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Celebrities, elected officials and political activists jumped on a Zoom call to raise millions for Vice President Kamala Harris’s run for president on Monday evening. By Tuesday morning, the amount raised had hit $4m.
The Zoom call featured stars such as Mark Ruffalo, Josh Gad, Sean Astin, Mark Hamill, Josh Groban — and “The Dude” himself, Jeff Bridges.
“I was brought to the party not so much as because I’m white, which I certainly am, but because I’m a dude,” the Big Lebowski star said during the call. “I’m white, I’m a dude and I’m for Harris. I’m excited, man.”
There were also appearances by elected officials such as North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, former House majority leader Steny Hoyer and Senator Gary Peters of Michigan. Transport secretary and potential Harris VP Pete Buttigieg was also on the call.
Many of the attendees took swipes at former president Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance, seeing it as a chance to push back on sexist attacks about Harris being one of the “childless cat ladies” who runs the country, as well as accusations she was a diversity hire.
Organized by Brad Bauman and Ross Morales Rocketto, the Zoom fundraiser is just the latest chapter of Harris’s fundraising blitz ever since President Joe Biden endorsed his running mate to succeed her. Morales Rocketto said in his opening remarks that the fundraiser was inspired by a Black Women for Harris one.
Morales Rocketto said that he was initially hesitant about organizing an event.
“Throughout American history, when white men have organized, it was often with pointy hats on,” he said, in reference to the Ku Klux Klan. “And so I think that discomfort, I think the skepticism, is understandable. The reason that we are doing this is because... the left has been ceding white men to the MAGA right for way, way too long.”
A’Shanti Gholar, the president of Emerge America, said it was important for white male voters to get involved with the Harris campaign.
“I'm friends with Ross who is planning it, and when he sent [the Zoom link] to me, he asked for me to share it, and I said I will absolutely share it,” she told The Independent. “And a lot of people said it meant a lot to just also see a Black woman like me wanting to promote white men who were supporting Vice President Harris.”
Maurice Mitchell, who is Black and the national director of the Working Families Party, hit on a point that was discussed throughout the fundraiser: that white men are a significant chunk of the electorate and Democrats need to get serious about reaching out to them.
“White men are a massive part of the electorate and in a close election, a few percentage points can be the difference between having a democracy or not,” Mitchell said.
A Pew Research Center study of the 2020 election found that 40 percent of white men voted for Biden, compared to 32 percent who voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
“I'm not a political scientist or the pollsters, but I know enough to know — and I've seen enough polling results or outcomes in elections to know — that if white males would vote 1 to 2 percent more for Democrats than they usually do, then we win this race,” North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a longtime friend of Harris’s, said on the call.
Cooper had previously been considered a potential running mate for Harris, given their friendship going back to being attorneys general and his status as a swing state governor. But shortly before the Zoom call, he announced his decision to not run for vice president.
At the same time, Cooper and others pushed back against conservative accusations that Harris was a “DEI hire”.
“Here's what they're saying, that women and people of color don't deserve to lead,” he said. “We know better than that, guys.”
Plenty of attendees pushed back against the idea that Harris was a diversity hire, an attack that they said is used as a means to diminish her accomplishments.
“Essentially, what they're saying is a burden that women have been carrying, African Americans have been carrying, anybody who doesn't fit the main narrative have been carrying— some of us are created more equal than others,” former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said.
The meeting also included plenty of ribbing. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker alluded to a debunked myth that JD Vance engaged in sexual behavior with a couch.
“I even created my own cognitive test that describes the two of them [Vance and Trump]: ‘sofa, dolphin, shark, cats, convict,’” he said.
Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, another potential running mate for Harris, noted that the Zoom call was a golden opportunity for white men to show that Donald Trump does not represent their entire demographic.
“How often in 100 days do you get to change the trajectory of the world?” he said. “And how often in the world do you make that b*****d wake up afterwards and know that a Black woman kicked his ass and sent him on the road?”
Actor Josh Gad noted how the Zoom call offered a contrast to the testosterone-heavy Republican National Convention.
“They have Kid Rock, Kevin Sorbo and a dolphin aficionado, and we have the Hulk, Samwise Gamgee, Luke Skywalker and Mayor Pete just on the Zoom,” he said.
