Biden holds LA fundraiser as Trump courts Michigan

LOS ANGELES — US President Joe Biden brushed aside jet lag on Saturday, flying to Los Angeles after an overseas trip, to attend a star-studded fundraiser set to bring millions of dollars for his election fight against Donald Trump in November.

Trump, making an unprecedented bid to win back the White House while running as a convicted felon, was also on the campaign trail, boasting in Detroit, Michigan, that his own fundraising is "the highest in the history of politics".

Michigan is a must-win state for Biden in the electoral mathematics.

Aiming to eat into Biden's key electoral support from African Americans there, Trump visited a black church in Detroit and told hundreds of voters that "crooked Joe Biden has done nothing for you except talk".

Trump then headed to a starkly different venue: a convention of high-profile hard-right Republicans and supporters of his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

At the Turning Point USA convention, Trump railed against Biden's climate protection measures, and renewed his rhetoric about what he branded the "Biden migrant invasion", saying he said he will stop it with the biggest deportation operation in US history.

In a rambling 80-minute speech frequently interrupted by loud cheering, Trump claimed that help for migrants leaves US war veterans "lying in the streets", and veered into everything from extended complaints about modern showers to repeating his lie that the 2020 election was rigged and victory stolen from him.

"We have a rigged country. We have rigged elections, we have open borders," he said.

Biden was hoping to inject star power and hard cash into his battle.

The Hollywood stars George Clooney and Julia Roberts were to join former president Barack Obama for the gala evening that Biden's campaign said has already raised $28 million, a Democratic Party record.

His turn with the stars meant Biden skipping a huge international peace conference for Ukraine on Saturday in Switzerland, with Vice President Kamala Harris attending instead.

However, Biden's team said the fundraiser was a "show of force with leaders across the entertainment industry sending a clear signal: they are united and enthusiastic about reelecting President Biden and Vice President Harris."

Polls show Biden and Trump largely neck-and-neck, with many voters turned off by a rematch between the nation's oldest president and a 78-year-old convicted felon.

They have been in a fundraising battle, too, with Biden raking in more for months but Trump doing better recently as supporters rally over the guilty verdict in his porn star hush money trial.

The two are also gearing up for the first blockbuster debate of the campaign on June 27.

Biden is expected to head to the presidential Camp David retreat soon to start preparing for the debate.

Their last debates, in 2020, were tension-filled affairs, with Biden at one point snapping "will you shut up, man?" as Trump repeatedly talked over him.

Agencies Via Xinhua