In Hollywood, Panic Over Joe Biden Builds to a Silent Shriek

So far, Hollywood is holding its tongue, at least publicly. It has not yet begun holding back donations amid widespread calls for President Joe Biden to step aside and let another Democratic contender take his place in the 2024 campaign. The patience of his supporters in the entertainment industry has a ticking clock, however. Some are saying that the concern they feel privately now could become full-fledged panic and lead to more overt measures if they don’t see change in the next two weeks.

The alarm that erupted following the 81-year-old Biden’s performance during last Thursday’s presidential debate against Donald Trump has saturated the ranks of actors, filmmakers, executives, and other deep-pocketed allies in Hollywood. Leaders in this politically active segment of the industry are trying to maintain calm, like Andy Spahn, the LA-based political consultant to Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg, and other show business titans, who helped raise more than $20 million for Biden’s campaign in 2020. He declined an interview about the current contretemps, but offered Vanity Fair this statement: “Everyone needs to just take a breath.”

The entertainment industry’s Democratic-leaning politicos are largely following that guidance, though their breathing is a little closer to hyperventilation right now.

On Saturday, two days after the debate, about 200 show business heavyweights gathered for a fundraising brunch at the home of entertainment attorney Ken Ziffren, the longtime Los Angeles film czar responsible for bolstering production in the city. The focus of the event was not the presidential campaign, but a group of Democrats vying for highly competitive US Senate seats. Biden’s performance dominated conversation anyway, at least offstage.

Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt hosted the onstage discussion, which included Vice President Kamala Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff; sitting senators Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Bob Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania, who are up for reelection in November; and congressional reps Ruben Gallego of Arizona, Colin Allred of Texas, and California’s Adam Schiff (on his home turf), all of whom hope to make the leap from the House of Representatives to the Senate. No mention was made in their conversation about Biden’s dispiriting debate performance or the possibility of him stepping aside, but out in the audience it was an inescapable topic of chatter.

Among these powerbrokers, this is a rare moment of powerlessness. “What I’m hearing with my ear to the ground is that the notion of Biden stepping down has not gone away and may well happen. Donors are very concerned, but there seems to be a strategic effort to allow Biden to make that decision on his own in a graceful way,” says a donor who was in attendance on Saturday, a self-described moderate whose Democratic allegiance has been galvanized by disgust with Trump.

The donor adds that the consensus in Hollywood circles is that pressuring Biden publicly will only make him dig in: “All of that is strategic in regard to letting Joe save face because he’s notably stubborn. And he’s also known, to his credit, for getting up when he’s on the mat. He did unseat Trump. There seems to be this balance between letting things marinate, figuring out if he still is the best person to potentially beat Trump, or whether it really is dire.”

In need of reassurance, Hollywood is looking for a stronger performance. If the campaign’s framing is to be believed—that Biden merely had a bad night, as former president Barack Obama wrote on X—then the president has about two weeks to prove it before facing a revolt from his would-be supporters. “He gave that rally in North Carolina the next day and by all accounts it was very strong,” the donor tells Vanity Fair. “There have to be a thousand of those, because [51 million] people or more tuned into that debate. He should be out there every day. He’s got to try to flood the zone, with interviews or press conferences from the White House. Just doing one rally the next day to stop the bleeding isn’t going to remotely do what’s necessary in order for him to remain on the ticket.”

Biden’s most famous celebrity backers remain publicly loyal. On Friday morning, at the peak of panic about the debate, the campaign sent small-level donors a mass email addressed “From: Robert De Niro,” who has seldom passed an opportunity to heap scorn on Trump. “Over the years, I’ve played my share of vicious, low-life characters. I’ve spent a lot of time studying bad men,” the Oscar winner wrote. “Donald Trump is a wannabe tough guy with no morals or ethics who will do whatever he can to obtain power. As an actor, I could never play him. There’s not a shred of humanity to hang on to.” De Niro made no mention of the debate, but added, along with his request for a $25 donation to the campaign, “I strongly support Joe Biden…. I trust him completely to run the country.”

Others have acknowledged the setback while still rallying behind the president. Filmmaker Rob Reiner, one of the most outspoken Democratic voices in Hollywood, took to X to declare that even a diminished Biden was better than a malevolent Trump. “Last night’s debate was a disaster for President Biden,” Reiner wrote. “But the choice is still crystal clear: We either can choose a good decent man who cares about his fellow citizens and knows how to govern, or a Convicted Felon who will destroy our Democracy. Not a tough choice.” The night of the debate, CNN reported eyewitness details from a Los Angeles watch party, writing, “by a few answers in, Rob Reiner was screaming about losing and Jane Fonda had tears in her eyes.”

On his HBO Max series Real Time, Bill Maher struck a similar note—although far more bluntly. “I have said before, I will vote for his head in a jar of blue liquid. And after last night, time to get the jar,” he said. He noted that he had proposed more than a year ago that Biden shouldn’t run for reelection, and in an op-ed in The New York Times, Maher said an open convention to replace him could be a blessing in disguise. “Suddenly, instead of rehashing the debate from hell—worst episode of The Golden Bachelor ever—they would be hosting a competition, something Americans love,” he wrote. “This may sound like I’m doing a bit here, but I’m deadly serious that this would be good for the Democrats and give them a better chance of winning.”

Maher said his pick would be California governor Gavin Newsom, who made the TV rounds after the debate to shore up support for Biden. “Watching him make the case against Mr. Trump in the pre-debate interviews and defend Mr. Biden post-debate reminded me: This guy is good at this,” Maher wrote. “He is forceful, is never at a loss for words or stats, never stumbles, is never intimidated. He’s unbullyable, and that’s important against Mr. Trump.”