(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) After being ousted by his own party, former President Joe Biden ended 2024 with a humiliating feat: not a single dollar raised for the construction of his presidential library, raising serious doubts about the project’s viability.
The fragile financial situation was revealed in IRS filings from the Joe and Jill Biden Foundation, the entity created to oversee the presidential library, according to a Saturday report from the leftist New York Times.
The outlet reported that the foundation was initially seeded with $4 million in leftover funds from Biden’s 2021 inauguration. The foundation did not disclose how much money it raised in 2025, claiming in remarks to the Times that Biden had only recently begun fundraising.
The $4 million in seed funding falls well short of the $11.3 million the foundation projected it would raise by 2027 and even further below the $200 million Biden officials reportedly said they wanted to secure, according to the Times.
By contrast, President Donald Trump has said he plans to raise more than $950 million for a presidential library in Miami. Trump has also secured several million dollars through major settlements with Big Tech companies and leftist media networks.
Trump’s figures would mirror the $1.5 billion former President Barack Obama raised for his presidential center in Chicago.
But the outlook for Biden only worsens, a major Democratic donor told The Times that they will not give any money to Biden for the library.
“The Biden staff, they ruined any type of good library for him,” Democratic donor John Morgan said. “He’ll be lucky to have a bookmobile.” He added that he recently met with former President Bill Clinton to expand the Clinton Presidential Library.
Biden’s foundation attributed the fundraising delay to his cancer treatment.
According to the Times, some donors have suggested Biden merge a potential presidential library with the “Joseph R. Biden Jr. School of Public Policy and Administration” at the University of Delaware.
The embarrassing fundraising shortfall comes nearly a year after Biden’s exit from the White House, following his forced ouster from the 2024 presidential ticket by his own party.
Biden remains deeply unpopular within Democratic circles, with many voters viewing his presidency as a major catalyst behind President Trump’s return to office in 2025.
