Some of Hollywood’s brightest stars headlined a glitzy fundraiser for President Joe Biden on Saturday night, helping raise what his re-election campaign said was $28 million and hoping to energise would-be supporters for a November election that they argued was among the most important in the nation’s history.

George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Barbra Streisand were among those who took the stage at the 7,100-seat Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel interviewed Biden and former President Barack Obama, who both stressed the need to defeat former President Donald Trump in a race expected to be exceedingly close.

During more than half an hour of discussion, Kimmel asked if the country was suffering from amnesia about the presumptive Republican nominee, to which Biden responded, “all we gotta do is remember what it was like” when Trump was in the White House.

How important the event was to Biden’s re-election bid could be seen in the Democratic president’s decision to fly across nine time zones, from the G7 summit in southern Italy to Southern California, to attend it.