It was easily the elephant in the room, but “Late Night” host Seth Meyers avoided the topic altogether.
That topic involved guest George Clooney’s interaction with then-President Joe Biden when Biden did not recognize Clooney last summer.
The exchange between Clooney and Biden was included in the book “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run” by CNN host Jake Tapper and Axios journalist Alex Thompson.
As Mediate reported, all talk between Meyers and Clooney involved his acting career and the recent Tony Awards nomination for “Good Night, and Good Luck.”
Clooney wrote an opinion piece published in The New York Times, in which he called for Biden to be replaced as the Democratic nominee due to his cognitive decline.
The opinion piece came one month after a fundraiser for Biden when he did not recognize Clooney.
The book documented the exchange.
The following is an excerpt from the book.
“You know George,” the assisting aide told the President, gently reminding him who was in front of him. “Yeah, yeah,” the President said to one of the most recognizable men in the world, the host of this lucrative fund-raiser. “Thank you for being here.”
“Hi, Mr. President,” Clooney said.
“How are ya?” the President replied.
“How was your trip?” Clooney asked.
“It was fine,” the President said.
It seemed clear that the President had not recognized Clooney.
“It was not O.K.,” recalled the Hollywood V.I.P. who had witnessed this moment. “That thing, the moment where you recognize someone you know—especially a famous person who’s doing a fucking fund-raiser for you—it was delayed. It was uncomfortable.”
“George Clooney,” the aide clarified for the President.
“Oh, yeah!” Biden said. “Hi, George!”
Clooney was shaken to his core. The President hadn’t recognized him, a man he had known for years.
“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,” Clooney wrote in the opinion piece. “He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”
