President Biden is raking in campaign cash this week in between events at the U.N. General Assembly in New York as he builds his war chest ahead of an upcoming fundraising deadline.
Biden spoke at two fundraisers Monday night on the eve of his annual speech at the United Nations gathering of world leaders, and he is slated to attend two more campaign receptions Wednesday in Manhattan before returning to Washington.
The fundraising events have given Biden an opportunity to discuss domestic politics during a busy week of international diplomacy. Biden has used the events to make the case to wealthy donors that former President Donald Trump, the 2024 Republican frontrunner, represents a threat to American democracy.
“Let there be no question,” Biden told donors at one fundraiser at the St. Regis New York. “Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy.”
Democratic donors said the message is resonating.
“The prospect of former President Trump in the White House again will get any Democratic donor to open their checkbook,” Charles Myers, a top Democratic donor and Biden supporter, told Newsweek.
Trump has a double-digit lead over the rest of the GOP primary field, despite his mounting legal problems. Trump is running even in head-to-head matchups with Biden, according to early polls.
“The fact that Trump is doing so well is really helping the Biden folks” fundraise, Myers added.
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Biden’s fundraising push during U.N. week is part of a broader race for campaign cash as the third-quarter fundraising period draws to a close at the end of the month. The 2024 presidential candidates must report their third-quarter fundraising totals by Oct. 15.
Biden, the Democratic National Committee and related committees raised $72 million in the second quarter of 2023, far outpacing the Republican primary field.
Trump, raised $35 million, according to his campaign. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is polling in second place among Republicans, hauled in $20 million.
The race to meet third-quarter fundraising goals comes as House Republicans embark on a contentious impeachment inquiry into whether the president benefited improperly from his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings.
The impeachment inquiry opens a new phase in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, as both parties dig in for what promises to be a bitter election season. It marks the second election in a row where the incumbent president faced an impeachment inquiry the year before seeking a second term.
Trump was impeached by House Democrats in late 2019 and then again after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Trump used the impeachment efforts, which both resulted in an acquittal by the Senate, to raise money from supporters.
The Biden campaign has taken a similar approach in the week since House Speaker Kevin McCarthy launched the impeachment inquiry.
Biden has dismissed the impeachment effort as a politically motivated attack by Republicans to hurt his reelection prospects. At the same time, the Biden-Harris campaign has seized on the GOP impeachment to fundraise with Democratic supporters.
The impeachment inquiry is “beyond ridiculous,” Vice President Kamala Harris told supporters in a fundraising email after McCarthy’s announcement. “MAGA Republicans will stop at nothing to try to destroy President Biden and our record.”