Biden won Hollywood friends with China connections
WASHINGTON — When then-Vice President Joe Biden hosted Chinese leader Xi Jinping for a five-day diplomatic blitz in 2012, a Hollywood Democratic mega-donor kept popping up with them.
There was Jeffrey Katzenberg, then the head of DreamWorks Animation, dining alongside Xi, the then-vice president of China, at a State Department welcome lunch in Washington. And there he was again, standing just behind Xi, then-California Gov. Jerry Brown and then-Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa at a Lakers game in Los Angeles. And there was Katzenberg hanging out in a nearby hallway with Disney CEO Robert Iger to provide last-minute counsel as Biden closed a deal in which China committed to considerably expand its market for American films.
On the final day of Xi’s visit, Dreamworks announced Xi had signed off on the company’s own deal — the launching of Oriental DreamWorks, a $330 million joint venture with Chinese companies to develop and distribute animated films in China.
Several of the candidates vying for the Democratic presidential nomination have significant support in Hollywood — Katzenberg, for example, has kicked in $2,800 each to 14 of them already — but none has as long a history of delivering for the industry as Biden.
His deep ties to studio executives and decades-long advocacy for their agenda has helped cement Biden’s support even as it may also open him to criticism for too cozy a relationship with big donors.
Biden is returning to Hollywood this week for another round of fundraisers, including the second Biden event co-hosted by Katzenberg and leaders of several major studios. Biden’s first Southern California fundraiser, which Katzenberg co-hosted in May, netted more than $700,000 in one night.
“Joe was our champion inside the White House,” said former Sen. Christopher Dodd, who led the Motion Picture Association of America for much of the Obama era.
“There is no question about it. Even before Joe Biden decided to run, I would get calls and have conversation with the major studio figures, with them saying, ‘You tell Vice President Biden 100% we want him to run.’ This wasn’t waiting around to see who would do well in polls.
“During some very tough days, he was one of the few people who stood up and believed they had a legitimate case,” Dodd said.
But as with so much of Biden’s history, his long support for the movie industry creates both benefits and problems. At a time when money in politics is a central issue, Biden’s big donors taint him for some Democratic primary voters. Two of Biden’s top rivals, Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, are disavowing big fundraisers and “bundled” contributions, arguing they fuel the public perception that access to decision makers is for sale.
That perception is not unreasonable, said Aynne Kokas, author of the book “Hollywood Made in China” and a film industry scholar at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center for Public Affairs. Katzenberg’s presence at events with Xi reflected “the access Katzenberg had to the Obama administration,” she said, adding that raising millions of dollars for the ObamaBiden ticket surely helped.
Biden’s campaign insists that his advocacy for the industry had no relationship to the industry’s political support.
“Protecting American intellectual property, opening new markets and ensuring better labor standards around the world is the job of any American administration. Vice President Biden has always been a fierce advocate for American industry throughout his career, including the film and television industry, which is one of our country’s major exports. The suggestion that his leadership on these issues was motivated by anything other than promoting good policy is ludicrous,” campaign press secretary T.J. Ducklo said in a statement.
Katzenberg advisers take exception to any suggestion the studio executive’s giving is related to White House access.
“This is pure fantasy,” said Andy Spahn, who has long advised Katzenberg on political involvement. “Jeffrey Katzenberg is supporting multiple candidates in the Democratic presidential primaries, and his politics have never been influenced by business interests.”