Hollywood actor George Clooney called for President Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race on Wednesday in an op-ed for The New York Times. Clooney’s op-ed comes just weeks after the Hollywood star raised millions of dollars for Biden’s campaign.
“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. “He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”
Describing Biden’s debate performance, which has been widely criticized as a disaster for the Democratic Party, Clooney wrote, “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.”
According to Fox News, Clooney joins a list of major Democrat donors and Hollywood elites who have called for Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race after he appeared to lose his train of thought multiple times during CNN’s June debate. Multiple Democratic leaders and left-leaning media members have also called for Biden to withdraw and allow the party to nominate a different candidate.
Clooney claimed that his call for Biden to drop out was “nothing more” than “about age.” The actor also claimed that his decision was “nothing that can be reversed.”
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“We are not going to win in November with this president,” Clooney continued. “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.”
Despite describing Biden as a “hero” who “saved democracy in 2020,” Clooney argued that Democrats needed to stop putting their “heads in the sand” and push for an alternative candidate.
“[T]he dam has broken,” Clooney said. “We can put our heads in the sand and pray for a miracle in November, or we can speak the truth.”
Clooney suggested that Democratic voters should hear from top Democrats, such as Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-Mich.), Gov. West Moore (D-Md.), Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.), Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-Ill.), Gov. Andy Beshear (D-Ky.), and others.
“Would it be messy? Yes. Democracy is messy,” Clooney wrote. “But would it enliven our party and wake up voters who, long before the June debate, had already checked out? It sure would.”
