Weeks after he hosted a fundraiser that brought in $28 million for President Biden’s re-election campaign, actor George Clooney called for the 46th president to stand down from seeking another term in the wake of his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump.
Clooney, a longtime supporter of the Democratic Party whose wife, Amal Clooney, is a prominent human rights attorney, penned an emotional op-ed in The New York Times on Wednesday in which he said he “loves” Biden as a senator, vice president, and as president, and considers him a friend.
He also said he believes in Biden’s character and morals, and touted how he has “won many of the battles he’s faced” since taking office in January 2021.
But Clooney cautioned that there is “one battle” Biden can’t win: “the fight against time.”
He admitted that Biden’s halting, often confused and generally low-energy appearance on an Atlanta debate stage opposite Trump was consistent with what he observed from the 81-year-old chief executive when he hosted him for what was the single largest fundraising event for a Democratic candidate in American history last month.
“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,” he said.
Clooney added that Democratic Party leaders need to cease and desist from gaslighting voters by “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,” he said.
“Is it fair to point these things out? It has to be. 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,” he continued, adding later that his opinion is shared by “every senator and congress member and governor” he has spoken to privately since the debate.
The actor and activist also compared the reaction from Democrats to how Republicans have ceded their party to Trump — “a single person who seeks to hold on to the presidency” — and chided members of Congress for “opting to wait and see if the dam breaks” rather than speaking up.
“We can put our heads in the sand and pray for a miracle in November, or we can speak the truth,” he said.