A recent Joe Biden New York fundraiser drew as paying guests a former Trump administration Cabinet official and an ex-GOP senator.
At the Monday evening event, those shelling out $2,800 to hear the former vice president make his 2020 pitch included David Shulkin, who served as Veteran Affairs secretary under President Trump for 13 months, and Al D’Amato, a Republican senator from New York from 1981-1999.
The pair were among nearly 180 guests at the Manhattan penthouse apartment of Jim Chanos, the president and founder of Kynikos Associates, a prominent short-selling investment firm, according to a pool report from the event.
Shulkin served under Trump through March 2018 and has been critical of the administration since his departure. Yet Shulkin’s time at the VA under Trump was also marred by allegations of abusing taxpayer funds for a vacation to Europe with his wife. A February 2018 inspector general report accused Shulkin’s staff of skirting ethics obligations in order to cover for their boss’s trip.
“There was nothing improper about this trip, and I was not allowed to put up an official statement or to even respond to this by the White House,” Shulkin said at the time. “I think this was really just being used in a political context to try to make sure that I wasn’t as effective as a leader moving forward.”
D’Amato now runs a lobbying firm. D’Amato was the last Republican to represent New York in the Senate, having lost in 1998 to now-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. D’Amato, 81, has frequently worked with Democrats in his post-Senate career. When 2020 presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand was appointed to Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat in early 2009, after a term in the House, D’Amato appeared at the announcement.
At the fundraiser, Biden spoke about working with Republicans on bipartisan issues such as infrastructure and healthcare.
“I know some of my friends on the new progressive Left of the Democratic party don’t think it’s possible. We have to,” Biden said. He added that politicians nowadays “attack people’s motives, not their judgment.”
Biden is scheduled for another New York fundraiser on Tuesday.
[Related: Biden decries America’s ‘wealth gap’ at $2,800-a-head Manhattan fundraiser]
