(Headline USA) The Biden campaign’s donations have dried up in the wake of the 81-year-old president’s disastrous debate performance against former President Donald Trump, according to NBC News.
“The money has absolutely shut off,” a person close to the Biden campaign said.
Though the Biden campaign initially claimed it had raised $14 million in funds on debate day, it has since struggled to keep attracting donations.
Some of Biden’s fundraisers have been canceled, and some top donors have even vowed not to contribute another cent unless Biden drops out of the 2024 race.
One such donor is Abigail Disney—granddaughter of Roy Disney, who co-founded the Walt Disney Co.
“I intend to stop any contributions to the party unless and until they replace Biden at the top of the ticket,” she said last week.
“This is realism, not disrespect. Biden is a good man and has served his country admirably, but the stakes are far too high,” she claimed. “If Biden does not step down, the Democrats will lose—of that, I am absolutely certain. The consequences for the loss will be genuinely dire.”
Hollywood A-lister George Clooney, who helped raise some $30 million for Biden less than a month ago, also published an op-ed calling on Biden to withdraw.
“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010,” he wrote. “He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”
Biden has failed to alleviate concerns like Disney and Clooney’s that he won’t be able to win in November. On one recent fundraising call, for example, donors reportedly left with a “negative” impression of Biden’s chances.
“The call seemed so contrived to people; I don’t think they buy it,” a source said. “This is a massive, massive problem. Right now, we should be scaling up, doubling and tripling our goals as we head into the fall. But we’re cratering.”
