Biden and Trump campaigns target wealthy US expats in London

Happy Thursday and welcome to US Election Countdown. Today we’re talking about:

• Duelling London fundraisers

• Hunter Biden’s conviction

• The Fed’s interest rate predictions

The money race has gone transatlantic.

Duelling fundraisers for the US presidential candidates took place in London last night, as the campaigns tapped Americans abroad with the help of their British friends [free to read].

While Anna Wintour, the British born editor-in-chief of US Vogue, hosted a fundraiser for Joe Biden, Donald Trump Jr and his fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle, a former Fox News host, were elsewhere in the city raising money for Donald Trump.

The Republican event was organised by Holly Valance, a former Australian soap opera star who became a rightwing political activist, her husband, British property mogul Nick Candy, and Duke Buchan, the finance chair of the Republican National Committee who was Trump’s ambassador to Spain.

The ticket price? Up to $100,000.

Among the invitees were Brexit champion and Reform party leader Nigel Farage and Lord Matthew Elliott, former chief executive of Vote Leave, a Brexit campaign group. Ex-UK prime minister Liz Truss was also invited, but a spokesperson said she would not attend.

Co-hosts included former US ambassadors to Portugal, Germany Switzerland and the UK, alongside Cantor Fitzgerald chair Howard Lutnick and food producer Ken LaGrande, according to an invitation seen by the FT. US investor Scott Bessent, who is considered a possible Treasury secretary pick for Trump, also co-hosted.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Republicans had already brought in $2mn through ticket sales and donations (although only US citizens can contribute), according to people close to the organisers.

“It will be the most ever raised for Trump from a UK fundraiser,” they told the FT’s Alex Rogers, Daniel Thomas and Jim Pickard.

Trump’s London event follows big fundraisers in Silicon Valley and New York, as the former president tries to close Biden’s huge campaign cash lead.

Campaign clips: the latest election headlines

• G7 negotiators have reached a deal to use profits from frozen Russian sovereign assets to help Ukraine, while they grapple with a barrage of domestic political difficulties including the upcoming US election.

• The Republican-led House has held US attorney-general Merrick Garland in contempt for failing to hand over recordings of Biden’s interviews with special counsel Robert Hur.

• Larry Kudlow, Trump’s national economic adviser, will interview the former president when he speaks in front of the nation’s top chief executives at the Business Roundtable in Washington. (Axios)

• Hunter Biden’s conviction has undercut a Republican fundraising pitch centred around an acquittal. (NYT)

• The guilty verdict could also take a personal toll on the president. (Washington Post)

Behind the scenes

At a fragile moment for Joe Biden’s re-election campaign, his son Hunter was convicted on Tuesday on federal gun charges. Following days of testimony about Hunter’s drug habits, the verdict marked another tragic turn in the Biden family history.

The decision comes less than two weeks after Donald Trump’s own felony conviction, as both parties try to capitalise on, or minimise, the verdicts. But right now it seems like the convictions aren’t going to sway voters one way or the other. 

As the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics’ Kyle Kondik put it to the FT’s Lauren Fedor and James Politi:

To the extent Biden has troubles, and of course he has many, I think it’s much more about his age, perceptions of his performance, and inflation.

In one poll from last week, almost two-thirds of the US electorate said that Hunter Biden’s conviction would have no bearing on their presidential vote. Fewer than a quarter of respondents — mostly Republicans — said the verdict would make them less likely to cast a vote for the president.

Despite the long shadow his issues have cast over his father’s presidency and 2020 White House run, Democrats are trying to paint the younger Biden’s conviction as a private family matter with roots in the traumatic death of the president’s elder son Beau in 2015. And it might be working.

“Most people have members of their family, extended or otherwise, who have experienced drug addiction or other addictions,” Democratic strategist Mary Anne Marsh told Lauren and James. The Biden family has been ravaged by loss since 1972, when a car crash killed the president’s first wife and daughter.

Datapoints

Federal Reserve officials now think they’ll cut rates just once this year — disappointing news to Biden and would-be homeowners.

The president has made the economy a centrepiece of his campaign, and rate cuts ahead of the election could help him firm up his economic pitch to sceptical voters.

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But additional rate cuts are not out of the question [free to read]. Even after Wednesday’s meeting, traders continued to price in a 64 per cent chance that the Fed would cut in mid-September. The FT’s Claire Jones reported that some Fed-watchers suspected dissonance within the central bank’s ranks.

Yesterday, though, Fed chair Jay Powell told reporters that officials would “need to see more good data to bolster our confidence that inflation is moving sustainably towards 2 per cent”.

Wednesday’s hawkish signal came despite better than expected May inflation data, which was released just hours before the Fed meeting and had made traders optimistic about a pre-election rate cut.

The US consumer price index fell to 3.3 per cent last month, beating expectations it would remain at 3.4 per cent.

However, Fed officials raised their forecasts for their preferred inflation metric — the core personal consumption expenditures price index — to 2.8 per cent from 2.6 per cent for 2024.

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Viewpoints

• Rightwing intellectuals are putting together an authoritarian playbook for Trump, says Edward Luce as he breaks down the appeal of an “American Caesar”. 

• Brooke Masters warns corporate executives that regulators taking aim at vertical integration is not “a brief Biden administration blip”.

• As we move into a protectionist world, tariffs make bad policy but good politics, writes Martin Wolf.

• Katy Waldman wonders if Hunter Biden is a scapegoat or a favoured son. (The New Yorker)

• Trump is worse than France’s far-right politician Marine Le Pen, argues Anne Applebaum. (The Atlantic)