Three presidents with one mission: to defeat Trump.Barack Obama And Bill Clinton they joined yesterday Joe Biden to New York on the stage of Radio City Music Hall, at the most important fundraising event of this election campaign and of his political career. In front of 5,000 peoplethey entered to the tune of “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen. The comedian was there to interview them Stephen Colbertwhile the actress Mindy Kaling presented the evening, with musical performances by Queen Latifah, Lizzo, Lea Michele, Cynthia Erivo and Ben Platt. He helped plan the event Anna Wintour. Tickets in the dovecote cost 250 dollars, anyone who wanted a photo with the three presidents paid $100,000 (the one who took them was the famous one Annie Leibovitz). At a cost of 250,000 or 500,000 you could enter the private reception and the after party. The collection exceeds 25 million dollars.
It’s the first time three Democratic presidents come together for a fundraiser. Usually we wait for the convention. It’s not just a question of money: it’s a challenge from Biden to the polls and doubts about his age , an attempt to unite the party and inject enthusiasm and hope into its election campaign. And it is a way to underline a substantial continuity of vision between the three leaders with respect toTrump’s isolation by his Republican predecessors and by his own former deputy Mike Pence. Obama, who has often appeared alongside his former vice president, arrived in New York yesterday with Biden on theAir Force One. For both, defeating Trump is the final act of their partnership.
In the fall Obama will turn to universities and large cities to try to regroup the support of the young people and minorities, which is also at risk because they criticize Biden’s management of the war Israel in Gaza: a few hundred demonstrators pro-Palestinians They were protesting yesterday in front of the Radio City Music Hall. Then some people inside the theater repeatedly interrupted the event. “You have blood on your hands†they shouted, before being dragged out. A woman, Diane Sarewho is also an independent candidate for the Senate for New York (against the Democrat Chuck Schumer), armed with a sign that said “War Pig”, warned that there was a risk of “nuclear war against Russia”, adding “You are all out of your mind!”. “Shame on you, Biden,” someone else shouted.
Biden replied: «Let them go. There are many people who are very, very… there are too many innocent victims, either Israelis That PalestiniansTO”. “No, listen,” he said Obama aimed at the demonstrators. “You can’t talk all the time. Sometimes you have to listen.” And he added: «In a situation like the one we see in Gaza and Israel, your heart breaks, initially due to a massacre of incredible cruelty. It’s also possible to say that we unequivocally support the people of Israel… which is Joe’s position, and it’s also possible to be heartbroken to see innocent people killed and try to deal with this in a way that brings both peoples to be able to live in peace, one next to the other”. AND Clinton he echoed: «Look, the world we live in is difficult, because we have to keep two apparently conflicting ideas together in our heads. But don’t forget, particularly if you are young and all you know is that the Israeli government denies Palestinian rights… Joe Biden he says he wants a two-state solution. He doesn’t just say it. We have experienced it and you should trust their work, which aims to reduce the suffering of innocent Palestinians without allowing Israel’s security to be lost in the bitter conflict over the legitimacy of the Palestinian state, which is something all three of us believe in.”
Colbert took advantage of the conduct of the meeting with jokes such as: «This is an extraordinary opportunity, because we have a New York three presidents and none of them will appear in court.” “Our democracy is at risk,” Biden said. “It’s not a joke, it’s literally at risk. I wasn’t planning on running in 2020, because I had recently lost my son Beau, but I saw what happened in Virginia, where these people came out in the fields with torches in their hands and Nazi flags, accompanied by white supremacists, and a woman, a bystander, was killed. They asked the then president what he thought about it. And he said there were good people on both sides…’.
While Biden continued to list the reasons why Trump is a threatObama intervened to note that «the point is not the negative thing that accompanies the candidate of the other side. The point is what there is positive in wonderful work done by someone else. Sometimes we forget where we started and where we are. We have a market of record-breaking work…we made progress before with Bill Clinton who got the Children’s Health Insurance Act, then when we approved theAffordable Care Act. Joe Biden has taken the baton and extended the coverage…». Clinton noted that from the point of view of the economy «President Trump had a couple of good years, because he stole them from Barack Obama. I listened to him say how the American economy was terrible during 2016 and how wonderful it would be by January 2017, his inauguration. Well, what really happened is that during the Trump presidency the employment growth it was slower than under the Obama presidency, But people didn’t feel it because it takes a little time to realize it.” Clinton defined Trump’s strategy thus: «They are good at marketing and blaming others… But Biden is good at finding solutions that people will eventually embrace. And that’s why he should win the elections.”
Biden speaks on the phone with Bill Clinton even more often than with Obama, his advisers say. Although a quarter of a century has passed since his presidency, Clinton is the one who inaugurated the centrist politics of the “new”. Democratic party, not to mention the defeat of his wife Hillary in 2016 at the hands of Trump is “personal” (she at a recent event at the New York Public Library he tried to avoid talking about the election campaign). In 2008 the three were actually on a collision course: Biden and Obama running for the nomination, as was Hillary; in 2016 Obama pushed for the latter’s candidacy for the White House and dissuaded Biden, while in 2020 it paved the way for him nominations. It is paradoxical, many note, that Biden, despite having achieved more legislative results, including the infrastructure spending, has the lowest popularity rate among the three. Although his measures are generally appreciated, voters are pessimistic about the future and doubtful about his second term 81 years old. Clinton is 77, Obama is 62: they were respectively 46 and 47 years old when they became president. Now they are called to help him formulate a message that reaches the average American, in the hope that the electorate still considers them an inspiration and that this can transfer to Biden. Americans’ trust in politics and institutions has decreased: not only during the Trump years; already there war in Iraq and the 2008 financial crisis contributed to the mistrust. Nostalgia is often used by Trump as a weapon. With Obama and Clinton at his side, Biden is trying to tap into it too.
