George Clooney was all smiles at his recent Hollywood fundraiser for Joe Biden, where he and Julia Roberts raised a record sum for the president’s re-election campaign.
Now, in a dramatic about-face, Clooney has withdrawn his support for Biden and is spilling the beans about what it was like behind the scenes — saying the president showed clear signs of cognitive decline at the celebrity-filled event last month.
In an op-ed Wednesday for the New York Times, George Clooney said he no longer believes Joe Biden can win in November and called on Democrats to find a replacement candidate.
He also painted a dire picture of Biden’s mental acuity.
“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.
“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.”
Clooney continued:
“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.”
Widely circulated video from the Hollywood fundraiser showed Biden awkwardly freezing up on stage, with former President Barack Obama taking his arm and gently guiding him away. The video was one of several of Biden’s public malfunctions that White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed as “cheap fakes.”
This is George Clooney’s fundraiser last month where Obama had to guide Biden off the stage by his hand… pic.twitter.com/Q9OrqV8BjQ https://t.co/6zQ1lNBeWo
— ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Tried To Tell You….🏾♂️ (@KingMike33) July 10, 2024
The Associated Press even issued a “fact check” of the moment, concluding that Biden simply “paused” on stage. The AP cited White House spokesperson Andrew Bates who described the moment as “the President taking in an applauding crowd for a few seconds.”
Clooney called on Congressional leaders — including Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and Nancy Pelosi — to ask Biden to “voluntarily step aside.”
“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,” he wrote.
Courtesy of CNN Presidential Debate
Among the names Clooney floated as a potential replacement for Biden are: Wes Moore, Kamala Harris, Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsom, Andy Beshear, J.B. Pritzker.
Clooney’s Hollywood fundraiser brought in more than $30 million for Biden’s campaign.
Actor George Clooney (L) and Senator Barack Obama (D – Illinois) during a press conference in Washington DC, where Clooney spoke about his recent visit to the Darfur region of Sudan, on April 27, 2006. (Christy Bowe/ImageCatcher News Service/Corbis via Getty Images)
George Clooney is part of a growing number of entertainment industry leaders and fundraisers who are calling for Biden to drop out of the race.
Others include Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, veteran studio boss Barry Diller, and Lost creator Damon Lindelof. On Sunday, Rob Reiner — one of Biden’s most loyal Hollywood supporters — called on the president to “step down.”
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