Biden’s debate cleanup tour starts at an LGBTQ+ fundraiser in NYC

NEW YORK — Hundreds of LGBTQ+ donors and activists gathered in midtown Manhattan for a fundraiser supporting President Joe Biden on Friday, but the president’s debate performance cast an anxious shadow over what normally would have been an energizing political event. As they mingled in a lavender-lit event space at the Manhattan Center, many donors huddled in small groups and fretted over what they had all witnessed on television the night before. The debate was “definitely the main topic of conversation,” said one attendee, who declined to be named because he works in Democratic politics.

Jeffrey Omura, 39, an actor and former City Council candidate, said that he was “alarmed” by Biden’s debate performance and that he thought many other people at the fundraiser shared his worries.

“Everybody’s on the same page,” he said. “Everybody feels the same way: that it is up to the people who are close around him, his friends and his closest confidants, to nudge him out of this race.”

But, Omura added, “the LGBT community will still be there for him if he decides to stay in the race. The Democratic Party will still be there for him. We’ll do whatever it takes.”

Despite the unease of many people in the crowd, Biden was greeted with cheers when he took the stage shortly after 9 p.m.

“Folks, the stakes couldn’t be higher,” he told the attendees as the lights onstage behind him cast rainbow colors on the wall. “I will protect democracy. Donald Trump will not. That is especially the case when it comes to the LGBTQ community.”

One attendee, Alex Comiskey, 35, said the event had calmed his nerves. He thought Biden’s speech Friday was noticeably more energetic than his debate performance.

“It felt really good,” he said. “It felt reassuring.”

Another attendee, Jonathan Rakiec, 47, said that the people he spoke to at the event “were very nervous.” But he and his friends reassured themselves that “the best minds in the country” must be working “on solving what happened yesterday.”

“Whether it’s Biden doing a prime-time special alone or a new candidate, all options are on the table,” Rakiec said.

But outside the fundraiser, tensions quickly boiled over. Soon after the event began, at least 100 pro-Palestine demonstrators arrived at the Manhattan Center, which lies a stone’s throw from Pennsylvania Station in one of the city’s most chaotic corners.

They chanted and set off colorful plumes of smoke and soon began to scuffle with the police, who made at least a dozen arrests. Nearby, Billy Porter, one of the night’s featured performers, had a brief shouting match with a protester wearing a T-shirt that said, “Palestine is a queer issue.”

Inside, donors who paid $250 each waited on the balcony for the event to begin, drinking $17 cocktails out of plastic cups and snacking on bags of Doritos that were on sale for $3.

More high-paying donors sat on the floor below them and enjoyed cheese plates. In the background, classic Pride Month songs by performers including Madonna and Kim Petras played. Queer celebrities, including actors Wilson Cruz and Harvey Guillén, hobnobbed.

But for many, concerns remained. After the event, one attendee, former City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, 42, said the state of the race had left him in a state of fear.

“I think he’s a great man who’s had a great career, who has been a great president who defeated Donald Trump,” Johnson said of Biden. “But I am so scared. We cannot have a second Trump presidency. And so I don’t know what the answer is.”

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