Devastating blow for Biden as famous billionaire who's among Democrats' most generous donors calls for president, 81, to pull out of race
- Reed Hastings, 63 is asking Biden to step aside after his disastrous debate
- Hastings packed party coffers during the Trump era to the tune of $20 million
- He's also close with Gavin Newsom, seen by many as a replacement
Netflix's billionaire co-founder who's one of the Democrats' most generous donors has called for Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race.
Reed Hastings, 63 is asking Biden to step aside after his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump last week.
'Biden needs to step aside to allow a vigorous Democratic leader to beat Trump and keep us safe and prosperous,' Hastings told the New York Times Wednesday.
Hastings, alongside wife Patty Qullin, packed the party's coffers during the Trump era to the tune of over $20 million.
They've also specifically backed Biden in the past, giving $1.5 million to the 2020 campaign and over $100,000 last summer.
Netflix's billionaire co-founder who's one of the Democrats' most generous donors has called for Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race
Reed Hastings, 63 is asking Biden to step aside after his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump last week
Hastings was a part of the Biden campaign's outreach to the tech industry, which has also included LinkedIn co-founder Reed Hastings, Google chief Eric Schmidt and former Yahoo exec Marissa Mayer.
In the days following the debate Biden's donors were coalescing around three different strategies, only of which involved him immediately quitting the race formulated by those with little influence on the campaign.
Now, Hastings has become the biggest Biden and Democrat Party donor to date asking him to step aside.
Notably, he's also close with California Governor Gavin Newsom - hinted by some as a potential Biden replacement - giving his 2021 recall campaign $3 million.
Ari Emanuel, a massive Hollywood super-agent and Dem backer whose brother Rahm is the former White House Chief of Staff and now Biden's ambassador to Japan - was also heavily critical on Wednesday.
'I talked to a bunch of big donors, and they're moving all their money to Congress and the Senate,' Emanuel said at the Aspen Ideas Festival.
Emanuel, the inspiration for the character of Ari Gold on Entourage, is also the brother of Rahm Emanuel, the ex-Mayor of Chicago who now serves as Biden's Ambassador to Japan.
'He gave us a bunch of malarkey, and I'm really pissed. We all should be really pissed,' Emanuel added.
Ari Emanuel, a massive Hollywood super-agent and Dem backer whose brother Rahm is the former White House Chief of Staff and now Biden's ambassador to Japan - was also heavily critical on Wednesday
Emanuel (pictured left), the inspiration for the character of Ari Gold on Entourage, is also the brother of Rahm Emanuel (pictured right), the ex-Mayor of Chicago who now serves as Biden's Ambassador to Japan
Rahm Emanuel was once also Barack Obama's Chief of Staff while Biden was vice president.
A second sitting Democrat has called on President Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, striking another blow to the campaign as defectors trickle out against him.
Arizona Democrat Raúl Grijalva, 76, is urging Biden not to run again, The New York Times reported Wednesday. He is the second sitting Democrat to call for the president's withdrawal.
Two other House Democrats have openly said they believe former President Donald Trump will beat Biden - and that lack of confidence will surely be a topic of conversation between the party leaders which is planned for this evening.
'If he's the candidate, I'm going to support him, but I think that this is an opportunity to look elsewhere,' Grijalva said.
'What he needs to do is shoulder the responsibility for keeping that seat — and part of that responsibility is to get out of this race.'
The first sitting Democrat to call for Joe Biden to withdraw from the election says that before going public, party leadership did not try to keep him quiet.
Texas Democrat Rep. Lloyd Doggett, 77, came forward on Tuesday with a statement calling on Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, saying if he did not Donald Trump would win the White House.
Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., became the second sitting Democrat to publicly call for President Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 election
Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett is the first sitting Democrat in office to call for Joe Biden to get out of the presidential race. He said Democrat leadership did not try to keep him quiet
He was the first Democrat in office to call for Biden to withdraw.
Breaking his silence after turning on the top Democrat, the Texan - who has served since 1995 - told NPR that leadership within the party did not dissuade him from airing out his concerns publicly.
'I'm not a vulnerable member in this election,' Doggett said. 'So I'm able to step forward and speak out about what I think is so critical for our country in ways that perhaps some other people have not.'
'But I certainly have not gotten any discouragement from within the leadership of the party,' he added, indicating that top Democrats may actually condone ousting Biden.
'I think the concerns I'm voicing are widespread,' Doggett continued. 'I wish this had been resolved earlier.'
The Democrat said he did not speak out about Biden's withdrawal sooner because he was worried about how Donald Trump could capitalize on such a party shake up.
After the Texas Democrat released his statement calling on Biden to withdraw Tuesday, two other House Democrats similarly came out against the president.
Though they did not explicitly call on Biden to withdraw, both Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington both said Tuesday they believe Donald Trump will beat Joe Biden come November.
President Joe Biden is said to be 'humiliated' and 'painfully aware' of his image following his car crash debate that saw him stumbling over his words and losing his train of thought
'After the first presidential debate, lots of Democrats are panicking about whether President Joe Biden should step down as the party's nominee,' Golden wrote
Further, reports indicate that a cohort of 25 Democrat lawmakers worried about their own elections are considering calling on Biden to withdraw.
Whether Biden continues his 2024 bid for president after his halting debate performance against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is largely his decision, Democrats and political strategists have said.
Doggett likened the hard decision he says Biden must make for the sake of the nation to the one made decades ago by another sitting Democratic president.
'I represent the heart of a congressional district once represented by Lyndon Johnson,' the Texan said in a statement Tuesday. 'Under very different circumstances, he made the painful decision to withdraw.
'President Biden should do the same,' he continued. 'While much of his work has been transformational, he pledged to be transitional.'
Lyndon B. Johnson chose to withdraw from the race in 1968 because rising casualties in the Vietnam war had made him extremely unpopular.
Biden is facing plummeting support after his disastrous debate performance on Thursday.
A defiant Biden vowed Wednesday to keep running for reelection, despite senior aides said they believed he might only have a matter of days to show he was up to the challenge before anxiety in the party boils over.
'Let me say this as clearly as I possibly can as simply and straightforward as I can: I am running ... no one´s pushing me out,' Biden said on a call with staffers from his reelection campaign.
'I´m not leaving. I´m in this race to the end and we´re going to win.'
Still, despite his efforts to pull multiple levers - whether it was his impromptu appearance with campaign aides, private conversations with senior lawmakers, a weekend blitz of travel and a network television interview - to salvage his faltering reelection, Biden was confronting serious and mounting indications that support for him was rapidly eroding on Capitol Hill and among other allies.
