The billionaire co-founder of Netflix, one of the Democrats’ most generous donors, has called on Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race.
Reed Hastings, 63, is calling on Biden to step aside after his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump last week.
“Biden must step aside to allow a vigorous Democratic leader to defeat Trump and keep us safe and prosperous,” Hastings told The New York Times on Wednesday.
Hastings, along with his wife Patty Qullin, filled the party’s coffers during the Trump era to the tune of more than $20 million.
They have also specifically supported Biden in the past, donating $1.5 million to the 2020 campaign and more than $100,000 last summer.
The billionaire co-founder of Netflix, one of the Democrats’ most generous donors, has called on Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race
Reed Hastings, 63, calls on Biden to step aside after his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump last week
Hastings was part of Biden’s campaign to reach out to the tech industry, which also included LinkedIn co-founder Reed Hastings, Google chief Eric Schmidt and former Yahoo executive Marissa Mayer.
In the days after the debate, Biden donors coalesced around three different strategies, only one of which involved immediately dropping out of the race, formulated by those with little influence on the campaign.
Now, Hastings has become Biden’s and the Democratic Party’s largest donor to date, calling on him to step aside.
Notably, he is also close to California Governor Gavin Newsom (some point to him as a possible replacement for Biden), and gave his 2021 recall campaign $3 million.
Ari Emanuel, a Hollywood super-agent and Democratic supporter whose brother Rahm is Biden’s former White House chief of staff and now ambassador to Japan, was also highly critical on Wednesday.
“I talked to a bunch of big donors and they’re moving all their money to the House and the Senate,” Emanuel said at the Aspen Ideas Festival.
Emanuel, the inspiration for Ari Gold’s character on Entourage, is also the brother of Rahm Emanuel, the former mayor of Chicago who now serves as Biden’s ambassador to Japan.
“He told us a lot of nonsense and I’m very angry. We should all be very angry,” Emanuel added.
Ari Emanuel, a Hollywood super-agent and Democratic supporter whose brother Rahm is Biden’s former White House chief of staff and now ambassador to Japan, was also highly critical on Wednesday.
Emanuel (pictured left), the inspiration for Ari Gold’s character on Entourage, is also the brother of Rahm Emanuel (pictured right), the former Chicago mayor who now serves as Biden’s ambassador to Japan.
Rahm Emanuel also served as Barack Obama’s chief of staff while Biden was vice president.
A second incumbent Democrat has called on President Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race, dealing another blow to the campaign as defectors turn against him.
Arizona Democrat Raul Grijalva, 76, is urging Biden not to run again. The New York Times He is the second sitting Democrat to call for the president’s recall, according to reports Wednesday.
Two more House Democrats have openly said they believe former President Donald Trump will beat Biden, and that lack of confidence is sure to be a topic of conversation among party leaders set to take place tonight.
“If he is the candidate, I will support him, but I think this is an opportunity to look the other way,” Grijalva said.
“What he needs to do is take responsibility for keeping that seat, and part of that responsibility is to withdraw from this race.”
The first sitting Democrat to call for Joe Biden to withdraw from the election says that before he went public, party leadership made no attempt to keep him quiet.
Texas Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett, 77, issued a statement Tuesday calling on Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race, saying that if he didn’t, Donald Trump would win the White House.
Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., became the second sitting Democrat to publicly call on President Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 election
Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett is the first sitting Democrat to call for Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race. He said Democratic leaders did not try to keep him quiet
He was the first Democrat in office to call for Biden’s recall.
Breaking his silence after attacking the top Democrat, the Texan — who has served in the party since 1995 — told NPR that leadership within the party did not deter him from voicing his concerns publicly.
“I’m not a vulnerable member in this election,” Doggett said. “So I can step forward and speak about what I think is so critical to our country in ways that maybe other people haven’t.”
“But I certainly haven’t received any discouragement within the party leadership,” he added, indicating that top Democrats could, in fact, approve Biden’s impeachment.
“I think the concerns I’m expressing are widespread,” Doggett continued. “I wish it had been resolved sooner.”
The Democrat said he had not spoken out earlier about Biden’s withdrawal because he was concerned about how Donald Trump could take advantage of such a shift in the party.
After the Texas Democrat released his statement calling on Biden to step down on Tuesday, two other House Democrats spoke out similarly against the president.
Though they did not explicitly call on Biden to drop out, Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington said Tuesday they believe Donald Trump will beat Joe Biden in November.
President Joe Biden is said to be “humiliated” and “painfully conscious” of his image following his debate car crash that saw him stumble over his words and lose his train of thought.
‘After the first presidential debate, many Democrats are panicking over whether President Joe Biden should step down as the party’s nominee,’ Golden wrote.
Additionally, reports indicate that a group of 25 Democratic lawmakers concerned about their own elections are considering calling on Biden to step down.
Democrats and political strategists have said Biden’s decision to pursue his presidential bid in 2024 after his poor debate performance against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is largely his own.
Doggett compared the difficult decision he says Biden must make for the good of the nation to one made by another sitting Democratic president decades ago.
“I represent the heart of a congressional district that Lyndon Johnson once represented,” the Texan said in a statement Tuesday. “Under very different circumstances, he made the painful decision to retire.”
“President Biden should do the same,” he continued. “While much of his work has been transformative, he has pledged to be transitional.”
Lyndon B. Johnson decided to withdraw from the race in 1968 because mounting casualties in the Vietnam War had made him extremely unpopular.
Biden faces plummeting support following his disastrous performance in Thursday’s debate.
A defiant Biden vowed Wednesday to continue running for re-election, even though top aides said they believed he might have only days to prove he was up to the challenge before anxiety in the party boils over.
“Let me say this as clearly as I can, as simply and directly as I can: I’m running… nobody is pressuring me to leave,” Biden said on a call with members of his re-election campaign.
“I’m not leaving. I’m going to continue in this race until the end and we’re going to win.”
Still, despite his efforts to pull multiple levers — an impromptu appearance with campaign aides, private conversations with senior lawmakers, a weekend of travel and a network television interview — to salvage his faltering reelection bid, Biden faced serious and growing signs that support for him was rapidly eroding on Capitol Hill and among other allies.