On Saturday, June 16, Joe Biden and Barack Obama took to the stage at the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles. Hollywood celebrities turned out in force, including George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Barbra Streisand, for the gala, which raised $30 million, more than the $26 million raised at New York's Radio City Music Hall in March. Yet, since his catastrophic June 27 debate with Donald Trump, some key figures in Hollywood – a community that has largely supported Democrats since Bill Clinton – have dropped Biden. Still, the American president, for his part, doesn't intend to give up. In a much-anticipated interview with ABC on Friday, he maintained that "I don’t think anybody’s more qualified to be president or win this race than me." How much longer can he keep this up?

Several major donors have announced that they would suspend their funding for Biden's campaign to force the 81-year-old president out of the race. "The lifeblood to a campaign is money," said Ari Emanuel, a well-known Hollywood agent and major Democratic party donor, whose brother Rahm was Obama's former chief of staff when he was in the White House. "And maybe the only way this gets [solved] is if the money starts drying up."

Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings has, along with his wife, donated more than $20 million to the Democratic Party in recent years. He has also called on the president to throw in the towel. "Biden needs to step aside to allow a vigorous Democratic leader to beat Trump and keep us safe and prosperous," he told the New York Times.

Walt Disney's granddaughter, Abigail Disney, also announced that she was suspending her support. "I intend to stop any contributions to the party unless and until they replace Biden at the top of the ticket. This is realism, not disrespect. Biden is a good man and has served his country admirably, but the stakes are far too high," Disney said, in a lengthy statement to CNBC. "If Biden does not step down the Democrats will lose," she warned.

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Katzenberg, former Disney chairman and a major Democratic party fundraiser, has come under fire for assuring last year that Biden was in great shape, according to a Financial Times investigation. Senate Democratic majority leader Chuck Schumer (New York) and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (California) have been holding emergency meetings with donors. The pressure seems to have come to a head, not just in Hollywood but among all of the American business elite.

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