President Biden’s reelection campaign is increasingly leaning on a longtime ally to play a starring role and help him pull off a win in November: Hollywood.
From a record-breaking campaign fundraising weekend in Los Angeles, to an hourlong interview with famed SiriusXM radio host Howard Stern, to an appearance on a podcast hosted by actors Sean Hayes, Will Arnett and Jason Bateman, the commander in chief is seemingly pulling out all the stops on the entertainment industry circuit.
The move to court Hollywood — and get a public, star-studded show of support from some of the country’s biggest names — could be by design.
Last year, Biden’s camp named former DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg — one of the top Democratic fundraisers — as one of the campaign’s national co-chairs.
“Democrats have always had power player relationships with Hollywood that have helped raise money and generate excitement. It’s part of how we do it. It’s part of the sauce,” said Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons, who has worked on presidential campaigns.
Simmons said Katzenberg’s involvement in the camp speaks to his ability to target one of the main power centers: Tinseltown.
“He has those fundraising connections and he has relationships with celebrities, so having an unnamed staffer calling a celebrity is very different than having Jeffrey Katzenberg pick up the phone,” he said.
Biden’s swing through L.A. in December reportedly raised $15 million for his campaign. Katzenberg, the founding partner of WndrCo, had described it as the most campaign cash raised in a single visit to the City of Angels by any president or White House hopeful.
The potential boost from Hollywood isn’t just financial.
Biden made headlines last month with a surprise stop on Stern’s radio show. During the friendly interview, the shock jock gushed to the 46th president, “I want to thank you for your compassion. And I want to thank you for providing a calming influence.”
“Look at me, sitting with Howard Stern!” Biden — whom The New York Times criticized earlier this month for “actively and effectively [avoiding] questions from independent journalists during his term” — exclaimed during the chat.
Days later, Biden appeared alongside former Presidents Obama and Clinton on the “SmartLess” podcast, hosted by the trio of performers, Hayes, Arnett and Bateman. The podcast was recorded while Biden was in New York City in March for a glittery campaign fundraiser featuring a conversation between him, Obama and Clinton and moderated by “The Late Show’s” Stephen Colbert. Queen Latifah, Mindy Kaling, Lizzo and Cynthia Erivo were reportedly among the guests at the celeb-heavy event.
Vice President Harris also engaged with a member of one of Hollywood’s most storied families, sitting down last week for an interview on “The Drew Barrymore Show.”
Biden’s VP was on the receiving end of effusive praise from the talk show host, with Barrymore making a play on Harris’s first name by telling her, “We need you to be Momala of the country.”
On Friday, “Star Wars” actor Mark Hamill made a surprise visit to the White House press briefing room, excitedly telling reporters he had just met with Biden in the Oval Office and showing off a pair of aviator sunglasses that he said the commander in chief had gifted him.
Heaping praise on him, Hamill called Biden the “most legislatively successful president in my lifetime.”
The following day, Biden’s campaign blasted out a fundraising pitch from Hamill.
“I’m so proud to support [Biden and Harris] in their fight to secure another four years in the White House – and it’s why I’m asking you to join me,” Hamill said in the email.
Engaging with celebrities, Princeton University political science professor Lauren Wright said, is “a strategy that politicians of both parties use whenever they can and as much as they can.”
Beyond raising campaign money, famous names can help gain attention and amplify a candidate’s message in “places where you can get eyeballs that [you] wouldn’t normally get,” said Wright, the author of 2020’s “Star Power: American Democracy in the Age of the Celebrity Candidate.”
It’s about reaching “a section of the public that might not normally have a chance to listen to you — or want to listen to you,” she said.
But stepping into the spotlight with some left-leaning Hollywood figures doesn’t necessarily mean transforming diehard supporters of former President Trump into sudden Biden fans after hearing him on Stern’s show.
“It’s a really tough reach for celebrities to change someone’s mind in the context of an election,” Wright said. “The conversion aspect of it I think is too high of a bar.”
Simmons agreed: “Celebrities can’t save campaigns but they can provide platforms for the candidate to make their cases.”
In January, The New York Times reported that Biden’s team was strategizing ways to land Taylor Swift’s endorsement. Campaign aides have also told The Hill that it’s the one endorsement they desperately want, since it would come with a devoted fan base in the tens of millions. A representative for the “Fortnight” singer didn’t return The Hill’s request for comment about any outreach from the commander in chief’s campaign.
Robert Thompson, the founding director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University, said even Swift would have a tough time changing the minds of voters.
“Nobody would be surprised,” with a Swift endorsement, Thompson said, joking that it would have more of an impact if she decided to change her mind and endorse Trump.
But Fred Davis, a longtime GOP ad maker and president of the Hollywood-based political consulting firm Strategic Perception Inc., said aside from the backing of a mega-watt star such as Swift, celebrity endorsements are “a big box of nothing.”
“They’re fun and they’re interesting, and they get you about an hour’s worth of attention,” said Davis, who was part of the team behind then-GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain’s (Ariz.) 2008 ad, “Celeb,” which compared then-Sen. Barack Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, dubbing the Illinois Democrat the “biggest celebrity in the world.”
“But that doesn’t equate to putting [Biden] over the top,” Davis said.
The veteran Republican media strategist recalled, while working on Dan Quayle’s 2000 presidential campaign, suggesting the former vice president appear on an entertainer-filled platform, “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.”
“You would think I’d recommended that we rob Fort Knox or something — folks just thought that was a terrible idea,” Davis said with a laugh.
Davis prevailed, and Quayle appeared on Leno’s show: “Dan needed attention badly. And it worked for that. He got lots of attention.”
But aligning with Hollywood is a different story for Biden, according to Davis.
“Everybody knows Biden’s running. Everybody knows Trump’s running. The vast majority of voters already know who they’re voting for.”
Thompson added, “It’s too late for celebrities to be changing minds. Changing behavior? Maybe so. If they could push a little of that apathy to affect behavioral change, that’s what the campaign is hoping for.”
“But the idea of someone people admire changing their mind in really fundamental ways is a lot less effective than we think it is.”