Jeffrey Katzenberg's Valuable Advice for Joe Biden on Hollywood

Jeffrey Katzenberg's Valuable Advice for Joe Biden on Hollywood

 WASHINGTON—Jeffrey Katzenberg has some Hollywood role models in mind as he urges the nation’s first octogenarian president to embrace his age.

The movie mogul has joined with other advisers in counseling President Biden to “own” his age and turn it into an asset, according to people familiar with the conversations. If Harrison Ford, 80 years old, can star in a new Indiana Jones movie and the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger, who turns 80 next month, can strut around a stadium stage, Katzenberg says, then Biden should lean into his longevity as a sign of wisdom and experience while offering a sense of humor about it.

That advice is one of the things Katzenberg has brought to bear in recent months, emerging as an influential outside adviser for Biden and giving the president’s longstanding, Beltway-heavy inner circle some things it has often lacked—years of business experience, Hollywood storytelling bona fides and a Rolodex of contacts in California’s entertainment and tech industry.

Harrison Ford, at age 80, this summer reprises the role of Indiana Jones in ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.’ PHOTO: WALT DISNEY/EVERETT COLLECTION

“He is determined, and the thing about Jeffrey is there’s just no version that he takes no for an answer,” actor George Clooney said in an interview, adding about the coming campaign: “Jeffrey will call, and I will help.”

There is little doubt Katzenberg can get big donors and celebrity surrogates on the phone. The bigger question for Katzenberg—and for Biden’s political fate—is whether the 72-year-old entertainment mogul, with little hands-on campaign experience, can help solve the president’s deeper challenges, including stubbornly low approval ratings and a lack of enthusiasm among both young and working-class voters.

Clooney said Democrats frequently struggle to sell their agenda, and the re-election campaign would be wise to listen to Katzenberg’s ideas on how to spread their message, including on the issue of Biden’s age, which the actor said he had discussed with Katzenberg. 

Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/joe-biden-jeffrey-katzenberg-advice-b268d2ec