If only Joe Biden had a magic wand.

The former vice president pondered the notion during a recent big city fundraiser, where he explained to his benefactors why he thinks impeachment is bad for business, ABC’s Johnny Verhovek reports.

“Biden at an NYC fundraiser tonight on impeachment: ‘If I could wave a wand, I would rather just flat out beat him.’ (Per pooler @ShaneGoldmacher)” Verhoveck posted to Twitter Tuesday.

The 2020 correspondent attached quotes from the event.

“The truth of the matter is, if you had your druthers and he hadn’t committed constitutionally impeachable offenses, it would be better to not be having to do this because I have been through two impeachment trial(s). They are difficult. They strain the nation,” Biden said. “If I could wave a wand, I would rather flat out beat him.”

Biden also reportedly said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is handling the impeachment inquiry “incredibly well.”

The comments were directed to a room full of elderly CEO, Wall Street executives, and other high society types at a luxury Manhattan apartment owned by a wealthy art dealer. Biden took a break from his No Malarkey! bus tour of Iowa backroads to flatter his big money backers as “one of the most sophisticated audiences I’ll ever speak to,” Crain’s New York Business reports.

Biden was rewarded with six figures in campaign donations before flying back to continue his Iowa bus tour.

“Joe’s someone who many of us here consider to be an old friend and someone whom we are very comfortable. And I think that’s an important word to say this day,” Alan Patricof, the 85-year-old venture capitalist who introduced Biden, told the Manhattan crowd.

You Might Like
Learn more about RevenueStripe...

Most of those in attendance were over 60 and seemingly not adverse to a career politician for president.

“What’s so bad about having someone with experience, leading the country in these challenging times?” Patricof said, according to Crain’s. “I, for one, am someone who keeps saying, you know, experience is not so bad. It counts.”

The high-dollar fundraiser was one of two on Biden’s trip to the city Tuesday. The day prior, he left the little people in Iowa to collect cash from lawyers in Chicago, where he “slammed President Donald Trump … saying the president ‘literally is corroding the soul of this country,’” according to the Chicago Sun Times.

Biden’s dueling priorities – boosting voter support in Iowa and courting big-money donors – highlights how the elderly statesman is struggling to maintain his frontrunner status. Last month, Biden’s campaign manager, Greg Schultz, told The Wall Street Journal the former senator from Delaware doesn’t need to win the first-in-the-nation caucus to become president.

“I think we’re the only ones who don’t have to win Iowa, honestly, because our strength is the fact that we have a broad and diverse coalition,” he said, according to the Daily Beast.

About a month later, Biden announced his No Malarkey! tour through Iowa and vowed to win The Hawkeye State.

You Might Like
Learn more about RevenueStripe...

The fundraisers, which cost as much as $2,800 per person, are focused on boosting Biden’s campaign finances following a less than impressive summer in which he lagged behind several candidates.

“This campaign raised as much money in the first two months of this quarter as we did in the WHOLE third quarter,” Schultz wrote in an email Monday, according to the Washington Examiner.

Yet despite his best efforts, Biden remains stuck in fourth place in Iowa, behind senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and openly gay mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg.

The running average for the most recent Iowa polls puts Biden at 16.3 percent support from Democrats, about eight points behind Buttigieg’s 24 percent support, Real Clear Politics reports.