It’s getting real for high-stakes APEC summit talks, as President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping both touched down in San Francisco Tuesday afternoon, and they’ll meet Wednesday at the Woodside mansion Filoli, which served as a setting on the old prime-time soap opera Dynasty.

Are you feeling the APEC excitement? Me either. But it certainly seems historic that U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping both arrived in San Francisco Tuesday afternoon, according to the Chronicle's mess o’ APEC updates news tracker. Let’s examine the dignitary arrival of each, and what’s at stake for their high-profile summit Wednesday, before we got down the pop culture rabbit hole of how they’re meeting at the mansion that served as the setting for the 1980s primetime soap opera Dynasty.

President Biden arrived at SFO at 1:15 p.m. Tuesday, according to KPIX, and was greeted on the tarmac by Governor Gavin Newsom, First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, and SF Mayor London Breed. According to Axios, it is believed Biden is staying at the “White House of the West,” the Fairmont Hotel, so expect security to be off the charts in Nob Hill. Biden is scheduled to remain in town until Friday, with plenty of APEC on his plate, according to a KRON4 schedule of Biden’s San Francisco visit.

For his part, Chinese President Xi arrived at SFO around 3 p.m., and was greeted by Newsom, Siebel, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. He then motorcaded straight up to SF, and Bloomberg reports he’ll be staying at the St. Regis Hotel, outside of which you can imagine there will be protests galore, none of which are ever likely to be visible to Xi.

Biden and Xi will hold their behind-closed-doors summit early Wednesday, but it won’t be in San Francisco. Instead it will be in San Mateo County’s upscale small town of Woodside. A separate Bloomberg piece has informed speculation they will discuss and announce a joint fentanyl crackdown, and the Associated Press adds the two nations might reestablish military communication.

And they will meet in Woodside at the historic mansion Filoli, according to a scoop from Voice of America. Also known as the Bourn-Roth Estate, Filoli was built by gold-mine baron William Bowers Bourn between 1915 and 1917, and it was designed by Willis Polk — the same architect who designed several mansions in San Francisco, as well as the Hobart Building and the grand Hallidie Building on Sutter Street downtown.

As mentioned, Filoli served as an exterior shot on the old TV show Dynasty (the mansion is seen in the opening credits above at the :12 and 1:29 marks). The mansion really only appeared in the credits, and hardly any of the show was ever actually filmed there — except for the three-episode 1981 pilot, whose interior and exterior shots were largely filmed at Filoli, according to the Filoli website. Filoli also served as the setting for the 2006 CBS special Dynasty Reunion: Catfights & Caviar.

Though Filoli is trying to play it off sly, as their homepage currently reads, “Filoli is closed November 13-15 while we deck the halls for the Holidays!”

Related: Gavin Newsom Throwing Big-Bucks SF Fundraising Event for Biden During APEC [SFist]

Image: SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - NOVEMBER 14: U.S. President Joe Biden (C) talks with California Governor Gavin Newson (L) and his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom (R) after arriving at San Francisco International Airport ahead of the APEC summit on November 14, 2023 in San Francisco, California. The APEC summit is being held in San Francisco and runs through November 17. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Don’t expect to be invited unless you’ve got ten grand laying around to spend, but Gavin Newsom is throwing a fundraising “super event” in SF for the Biden-Harris reelection campaign at some point during the APEC summit.

Despite a string of big Democratic wins in Tuesday night’s election results, those victories were tempered by the release of a CNN poll showing Biden running behind Donald Trump a year out from the 2024 presidential election. That comes after a Sunday New York Times poll showed Biden behind in five swing states expected to determine the outcome of the election.

Gavin Newsom is answering the call to shore up support for Biden, from a money perspective, at least. Politico reports that Newsom will be hosting a “super event” fundraiser for the 2024 Biden-Harris campaign at some point during the APEC summit proceedings set to start Saturday and run through next Friday.

The date and location of the event are not named. But recent Biden fundraising events in the Bay Area have required $5,000-$100,000 to attend, so that gives you a sense of the demographic that will be attending.

Politico notes that “Other hosts include Clint and Janet Reilly,” so it’s not out of the question that the event could be held at the Reillys’ home. Clint Reilly is a local real estate mogul who currently owns the SF Examiner (and killed off SF Weekly), ran a ton of political campaigns in the 1990s, and unsuccessfully ran against Willie Brown in the 1999 SF mayoral election.

According to Politico, the Biden reelection campaign expects to raise $2 billion over the course of the next year.

Related: Biden Will Indeed Meet In SF With Chinese President Xi Jinping at APEC, According to White House [SFist]

Image: LONG BEACH, CA - SEPTEMBER 13: U.S. President Joe Biden, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Jennifer Lynn Siebel Newsom wave to the crowd as they campaign to keep the governor in office at Long Beach City College on the eve of the last day of the special election to recall the governor on September 13, 2021 in Long Beach, California. Forty-six candidates, mostly Republicans, are attempting to overthrow the governor in the recall election a year ahead of the regularly scheduled gubernatorial vote. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

The biggest lingering international question about San Francisco’s upcoming, high-profile APEC summit was whether President Biden would meet face-to-face with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and the White House just announced Tuesday that “It’s happening.”

We are now barely two weeks out from the beginning of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) global leader summit, which will bring top diplomats from 21 countries to San Francisco, and constitute the most significant gathering of global leaders in SF since the creation of the United Nations in 1945.

SF civic leaders are fully engulfed in APEC preparation drama, from implementing widespread street closures and gussying up the city, and also fretting over minor details moving the ferris wheel and chasing off hot dog vendors.  

But from a global standpoint, the biggest APEC drama in the works is the open question of whether President Biden (who is attending) will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping face-to-face.

The Associated Press had a big weekend scoop that an agreement has been reached for the two of them to meet. (That report was based on an anonymous “U.S. official familiar with the planning.”) Then Tuesday morning, CNBC reported that the White House just confirmed the two leaders will indeed meet.

And just after noon PT on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters, “it’s happening,” and "it's going to be in San Francisco.”

According to the AP, the outlines of a meeting agreement came last week when Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan (Biden also met with Yi).

One of the biggest questions coming into the summit was whether Xi would attend, and China has not yet officially confirmed that he’s coming.

The summit will occur against the backdrop of the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war, over which U.S. is peeved with China for their friendly support of Russia, and the increasingly bloody Hamas-Israel conflict, over which the U.S. is irked that China is remaining so silent and neutral.

But the U.S. and China have their own issues with one another. There’s been months of provocatively close calls between U.S. and Chinese ships and aircraft, one as recently as last Thursday, with each side accusing the other of being the aggressor. Plus you’ll recall the whole Chinese spy balloon incident. The U.S. is also determined to prevent any Chinese aggression into the Philippines and Hong Kong.

Xi Jinping last visited the United States in 2017 under the Trump administration, but that was before Trump went on his whole “China Virus” kick, and also got more aggressive levying tariffs against the country. Biden and Xi last met face-to-face in November 2022 at a Group of 20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia, a couple months before the spy balloon affair.

Related: In Surprise Meeting With Xi Jinping, Newsom Talks Fentanyl, Encourages Xi to Attend APEC Summit [SFist]

Image: KYIV, UKRAINE - FEBRUARY 04: Russian nesting dolls of U.S President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are seen at a souvenir stand on February 04, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine. International fears of an imminent Russian military invasion of Ukraine continue to remain high as Russian troops mass along the Russian-Ukrainian border and weeks of diplomatic talks continue to stall. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)

President Joe Biden touched down in Santa Clara County just before noon, toured the wreckage in Watsonville, Santa Cruz, and Capitola, and announced more relief funds in a speech that’s already posted online.

We’re now three weeks into what has become a parade of nine atmospheric river storms, and California has suffered at least 21 known deaths (plus the still-missing five-year-old boy believed to have been swept away in the Paso Robles floods). Some 150,000 Californians have been under evacuation orders this month, and as many as 200,000 customers have lost power. That’s why President Biden announced this week he would be touring the area to assess damage, with the visit scheduled for today.

As seen above, he arrived at Moffett Federal Airfield in Mountain View at 11:45 a.m. Thursday. Per NBC Bay Area, “He was greeted by Gov. Newsom, Sen. Alex Padilla, Reps Anna Eshoo and Jimmy Panetta.”

From there, he boarded the helicopter Marine One for an aerial survey of Santa Cruz County. The copter reportedly touched down at Watsonville Municipal Airport at about 1:18 p.m., and plenty of Santa Cruz County residents posted photos of the presidential helicopter flying overhead.

Biden then proceeded to Capitola, where giant waves have smashed piers to bits, and flooded restaurants have been closed for more than a week. Did he get some ice cream? He loves to get some ice cream. We don’t yet know exactly every business he visited, but according to Twitter photographer Native Santa Cruz, he did visit Capitola’s Paradise Beach Grille.

From there it was off to Seacliff State Beach, where Biden gave a speech captured in the Youtube video above (in true government Youtube channel fashion, the video is dead air for the first 25:04). Governor Gavin Newsom —  who wore jeans on the day the President of the United States came to town — gives his gravel-voiced remarks between 25- and 30-minute marks. Biden gives his 11-minute speech between the 30- and 41-minute marks.

“They got more rainfall in a single day than they get in the entire year, parts of this state,” Biden said Thursday. “While the situation is still treacherous, we’re cautiously optimistic that the worst part is behind.”

And naturally, Biden did announce more FEMA relief funding. “Yesterday I directed that the federal government will cover 100% of the cost of removing debris, and emergency measures like moving evacuees, and paying overtime for first responders for 60 days,” Biden said.

The previous reimbursement rate was 75%, so that is an increase. But the details may not be as generous as they sound. According to FEMA, “the federal share increased to 100% of the total eligible costs for debris removal and emergency protective measures, including direct federal assistance under the Public Assistance program, for 60 days from the start of the incident period.” That may not cover all storm damage, but if you or your business have suffered damage, FEMA does have an online tool to check your eligibility for relief reimbursement.

Biden also took one only question from the press, which is not audible in the above video, but of course that was about the classified documents flap, and not the storms. He dismissed the question, saying “There’s no ‘there’ there.”

Related: President Biden To Visit Storm-Battered Santa Cruz and Central Coast on Thursday [SFist]

Screenshot: The White House via Youtube

President Biden worked for months to get his $1 trillion infrastructure bill. Now he’s holding back $12 billion of that money from California over an obscure public employee pension rule.  

Here is a sentence you don’t expect to read when Democrats are in power both in California and Washington, D.C.: President Biden is withholding giant amounts of federal money from California public transit because the state’s public-employee pension system is apparently not paying people enough. Or more specifically, as the Chronicle explains, $12 billion in public transit funding is in limbo because of a disagreement between the federal government and the state of California over a nine-year old revision to a public pension law.

As our old friend LAist puts it, “How Much Federal Funding Will California Get For Public Transit? Right Now It’s $0.” We expected this kind of thing from Trump, but… from Biden? And because public employee pensions aren’t generous enough?

The dispute here is caused by a 2013 change to the California public pension law called the Public Employees' Pension Reform Act (PEPRA) that essentially trims the pensions of anyone whose employment start date was prior to January 1, 2013. Those whose pension deals were in place before 2013 are considered “classic members,” but there are “compensation limits on members” who started after 2013.

Biden’s Department of Labor ruled last week that this is a violation of labor rights, according to the Sacramento Bee, because the changes were not the result of collective bargaining. Therefore the Labor Department’s Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) is withholding $9.5 billion that was slated for California public transit in Biden’s infrastructure bill, plus another $2.5 billion in grants for public transit from Biden’s March stimulus package.

Governor Gavin Newsom sent a pretty scathing letter to Labor Secretary Mary Walsh on the matter.

“California objects in the strongest possible terms to the premature and inappropriate effort to unilaterally implement OLMS’s deeply flawed decision pending federal judicial review,” Newsom wrote. “Withholding billions of dollars in crucial funding on the basis of a nine-year-old state law, while California wrestles with the COVID-19 pandemic, does great harm and injustice to the people of California.”

The “Dems in disarray” storyline is an overused and inaccurate trope, but JFC, this is some next-level tripping over shoelaces of unnecessary infighting. Democrats claim to love public transit, they claim to love funding infrastructure, and claim to love unions. They control the executive seat, the senate, and House/state assembly in both California and Washington, D.C. If they can’t sort out some microscopic disagreement on public employee pensions, then every transit improvement project in the state will be at risk of the bickering that has paralyzed the high-speed rail project.

Related: Sacramento Legislators Are Holding Up the High-Speed Rail Project... Again [SFist]

Image: WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 15: U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks before signing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act at the White House November 15, 2021 in Washington, DC. The $1.2 trillion package will provide funds for public infrastructure projects, including improvements to the country's transportation networks, increasing rural broadband access and modernizing water and energy systems. (Photo by Kenny Holston/Getty Images)

Dueling neighbors found at the corner of Bush & Pierce.

If this is any indication of things to come, tomorrow's Palin-Biden debate could prove the single most entertaining trainwreck in television history. And we want you to share this moment with other inebriated strangers. So, readers, would you let us know of any Bay Area bars, all of them, hosting a viewing party for the big showdown? Thanks.

Oh, and you can let us know of said venues in the comments or email them to SFist HQ here.

Joseph R. Biden Jr., Delaware's longest-serving Senator, gets the nod as Barack Obama's running mate. (You can breathe a sigh of relief, all of you who threatened to fling yourselves from the Golden Gate Bridge if Clinton was picked.)

More importantly, Biden is a Scorpio and Obama is a Leo. We have no idea what that means. But according to the NYT:

Mr. Biden is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and is familiar with foreign leaders and diplomats around the world. Although he initially voted to authorize the war in Iraq — Mr. Obama opposed it from the start — Mr. Biden became a persistent critic of President Bush’s policies in Iraq.

And look at what he can do with his hands. Jazzy.