Hollywood star and Democrat fundraiser George Clooney is calling on his “friend,” President Joe Biden, to drop out of the 2024 race.
In a guest essay published by The New York Times, Clooney said, “I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, he’s won many of the battles he’s faced.”
“But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can,” he continued. “It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”
The essay went on:
“Was he tired? Yes. A cold? Maybe. But our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we just saw. We’re all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we’ve opted to ignore every warning sign. The George Stephanopoulos interview only reinforced what we saw the week before. As Democrats, we collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president, who we respect, walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question.
Clooney argued it “has to be” fair to point out the reasons for concern surrounding Biden, writing, “This is about age. Nothing more. But also nothing that can be reversed. We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we won’t win the House, and we’re going to lose the Senate. This isn’t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.”
“We love to talk about how the Republican Party has ceded all power, and all of the traits that made it so formidable with Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, to a single person who seeks to hold on to the presidency, and yet most of our members of Congress are opting to wait and see if the dam breaks. But the dam has broken. We can put our heads in the sand and pray for a miracle in November, or we can speak the truth,” he said.
Clooney also argued it is “disingenuous, at best” to say the matter of who will be the nominee is settled because Democrats voted in the primary in light of the “new and upsetting information” the public “just received” about Biden.
He went on to argue the “scary stories” about what would happen if Biden is replaced, such as the new candidate being left off ballots, would not happen. And argued the party has a “very exciting bench” of potential nominees such as Vice President Kamala Harris or Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D).
He went on:
“Would it be messy? Yes. Democracy is messy. But would it enliven our party and wake up voters who, long before the June debate, had already checked out? It sure would. The short ramp to Election Day would be a benefit for us, not a danger. It would give us the chance to showcase the future without so much opposition research and negative campaigning that comes with these ridiculously long and expensive election seasons. This can be an exciting time for democracy, as we’ve just seen with the 200 or so French candidates who stepped aside and put their personal ambitions on hold to save their democracy from the far right.”
Finally, Clooney said, “Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024.”
Biden has insisted he will not drop out of the race.
However, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) seemed to keep the pressure on the president to end his re-election campaign alive after she urged him to “decide if he is going to run” despite his previous statement.
