Biden makes appeals to donors as concerns persist over his presidential debate performance

RED BANK, N.J. (AP) — President Joe Biden looked to recapture his mojo and reassured donors at a Saturday fundraiser that he is fully up to the challenge of beating Donald Trump.

“I didn’t have a great night, but I’m going to be fighting harder,” Biden told attendees at the home of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy. “Donald Trump is a genuine threat to the nation,” he emphasized, saying that his predecessor would undermine democracy if returned to the White House and his economic ideas would worsen inflation.

The 81-year-old's troubling performance at the first presidential debate Thursday rattled many Democrats, who see Trump as a continuing danger after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Biden's meandering answers and struggles to respond to Trump prompted The New York Times editorial board to declare Friday that he should exit the race and that staying in would be a “reckless gamble.”

A White House official said Saturday that Biden had preplanned time at Camp David on Sunday and Monday for a family photo, disputing the premise of an NBC News report suggesting that Biden would be discussing the future of his reelection campaign with his family. The official insisted on anonymity to discuss Biden family matters.

Biden and his wife, Jill, attended an afternoon campaign event in East Hampton, New York, the Long Island beach town where the real estate firm Zillow prices the median home at $1.9 million. Based on public records, the event that was closed to the news media was at the home of Avram Glazer, an owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers football team.

The couple then went to a second event in East Hampton at the home of investor Barry Rosenstein, whose wife, Lizanne, said the president was “a role model for what it is to get knocked down over and over and over again and get up.”

“We can waste time comparing debate nights,” she continued. “But you know what? It’s more meaningful to compare presidencies.”

Addressing the gathering, Biden tore into Trump over his presidential record including his treatment of veterans and pointed to Trump's own poor performance on Thursday night.

Biden contended that the polling he’s seen shows that Democrats moved up after the debate, saying of Trump: “The big takeaway was his lies."

In the aftermath of that debate, Biden flashed more vigor in speeches in North Carolina and New York on Friday, saying he believes with “all my heart and soul” that he can do the job of the presidency.

The Biden campaign said it has raised more than $27 million on Thursday and Friday, including $3 million at a New York City fundraiser focused on the LGBTQ+ community.

Jill Biden told supporters Friday that he said to her after the debate, “You know, Jill, I don’t know what happened. I didn’t feel that great.” The first lady then said she responded to him, “Look, Joe, we are not going to let 90 minutes define the four years that you’ve been president.”

The Democratic president still needs to allay the fears stirred by the debate as it seeped into the public conscience with clips and memes spreading on the internet and public pressure for him to bow out of the race.

Democratic donors across New York, Southern California and Silicon Valley privately expressed deep concerns about the viability of Biden’s campaign in the wake of his debate performance.

In a series of text message chains and private conversations, they discussed the short list of possible replacements, a group that included Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Vice President Kamala Harris.

But on Friday, there was no formal push to pressure Biden to step aside and some suspected there never would be given the logistical challenges associated with replacing the presumptive nominee just four months before Election Day.

Some donors noted they were going to pause their personal giving. They said receipts from Biden’s weekend fundraiser would almost certainly be strong because the tickets were sold and paid for before the debate.

Peoples reported from New York.

President Joe Biden arrives on Marine One at East Hampton Airport, Saturday, June 29, 2024, in East Hampton, N.Y. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Joe Biden, center right, and first lady Jill Biden, right, arrive on Marine One with granddaughters Natalie Biden, from left, and Finnegan Biden, at East Hampton Airport, Saturday, June 29, 2024, in East Hampton, N.Y. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Joe Biden, left, and first lady Jill Biden arrive at Francis S. Gabreski Airport, Saturday, June 29, 2024, in Westhampton Beach, N.Y. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Joe Biden, right, and first lady Jill Biden board Marine One at Francis S. Gabreski Airport, Saturday, June 29, 2024, in Westhampton Beach, N.Y. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Joe Biden, left, and first lady Jill Biden arrive at East Hampton Airport, Saturday, June 29, 2024, in East Hampton, N.Y. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Joe Biden, left, and first lady Jill Biden arrive at Francis S. Gabreski Airport, Saturday, June 29, 2024, in Westhampton Beach, N.Y. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Joe Biden speaks at the grand opening ceremony for the Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center, Friday, June 28, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 1, 2024--

Blend (NYSE: BLND), a leading provider of cloud banking services, today announced its recognition as a representative vendor in the 2024 Gartner Market Guide for Digital Banking Platforms.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240701439589/en/

Built with agility in mind, Blend’s Builder Platform is designed to deliver innovative banking products with speed and scale by leveraging reusable components and best-in-class workflows to create differentiated borrower experiences. We believe this acknowledgment highlights Blend’s commitment to driving rapid transformation in the banking sector.

According to Gartner’s Market Guide, “A successful end-to-end digital banking platform enables banks to leverage a broader set of transaction types, new products and engagement models. It can create new revenue opportunities, reduce operating costs and enable banking transformation that stretches beyond just delivery channel transformation.”

Problem statement

Differentiation in today’s market is difficult. Consumer expectations are constantly evolving, yet financial institutions are still using legacy infrastructure developed decades ago, making deploying innovative new products difficult, expensive, and lengthy.

Built with agility in mind, Blend Builder is an omnichannel platform designed to serve customers across origination channels with a unified platform that synchronizes across all service and product delivery touchpoints. The Blend Builder Platform allows for rapid innovation and offers guided application flows, a responsive design, and data pre-fill to drive higher conversions.

Gartner’s Market Guide also states, “Clients cite creating omnichannel as the top driver for investing in digital banking platforms, followed by delivering new customer experience capabilities and improving existing customer experience.”

Key platform benefits

Additionally, using a single platform across multiple solutions eliminates the need to work with multiple vendors, simplifies and reduces training for bankers, and allows financial institutions to offer a consistent, holistic experience to their customers across all products and channels.

As stated in the Gartner Market Analysis, “Gartner conducted a targeted vendor survey to analyze the evolution and maturity of DBP (Digital Banking Platform) capabilities for this Market Guide. The survey included 27 participant vendors that Gartner believes broadly represent the global vendor landscape.”

About Blend

Blend is the infrastructure powering the future of banking. Financial providers—from large banks, fintechs, and credit unions to community and independent mortgage banks—use Blend’s platform to transform banking experiences for their customers. Blend powers billions of dollars in financial transactions every day. To learn more, visit blend.com.

About Gartner

Gartner, Market Guide for Digital Banking Platforms, Ali Merji, Jeff Casey, 20 May 2024
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Blend Builder Platform