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President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will be flying into LAX for a brief Los Angeles visit on Saturday afternoon, Feb. 3.
During their short trip, the president will be meeting with Black leaders in the entertainment industry to talk about the role they can play in the upcoming election, Deadline reported Friday.
The Bidens will not be staying for the Grammy awards, scheduled Sunday at L.A.’s Crypto.com Arena, but will be departing on Sunday evening for a reelection campaign stop in Las Vegas — an important battleground state in November.
The president doesn’t currently have any major fundraising events on the books, but may meet privately with donors. The wallets and public cachet of Hollywood celebrities and executives have provided important support for Biden’s past campaigns.
In early December, the Bidens went on a three-day fundraising and handshaking blitz across Los Angeles.
During the whirlwind trip they spoke at six private fundraising events, attend the shiva of TV icon Norman Lear and, according to the Hollywood Reporter, raised $15 million for the Biden Victory Fund. A star studded evening event attended by A-listers including director Steven Spielberg, producer Shonda Rhimes, and comedian Rob Reiner, raked in $8 million alone.
Vice President Kamala Harris, meanwhile, visited Manhattan Beach for a campaign fundraiser on Jan. 24 and attended a fundraiser at a private residence in Brentwood on Nov. 20. Earlier this week she stopped in San Jose as part of her nationwide abortion rights tour for the 50th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade ruling, but there is no word yet on whether she will be part of the president’s weekend visit to LA.
The Biden reelection campaign is performing well in the fundraising department, even as the president’s approval rating remains weak. His campaign raised $33 million in the last quarter of 2023, compared to Former President Donald Trump’s $19.1 million haul and Nikki Haley’s $17.3 million.
GOP frontrunner Trump, for his part, has not paid any recent visits to Southern California as part of his campaign to regain the White House. In late September 2023, he attended the California GOP’s convention in Anaheim and also spoke at a ticketed fundraising event in Costa Mesa.
On Friday, the Bidens joined grieving families at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to witness the return of three American service members killed in last weekend’s drone attack in Jordan.
The solemn ritual, called a dignified transfer, has become relatively uncommon in recent years as the U.S. withdrew from conflicts abroad.
With his gloved right hand over his heart, Biden looked on as the three transfer cases draped with American flags were carried the short distance from a C-5 galaxy military transport aircraft to a waiting van. The only words spoken during the 15-minute dignified transfer, aside from the commands as each case was carried, were from an Air Force chaplain’s brief prayer, asking God for “grace and mercy.”
The first transfer case held the remains of Sgt. William Jerome Rivers of Carrollton, Georgia. The movement was then repeated for Sgt. Breonna Moffett of Savannah and Sgt. Kennedy Sanders of Waycross. Once the seven-member, white-gloved carry team — composed of members of the U.S. Army, in which Rivers, Moffett and Sanders served — placed the last of the cases in the van, they offered a final salute as the remains were transported to the mortuary facility at Dover.
Before the dignified transfer, the Bidens met privately with the families at the Center for Families of the Fallen on the base. The president had also spoken with them earlier this week to offer his condolences.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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