President Barack Obama criticized Republicans for putting the "interests of billionaires" before "the needs of the middle class" in a Tuesday fundraising email, the same day he reportedly attended a $32,000-a-plate fundraiser at the home of a real-estate billionaire named Rich Richman.
According to the New York Post, Obama's visit to Richman's $26 million estate in the Conyers Farm area of Greenwich, Connecticut, included photo ops with the 25 donors who paid $32,400 each to get their pictures taken with the president. Other attendees paid $10,000 to attend, and the press pool played billiards in the basement.
Earlier that day, Obama accused Republicans of being beholden to billionaires in an attempt to cull fundraising dollars for his party ahead of the midterm elections this November.
"If Republicans win, we know who they’ll be fighting for," Obama said in the fundraising email. "Once again, the interests of billionaires will come before the needs of the middle class."
The visit was not the first fundraiser Obama has attended at Richman's home,
according to The Huffington Post, and was just one of a string of billionaire-laden fundraisers that began Monday.
The first was at the "Manhattan home of disgraced former Intrepid museum boss William 'Bill' White, who paid a $1 million settlement four years ago for his role in a massive state pension fund scandal,"
the New York Daily News reported.
Asked by the newspaper's reporters if it was appropriate to fundraise with White considering his past, White House spokesman Eric Schultz declined to comment. The Democratic National Committee, the fundraiser's beneficiary, did not return requests for comment.
Commenting on the White fundraiser, Ian Prior, a spokesman for the National Republican Campaign Committee, told the Daily News, "Despite the narrative they like to push about their 'grassroots' donations, the truth is that President Obama and Washington Democrats are more than happy to look the other way and raise money with a corrupt executive to helps fill their coffers."
Last but not least, between White and Richman's events, Obama also attended another DNC fundraiser with hedge-fund billionaires George Soros and Paul Tudor Jones.
The Stamford Advocate reported that Democratic Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy was noticeably absent from the fundraiser. In the past, Malloy — who is in a tight midterm race with GOP opponent Tom Foley — had welcomed Obama for one of his rallies. Nowadays, with the president's approval rating at an all-time low, Malloy and other Democrats are keeping a safe distance from their politically toxic party leader.