- Donors have been concerned about Joe Biden’s ability to beat Donald Trump since his debate performance.
- Some donors told The Washington Post that the evening mirrored the president’s performance at recent donor events.
- Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings told the New York Times that another candidate needs to step up to beat Trump.
Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, one of the biggest Democratic donors, has called on President Joe Biden to withdraw from his campaign to give another candidate a chance to beat former President Donald Trump, The New York Times reported.
“Biden must step aside to allow a strong Democratic leader to defeat Trump and keep us safe and prosperous,” Hastings said in an email to The Times.
A Netflix spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. Hastings did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
While he is the first to call on Biden to step down, he is not the first major Democratic donor from Hollywood to express concern.
Ari Emmanuel, CEO of Endeavor, expressed frustration during a recent discussion with Tina Brown at the Aspen Ideas Festival about the ability of a president as old as Biden, who is 81, to run for president. Trump is 78.
“I’m angry with the Founding Fathers. They set the start date at 35 years. They just didn’t give us the end date,” he said.
Hollywood backers have played a significant role in Biden’s campaign. Biden’s campaign said it raised more than $30 million at a fundraiser in Los Angeles in June hosted by stars including former President Barack Obama, George Clooney and Julia Roberts. It’s unclear whether other Hollywood donors will follow Hastings and call on Biden to step down.
Hastings is one of the first to publicly voice the private concerns of some major Democratic donors since Biden’s disastrous performance in the debate against Trump on June 27, in which the president stumbled over his words and, at times, struggled to finish his thoughts.
Several anonymous donors told The Washington Post that Biden’s performance in the debates mirrored his interactions in small groups at donor events, telling the newspaper that the president has difficulty communicating.
An anonymous business executive who helped organize a fundraiser last year in Chicago told The Post he was shocked when Biden’s team refused to let donors ask the president questions.
“I told them my donors didn’t care about a photo. They wanted to talk to him. Biden’s people just wouldn’t let them,” the business owner told the Post. “It was clear they were handling it in a way I’d never experienced before. Donors expect to be able to talk to the president if you write a big check and do an event with him.”
The Biden campaign has undertaken major damage control efforts to convince donors and voters that the president is still fit for office.
As of Tuesday, the campaign enjoyed a $127 million windfall in June, including $38 million in the four days following Biden’s debate with Trump.
In an email to BI, a Biden campaign spokesperson highlighted statements reported by various media outlets from people inside the administration, including Vice President Kamala Harris and press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who have emphasized Biden’s commitment to the race.
“We will not back down. We will follow the lead of our president. We will fight and we will win,” Harris told Biden’s campaign team in a call, according to the Times.
Not all donors agree with Hastings. Noah Mamet, a former ambassador to Argentina during the second Obama administration and a major donor to Biden’s campaign, told BI in a text message that he maintains his staunch support for the president and called the attacks on Biden “self-defeating.”
“President Biden has reaffirmed his commitment to running for reelection. He knows what’s at stake. He knows that Trump poses an existential threat to the country,” Mamet wrote. “Until he declares that he is not the nominee, we Democrats must rally behind him and work even harder to make sure we win, keep Trump out, and continue to have a democracy after November.”
He cited a recent Supreme Court decision that granted the U.S. president presumption of immunity over “official” actions as an example of what is at stake in this year’s election.
Yet some major donors remain unconvinced that Biden is the best candidate.
In phone calls with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, several major Democratic donors urged Biden to give up his spot to another candidate, people familiar with the call told The Post, according to The Washington Post. Wednesday report.
Hastings has been a major supporter of the Democratic Party in recent years, donating millions of dollars to the party during the Trump era.
According to the Times, he and his wife, Patty Quillin, have given more than $20 million to the party in recent years.
The couple donated at least $1.5 million to support Biden during the 2020 campaign and $100,000 last year for the 2024 campaign, the Times reported.
A Biden campaign spokesperson did not respond to Hastings’ public appeal in his statement to BI.
