkbooks has had a very significant impact, said Steve Caplan, assistant professor of public relations and advertising at USC's Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism.

Now, entertainment heavyweights are pouring their money into Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign. Hastings has contributed $7 million to a super PAC supporting Kamala Harris, the largest donation he has ever made to a single candidate, said a person close to the Netflix co-founder who was not authorized to comment. The Information first reported the donation.

“We’re all for Kamala and have been since the moment she announced it,” said Andy Spahn, a Los Angeles political consultant to media moguls including Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg. “There’s a tremendous amount of excitement and energy here around Kamala’s candidacy. We’re all for it.”

Unease over Biden's gaffes

For months, Biden’s gaffes and missteps have become hard to ignore. He fell while climbing the stairs of Air Force One, confused Syria and Libya at a news conference and called Kamala Harris Trump’s vice president.

As allies and critics alike began to comment, the campaign dismissed their concerns as isolated incidents; Biden described his debate performance as a bad night.

As Biden's momentum faded and his failures became more apparent to the public, some supporters expressed frustration with Katzenberg, one of the campaign co-chairs, who assured them that Biden was in his element, even calling his age a superpower.

Katzenberg began drawing comparisons to Harrison Ford, who was starring in a new Indiana Jones movie at age 80, and to Mick Jagger, who was touring with the Rolling Stones, also at age 80, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Katzenberg declined to comment.

But Biden's low approval ratings and the clear enthusiasm gap continued, especially among celebrities, who did not rush to support the campaign.

Even before the debate, it was difficult to garner public support for Biden from industry insiders, according to someone who works closely with celebrity spokespeople and was not authorized to speak publicly.

There was a general lack of enthusiasm. There were people who wanted to bury their heads in the sand, and there was a legitimate group of people who felt there was a disconnect between values ​​and what was happening in the Middle East, and a broader group who didn't see the point in speaking out, this person said. It was extremely difficult, even with pillars.

While Clooney and others have taken public positions, this person said a number of private conversations were taking place between about 40 prominent artists and campaign leaders.

Grammy-winning singer John Legend expressed concerns about Biden's viability in an interview.

“There are a lot of challenges ahead if we stick with Biden and we can defeat Trump with him as our nominee,” Legend told the Times. “For months, the American people have told us they don’t like either choice.”

Within days of each other, Disney heiress Abigail Disney and billionaire media mogul Barry Diller announced they were ending all further financial support for the Biden campaign.

Speaking at the Aspen Ideas festival, Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel criticized Biden's advisers for being less than forthright about his health and criticized the president for backtracking on his promise to hand over after one term.

“I had a father who died at 92, but at 81, I took his car away, and it was a very simple test for me,” said Emanuel, whose brother Rahm Emanuel served as Obama's White House chief of staff.. If you were driving from downtown Beverly Hills to Malibu, would you want Biden to do it at night?

A radical change in Harris' favor

On Sunday, Biden announced he would not pursue his candidacy as the Democratic nominee and endorsed Harris.

It seemed as if the tide had turned, at least in Hollywood.

Oh my God. People, and I mean this sincerely, people are giddy. They’re not just happy, they’re giddy, said Donna Bojarsky, a longtime Democratic political consultant and co-founder of a nonprofit dedicated to building civic engagement in Los Angeles. I haven’t seen this much enthusiasm since Barack Obama or Joe Biden. [2020] The elections. And only now we realize how incredibly difficult and depressing the previous situation was. It is now as if an anvil has been lifted.

In the space of 24 hours, a growing list of big names in film, television, fashion, music and media, including Jamie Lee Curtis, Spike Lee, Questlove and Ariana Grande, have come out in support of Kamala Harris, who is expected to be her party's presidential nominee. Beyoncé has given Harris permission to use her song Freedom for her presidential campaign.

“There’s an increased excitement, the feeling is palpable,” Legend said. “People feel an optimism now that they didn’t have before, because we can take advantage of this moment to win.”

Many of those who had criticized Biden and his advisers are now galvanized around Harris, whose husband, Doug Emhoff, is a prominent entertainment lawyer in Los Angeles.

At the top of the list was Clooney, who in a statement to CNN praised Biden for showing true leadership, adding: “We are all very excited to do everything we can to support Vice President Harris in her historic quest.”

“An election that was once characterized by dread and grim resignation is now characterized by the excitement of possibility,” Lindelof wrote in an email to The Times, adding that he has been a huge fan of Harris since she first ran for California attorney general in 2010. “I have yet to speak to a single person who has not been deeply impressed by everything she has said … during this emotionally intense and complicated time. We are extremely inspired by this potential ticket and will donate accordingly.”

As the praise and recommendations poured in, so did the money.

Spahn, the political consultant, noted that Harris raised $81 million in the 24 hours after Biden announced he would not seek reelection, a record. More money is coming, Spahn said.

Diller told the Times that he and his wife, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, plan to donate the maximum amount allowed under federal law to the new Democratic presidential nominee.

“I think it was inevitable,” he said of Biden’s resignation, noting that his preferred Democratic candidate was Harris, calling her qualified and competent.

And Hollywood is gearing up for another glitzy, star-studded fundraiser, likely to take place before the Democratic National Convention next month in Chicago, according to two people familiar with the event.

The last 24 hours have been very exciting: sign me up, where can I contribute, how can I get involved? said Wendy Greuel, a former Los Angeles city comptroller who worked in President Bill Clinton’s administration and for the entertainment company DreamWorks SKG. Whether it’s the entertainment industry or its activists, this has been a boost for people to get involved or re-engage.

She added that Democrats were encouraged that a decision had been made and that there was a goal to pursue.

“The sense of uncertainty has been a challenge,” Greuel said. “What we’re excited about is that we have a plan. We’re on a mission to defeat Donald Trump and we’re endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for president of the United States. This is a boost. People understand that this is the path forward to have a Democratic candidate and everyone is rowing in the same direction.”

Times staff writer Wendy Lee contributed to this report.