President Joe Biden visited George Lucas's $32 million mansion in Bel Air on Saturday evening to woo Democratic supporters who were in town for the Grammys.
Biden arrived in Los Angeles on Saturday afternoon and headed straight to the 9,000-square-foot, 9-bedroom, 8-bathroom home in a private, gated community. Jill Biden, who was traveling to the West Coast with her husband, headed to her own event with her supporters.
It was reported that Biden met with black entertainment leaders. Lucas' wife Mellody Hobson is CEO of Ariel Investments and chairwoman of Starbucks Corporation. She is the former chairman of DreamWorks Animation.
The president's meeting comes at a time when polls show the president's support among black voters is declining and as Donald Trump appears to be finalizing the nomination to become the Republican presidential nominee.
This comes after the United States and Britain struck 36 Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday in a second wave of attacks to further disable Iran-backed proxy militias.
President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden are greeted by (from left) Senator Alex Padilla, his son Diego Cruz Padilla and Representative Maxine Waters upon their arrival in Los Angeles
President Biden meets with entertainment leaders at George Lucas and Mellody Hobson's Bel Air home (shown above in 2016).
Biden is on a three-day trip to the West Coast and is focused on his re-election. He will travel to Las Vegas on Sunday to attend events there. It's his third round of political visits this week – on Tuesday he was in Florida for fundraisers and on Thursday he traveled to Detroit to speak with auto union workers.
Many of those who attended his meeting in Los Angeles are in town for Sunday's Grammy Awards.
The Biden campaign will run a campaign ad during the Grammys focused on Biden's support for abortion rights, which Democrats are touting as a big issue in the 2024 election.
The Bidens won't attend the music awards show – although Jill Biden attended last year – but will speak with industry leaders about the issues at stake in the election and how they can use their platforms to mobilize voters , Deadline reported.
Lucas, the creator of the Star Wars franchise, and Hobson bought the home in 2017 from a company with ties to Texas billionaire Ross Perot. They paid $33.9 million for the home, built in 1929. It has a swimming pool, fountains and a putting green.
Hobson's name was once in the race for treasury secretary when some black lawmakers wanted an African-American candidate. Biden ultimately nominated Janet Yellen. Hobson, a Black billionaire businesswoman, donated to Biden's 2020 campaign.
Biden's declining support among Black voters is one of many warning signs that Democrats have waved as polls show a rematch between Trump and Biden in 2024 is essentially a draw.
After Trump won the New Hampshire primary, the Biden campaign said he had essentially blocked the Republican nomination and focused their clout on the former president.
Some Democrats fear Biden is not being tough enough on his Republican nemesis as his campaign focuses on hiring staff – particularly in key states – and increasing his huge campaign budget.
Key White House aides – including Jen O'Malley Dillon, Mitch Landrieu and Mike Donilon – have moved on to the campaign trail. O'Malley Dillon was the campaign manager for Biden's successful 2020 campaign.
Biden raised more than $97 million for his re-election campaign in the final three months of last year.
Trump, meanwhile, is bleeding money from his PAC in the form of legal fees.
Donald Trump's Save America leadership PAC and Make America Great Again PAC spent $56 million on legal fees last year, including $30 million in the last half of the year.
Still, the president has vulnerabilities that worry loyalists. In addition to his age — at 81, he is the oldest American president ever elected — a USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll last month found he has the support of just 63% of black voters, a group in which he 2020 had a whopping 87%.
Biden has stepped up his canvassing efforts, including trips to South Carolina, where Black voters gave him his first primary victory of the 2020 campaign. On Saturday, he handily won the state's Democratic primary with 97% of the vote, but faced only symbolic resistance.
President Joe Biden visited his campaign staff in Wilmington
President Joe Biden speaks with campaign staff as First Lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff listen
Before he headed to the West Coast on Saturday, he and Jill Biden officially opened his campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del.
During his speech, Biden called his team together and said Trump was behaving even worse than he did in the 2020 campaign.
“The guy we're running against is for nothing, he's against everything.” And no, I'm serious, it's the strangest campaign I've ever been a part of, it's even worse in terms of his behavior than last time in 2020,” Biden said.
“This is more of a mission,” he told them. “We can't lose this campaign. For the good of the country.”
“This is beyond my limits, it is the good of the country,” he said.
The entire Democratic ticket was in Wilmington to celebrate the official opening of their 2024 campaign headquarters.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff flew from Washington DC to join the Bidens in speaking to staff.
Meanwhile, Biden will be in Las Vegas for political events on Sunday. Biden's stop comes as Nevada completes early voting for the presidential preference primary. Election day for the primary is Tuesday, February 6th.
He will speak to voters in the city's historic West Side district about what is at stake in the election, his campaign team said.
The LA swing will be the Bidens' first trip to the region since December, when they were in the city for a fundraising swing.
First lady Jill Biden wears a pin in support of her husband, President Joe Biden, while visiting the Biden campaign headquarters in Wilmington
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to campaign staff in Wilmington as President Biden listens
James Costos (center) posted a photo from the fundraiser he hosted at his home in Los Angeles in the fourth quarter of 2023, with (from left) First Lady Jill Biden, President Joe Biden, Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi and Costos' partner Michael Smith The Bidens' last LA visit
His fundraisers during this three-day swing were attended by celebrities including Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand, Shonda Rhimes, Rob Reiner and David Geffen.
President Biden faces only mild opposition to the Democratic nomination and most of the funds he has raised will go to the general election.
Biden's focus in the election campaign was on Trump. He has made defending democracy a centerpiece of his reelection and has repeatedly said that Trump threatens the principles on which the country was founded.