The President and First Lady departed Los Angeles for Las Vegas on Sunday afternoon after a one-day whirlwind trip focused on gaining the support of the key Black movers and shakers, many of them pivotal players in the entertainment industry.
The First Lady spoke on Saturday evening at the glitzy Fifteen Percent Pledge Gala, an event dedicated to promoting Black businesses that had a strict Black tie, Black designer dress code. She used her platform to highlight how the Biden administration is working to promote economic equity and dismantle racial barriers to accessing capital.
“The average Black family’s worth at birth is a small fraction of a white family’s,” she said. “We’re all here because we know the branches of social justice are interwoven with those of economic justice.”
The President, meanwhile, attended a campaign meeting in Bel Air. During his trip, he planned to speak with Black leaders in key show business roles about how they can use their sway to mobilize voters, Deadline reported Friday.
On the way to LAX on Sunday morning, pool reporters said the president stopped at the Ivy restaurant to visit with his son, Hunter, and Hunter’s youngest son, Beau. Last month, Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty in an L.A. courtroom to federal tax charges filed after a plea agreement fell apart.
Biden also paused briefly to visit with diners at the restaurant.
President Biden’s visit to L.A. took advantage of the extra-large concentration of celebrities in town for Sunday evening’s Grammys celebration. While the President and First Lady did not plan to attend the event, the reelection campaign purchased commercial time during the televised broadcast, Deadline reported.
The president’s Sunday afternoon campaign event will was planned in Las Vegas’ majority-Black Historic Westside. After departing L.A., the president and first lady touched down about 2 p.m. at Harry Reid International Airport, where they were greeted by Rep. Susie Lee, D-Las Vegas.
There he planned to speak to community leaders about infrastructure investments, AP reported. Biden last visited the swing state in December and highlighted his administration’s $8 billion investment in passenger rail projects nationwide.
Capturing the Black vote was essential to Biden’s victory in Nevada in 2020 and is a success he seeks to replicate in December.
But, winning voters may prove more challenging this time around. A New York Times/Siena poll from November reported a 36% approval rating for Biden in 36% in Nevada.
The state’s democratic primary will begin on Tuesday. Biden is expected to win handily as he did in South Carolina’s democratic primary on Saturday.
Former President Donald Trump, who holds a strong lead over former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley in the Republican primaries thus far, visited Las Vegas for a campaign rally on Jan. 27.
He used the event to lob many criticisms at the president with a focus on Biden’s handling of the border crisis, a hot button issue on many voters’ minds. Trump also painted the four criminal cases pending against him as an attempt, led by the President, to prevent him from returning to power.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court will begin hearing arguments in a case that indeed has the potential to block Trump’s path back to the White House. The justices are tasked with determining whether the former president “engaged in insurrection” during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
It is the biggest test of the American election system since the court heard arguments in Bush v. Gore in 2000.
Nicholas Nehamas of The New York Times provided pool reports for this article.
Source: Orange County Register
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