Academy Award-winning actor George Clooney called for Democrats to replace President Joe Biden as their presidential nominee in a New York Times op-ed published Wednesday, despite hosting a fundraiser for the president just three weeks before.
Biden has faced increasing calls to step aside as the Democratic nominee after he froze multiple times and made several verbal gaffes during a June 27 presidential debate against former President Donald Trump hosted by CNN. In the op-ed, Clooney said that the Biden he saw at a June 15 fundraising event for the president’s reelection bid was the same Biden at the debate, referring to his mental difficulties.
“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,” Clooney wrote.
Despite Clooney’s admission that Biden appeared in decline at the June fundraiser, his op-ed was published on July 10.
Remember the video of Biden being dragged off stage by Obama at that ritzy LA fundraiser?
The White House called it a “cheap fake.”
Now George Clooney admits Biden was just as out of it as he was at the debate. pic.twitter.com/67JPySPRMj
— Vince Coglianese (@VinceCoglianese) July 10, 2024
“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,” Clooney added. “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.”
During an interview with ABC News host George Stephanopoulos, a former Clinton administration official, Biden repeatedly dismissed polls showing him trailing Trump.
Biden’s age and mental fitness were issues dogging the president’s campaign before the June 27 debate. On multiple occasions, Biden said he spoke with people who had died, including claiming Feb. 8 to have spoken with former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl about the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, even though Kohl died in 2017.
“It is disingenuous, at best, to argue that Democrats have already spoken with their vote and therefore the nomination is settled and done, when we just received new and upsetting information,” Clooney wrote. “We all think Republicans should abandon their nominee now that he’s been convicted of 34 felonies. That’s new and upsetting information as well. Top Democrats — Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi — and senators, representatives and other candidates who face losing in November need to ask this president to voluntarily step aside.”
Clooney said that the Democrats should turn to “a very exciting bench” that included Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California and Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois.
“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,” Clooney wrote. “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.”
“Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020,” Clooney concluded. “We need him to do it again in 2024.”
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