Obama unleashes on Trump privately as he raises $24 million for Biden

At fundraising events where he has pulled in more than $24 million for Joe Biden’s campaign in the past two months, former President Barack Obama has privately unleashed on President Donald Trump to party donors, bringing up past accusations of Trump’s “assaulting women” and warning of his efforts to push “nativist, racist, sexist” fears and resentments.

With less than 100 days until the presidential election, Obama has laid out the stakes of 2020 in forceful fashion. He has urged support for Biden, his former vice president, while worrying about the state of American democracy itself, even making an oblique reference to Nazi Germany, according to notes made from recordings of Obama’s remarks, donors and others who have been on the calls.

Even three years out of office, Obama remains one of the Democratic Party’s biggest draws for giant contributors and small donors alike. A virtual conversation Tuesday with actor George Clooney sold out of tickets that ranged from $250 to as much as $250,000. (The biggest donors got access to a small “virtual clutch” with Obama.)

Read: Obama condemns Trump's use of federal agents against protesters

Donors who have paid six-figure sums to see Obama on Zoom — he held two other, more intimate, conversations for donors with Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn and a major Democratic donor, and J.B. Pritzker, the billionaire governor of Illinois — have been privy to wide-ranging Q&A sessions about the state of politics and unvarnished analysis from the former president.

On Tuesday evening, during the event with Clooney, Obama was asked what keeps him up at night these days. He cited fears of voter suppression and an effort by Trump to question the election’s legitimacy.

Obama, who has carefully calibrated his public statements since leaving office to avoid being pulled into one-on-one combat with a current president looking for a foil, is considerably more caustic when the cameras are off, according to people who have been on the calls and notes made from recordings.

During his conversation with Pritzker, Obama spoke about how Trump has a core base that “filters out any contradictory information.”

“It’s just glued to Fox News and Breitbart and Limbaugh and just this conservative echo chamber — and so, they’re going to turn out to vote,” Obama said. “What he has unleashed and what he continues to try to tap into is the fears and anger and resentment of people who, in some cases, really are having a tough time and have seen their prospects, or communities where they left, declining. And Trump tries to tap into that and redirect in nativist, racist, sexist ways.”

Obama’s office did not dispute his private comments but declined to comment further.

The former president dismissed Trump’s continued focus on the Confederate monuments as a distraction amid the coronavirus pandemic — “that’s like his No. 1 priority” — but also characterized it as a menace that “gives you a sense of what this is about.” He then pivoted to what those “darker impulses” have wrought in history.

“The endpoint of that we saw in Europe 60 years ago, 70 years ago — what happens when those things get unleashed,” Obama said, according to the notes. “You don’t nip that in the bud, bad things can happen. Among the most quote unquote civilized societies.”

During the event with Hoffman, Obama called out Trump for stoking “anti-Asian sentiment” when talking about the virus, which the president has called the “kung flu” and “Chinese virus.”

“That still shocks and pisses me off,” Obama said. He went even further as he told the virtual crowd that he hoped his seriousness of purpose was emanating through the screen.

“We already saw this guy win once,” he said. “After he bragged about physically assaulting women — and that didn’t seem to matter. So, enough said. Let’s get to work.”

Obama criticized Trump without naming him as he delivered the eulogy at Rep. John Lewis’ funeral Thursday, saying Republican efforts to curtail voting rights had left the electoral system under attack.

“Even as we sit here, there are those in power who are doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations and targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws, and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision,” Obama said.

“George Wallace may be gone,” the former president said, “but we can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators.”

Obama sat firmly on the sidelines during the Democratic primary race but has mobilized to help his former vice president. In addition to the four virtual events — his joint appearance with Biden is still the campaign’s single biggest fundraising event — he has lent his name to digital solicitations that are among the party’s highest-performing missives.

And Obama and Biden’s “socially distanced” video released last week not only earned airtime on television news but was also an organizing tool for the campaign, which tripled email sign-ups in the 24 hours after its initial release, compared with the day before.

At the Democratic National Committee, the times that Obama signs emails have been known internally as “Barack Obama days” for the influx of contributions and for a reactivating effect among supporters.

“He’s obviously one of our most effective surrogates,” said Tom Perez, the DNC chairman, who hailed the efficiency of virtual fundraisers and moderated the conversation between Obama and Hoffman.

“The virtual context means you don’t have to put him and other surrogates on a plane,” Perez said. “This just allows him to do more events, more efficiently. That’s been a surprise.”

Obama is still said to be concerned that appearing in too many virtual fundraisers will blunt his impact over time — but he recently told a former campaign aide that they were far easier than he expected, taking only about an hour of his time, requiring no travel and providing a cash return for the Biden team that exceeded his expectations.

Obama’s first fundraising appearances with Biden raised $11 million, including $7.6 million from smaller online contributors and $3.4 million from big donors who got a more private session with the two men, according to the Biden campaign. The Hoffman event raised $5.6 million and the Pritzker event more than $3 million, according to people familiar with the matter.

In his private fundraisers, Obama has praised Biden’s character and hailed him as a future “great president,” almost turning the tables on donors and others who have tried to offer “constructive criticism” to the Biden campaign given the stakes of the election.

“We have a worthy candidate, and we have a worthy platform,” Obama said. “But you know what, let’s not be so sophisticated that we are constantly finding reasons why this isn’t good enough or the candidate’s not doing this or the campaign seems to not be getting that quite right.”

DNC officials and Biden campaign aides have tried, gingerly, to enlist Michelle Obama to appear in her own online fundraisers. But the former first lady, who has been focusing her energy on other projects like a new podcast, has told people in her orbit that she does not consider herself a political player. She has committed to virtually appearing at the Democratic National Convention but signaled she would engage more in the campaign at a time and in a fashion of her choosing.

So far, Michelle Obama has neither headlined high-dollar fundraisers nor signed messages to email lists for Biden and the DNC.