Joe Biden is barnstorming Pennsylvania today in an effort to get his reelection campaign back in the saddle, but here in Hollywood, the president just lost another high-profile major donor after his June 27 debate debacle.
Little more than a week after hosting a fundraiser for Vice President Kamala Harris for the incumbents, Rob Reiner has called for President Biden to “step aside.”
Terming the 81-year-old POTUS as a man who has served the nation with “honor, decency and dignity,” the American President director joins the likes of Damon Lindelof, Netflix’s Reed Hastings and Abigail Disney in pleading with Biden over the last week to exit the race. Like the Watchmen showrunner and others, Reiner says it is more important to save American democracy from Donald Trump than for the sometimes uncertain and rambling Biden to stay in his latest bid for the White House.
Perhaps more than previous big donors or even high ranking elected Democrats seeking the poll sagging Biden’s departure from the race, Reiner is a whale of a game changer. A steadfast supporter of not just Joe Biden, but Democratic candidates up and down the ballots over the decades, to lose Reiner is close to losing the grandmothers at Stalingrad for the president.
Reiner and spouse Michele held an event with the VP on June 29 in LA. just two days after the president’s stumbling performance live on CNN against a lie spreading but pumped up Trump. That evening, the Vice President was candid(ish) about the “elephant in the room.” The former California Senator admitted what everyone saw with their own eyes that Biden did not have his “finest” hour. A loyal soldier, the Veep still declared that nothing in the campaign had truly changed because of “a day in June” and that Biden would wipe the floor with Trump.
Like what many a Democrat are still saying before the cameras and microphones, that may fall into the realm of magical thinking at this point.
‘He’s cooked,” another prominent Hollywood director told Deadline today of Biden upon hearing of Reiner’s defection.
Besides the singular power of Reiner’s statement Sunday, the All in the Family alum the latest member of a chorus of Democrats who doubt Biden can overcome a disastrous debate performance. Reiner’s message also is a signal that those calls for the president to step aside won’t stop even after his July 22 interview with George Stephanopoulos – which was a less than stellar event unto itself for those unsure about Biden’s capacity to go forward.
In public and in private meetings with the likes of Democratic governors, Biden has insisted he is staying in the race. Going into a week likely to bring even louder voices requesting he step down, the president says his self-described “bad” debate performance was a one-off, due to a cold and exhaustion and he’s “in it to win it.”
The cratering opinion polls don’t seem to agree.
Ted Johnson contributed to this report
