Megadonors Are Plotting How Best to Change Biden’s Mind

President Joe Biden is hearing calls to withdraw from the presidential race from a new source: major Democratic Party donors.

The New York Times reports that several of the richest contributors to Democrats around the country are trying to use their money to leverage support against Biden staying in the race.

“If you don’t publicly call for Biden to step aside, you are not getting a dime from me,” said Tom Strickler, the founder of Hollywood talent agency WME, to New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich’s team last Thursday. Strickler said he had been planning to financially support seven of the most vulnerable Democratic senators, but would not be doing so because they still backed Biden’s candidacy.

“It’s a message that I’ve encouraged my friends to send as well,” Strickler said. “If you back Biden, you will lose our support. Over and out.”

Strickler is one of the few donors willing to oppose Biden publicly, including Hollywood banker Joe Ravitch. Other high-profile Democratic donors, including Henry Laufer, Marilyn Simmons, and Haim Saban all wouldn’t comment to the Times.

According to the Times, many of these donors, while committed to replacing Biden, aren’t sure about the best way to do so. While Strickler is holding back on donations, others are leery about bringing on a backlash against wealthy elites. They also aren’t sure who to reach out to in Biden’s inner circle, and whether money is even the best means of persuasion.

“I can’t figure out who—if anyone—has influence over this, but donors certainly don’t, regardless of what we do,” said Ravitch. “And to speak out publicly against the president only helps undermine him. It’s a catch-22.”

Prior to Saturday’s assassination attempt against Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, several Democrats were calling for Biden to drop out of the race. Those calls had paused after Saturday but now are back in earnest with Representative Adam Schiff becoming the latest to join the movement. Efforts to fast-track Biden’s nomination are also facing a backlash. Biden is now being asked to drop out from multiple sources—but will any of them persuade him?

Starbucks made headlines Tuesday night when social media users pointed out that the coffee company was listed as a corporate sponsor for the Republican National Convention.

“After years of identifying as a progressive employer, Starbucks is now sponsoring the Republican National Convention,” read one since-deleted viral post on X (formerly Twitter).

The Hill picked up the story with the headline “Starbucks sponsors Republican National Convention.” The story has also since been deleted.

In reality, Starbucks was listed as a sponsor for the Milwaukee Host Committee for the RNC, not the RNC itself. Starbucks spokesperson Jaci Anderson clarified that the company had not donated any money to the convention.

“We are not providing a cash sponsorship of any kind,” Anderson said in an email to The New Republic. Instead of financial support, Starbucks is “providing in-kind support directly to the MKE 2024 Host Committee by providing coffee onsite to the first responders who are serving the city during the convention.”

Cops, such as the out-of-town police officers who shot and killed an armed man outside the RNC Tuesday afternoon, can access Starbucks coffee and other beverages at the five RNC venues in Milwaukee.

On the Milwaukee Host Committee’s website, the union-busting company’s logo is pictured next to far-right groups like Turning Point USA, The Heritage Foundation, Rumble, and more.

“The Host Committee is proud to have several partners who are supporting our mission to promote Milwaukee to the world,” Evan Hafenbreadl of the Milwaukee Host Committee said in a statement to The New Republic.

As expressed on its website, the Milwaukee Host Committee is a “nonpartisan entity created to work with the City of Milwaukee in preparing for and successfully producing the Republican National Committee (RNC) convention.”

In its statement, Starbucks clarified that it will provide the same services at the Democratic National Convention next month in Chicago. “Our support of first responders and volunteers at the conventions is an extension of our ongoing commitment to the communities where we operate—which includes Milwaukee and Chicago,” wrote Anderson.

In 2016, Starbucks also provided support for the Republican National Convention in Cleveland by keeping its downtown stores open 24/7 during the event.

Starbucks Workers United had no comment for The New Republic.

The Democratic National Committee is moving ahead with its plan to nominate Joe Biden ahead of Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month—and not everyone is happy about it.

Over the past week, Democrats have fought over the possibility and timeline of a virtual nomination of Biden ahead of the convention, accusing party insiders of trying to “fast-track” a roll-call vote.

It seems as though the Democratic National Committee is sticking to its plan to proceed with a virtual roll call for the nomination, but will operate on a slower timeline than some members of the party feared. The committee said Wednesday that the process will begin no earlier than August 1, though it will end before the Democratic convention starts on August 19. In a letter obtained by Politico, DNC co-chairs Leah Daughtry and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said they will determine exactly how to move forward at a Friday meeting.

“We know that the Republican Party and its affiliated groups, like Project 2025 author The Heritage Foundation, plan on filing all conceivable legal challenges to the Democratic Party’s nominees,” Daughtry and Walz wrote. “Having enough time to finalize our nominees and make sure they are on ballots around the country is critical. That is the driving reason for conducting a virtual voting process.”

The plan for a virtual roll call was introduced in May over concerns that Biden would not be able to appear on Ohio’s ballot thanks to a technical law that has since been changed. But following Biden’s disastrous debate performance, the rushing of the nomination has kicked off infighting in Democratic circles.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is reportedly pushing for the DNC to push its virtual roll call.

Another critical voice is Democratic Representative Lloyd Doggett, who was the first Democratic member of Congress to publicly call for Biden to step down. Doggett warned the DNC Wednesday to drop the idea of a virtual roll call. “My call for President Biden to step aside remains even more urgent,” he said. “Our decision must consider the reality of steadily worsening poll numbers, not just more wishful thinking. The risk of Trump tyranny is so great that we must put forward our strongest nominee.”

Earlier this week, members of Congress, led by Representative Jared Huffman, were circulating a draft letter arguing that Biden’s nomination should take place at the convention, as is standard practice. “There is no legal justification for this extraordinary and unprecedented action which would effectively accelerate the nomination process by nearly a month,” the Democrats warned. Since the letter from the DNC co-chairs, Huffman has said he will not send the letter for now.

Republicans appear to have completely forgone the “unity convention” theme this week in favor of a much more divisive brand: a total call to arms.

In a prerecorded message to the convention Tuesday night, presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump insisted that Democrats are “destroying our country,” and once again claimed that the 2020 election was stolen from him, urging supporters not to let “what happened” that year happen again.

“We must use every appropriate tool to beat the Democrats,” Trump said. “These people want to cheat, and they do cheat, and frankly it’s the only thing they do well.”

In a post on Truth Social, Trump twisted an old lie into something new, trying to convince his base that Democrats are “attempting to interfere” in the 2024 presidential election.

But Trump wasn’t the only Republican stoking the flames. In his own speech, Louisiana Representative Steve Scalise nodded toward a white supremacist, alt-right conspiracy known as the “great replacement theory” while baselessly advancing the idea that “Biden and Harris want illegals to vote.” House Speaker Mike Johnson shared a similar idea, telling the conference that Republicans “cannot allow the many millions of illegal aliens [the Democrats] allowed to cross our borders, to harm our citizens, raid our resources, or disrupt our elections.”

Of course, undocumented immigrants (and any other noncitizens) cannot vote in U.S. elections. But that didn’t stop Texas Senator Ted Cruz—whose state overwhelmingly identifies as Hispanic—from mindlessly hopping on the bandwagon.

“[Illegal immigration] happened because Democrats cynically decided they wanted votes from illegals more than they wanted to protect our children,” Cruz said Tuesday.

Senate candidate Kari Lake, who’s running to represent 2.3 million Latino voters in Arizona, also advanced the bold-faced lie that Democrats “voted to let the millions of people who poured into our country illegally cast a ballot in this upcoming election.”

But few summed up the aggressive mood of the convention better than West Virginia Governor Jim Justice, who told conference-goers on Tuesday that the “bottom line” for Republicans is this: “We become totally unhinged if Donald Trump is not elected in November.”

Donald Trump has one of the most powerful business leaders in his corner—and might make him treasury secretary if elected.

Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase, is in the running for the Cabinet position after Trump held a meeting with him and more than 70 other top U.S. executives last month that the former president and convicted felon described as a “lovefest.”

“That was a lovefest, and I will tell you when I’m not loved because I feel that better than anybody,” he said.

Trump may have felt loved in that meeting because he promised to lower the corporate tax rate to 20 percent if reelected. As president, Trump was responsible for lowering the rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, a move that was praised by business leaders at the time, including Dimon. The former president told Bloomberg that he would ultimately want to lower it to 15 percent “because that would put us in the absolute lowest in terms of incentive.”

Dimon has inclined himself toward Trump this year after Nikki Haley, whom he previously endorsed, dropped out of the race for president. Dimon has asked Democrats to dial back their criticism of the former president, saying that Trump was in many ways right about the economy. And Trump seems to have reversed his criticism of Dimon as well, after calling the banking CEO a “highly overrated globalist” thanks to his Haley endorsement.

Despite, or perhaps because of his stature in the business world, Dimon’s credibility may be inflated. He has touted disgraced WeWork founder Adam Neumann, his firm paid $290 million to settle a lawsuit over his bank’s funding of Jeffrey Epstein, and JP Morgan Chase has had to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in fines to the Securities and Exchange Commission during his watch. But as long as he heads a powerful Wall Street firm, he will retain credibility in financial markets, and that is why Trump will want to curry favor with him. Through Dimon, Trump may enjoy support from other CEOs, and will enjoy their financial contributions to his businesses and his campaign. The only question is whether Dimon would want the job.