George Clooney, who co-hosted recent Biden fundraiser, says president should step aside
Written by ABC AUDIO ALL RIGHTS RESERVED on July 10, 2024
Add George Clooney to the list of Hollywood backers who are calling on President Joe Biden to stand down ahead of the 2024 election.
In a New York Times op-ed published Wednesday, Clooney, who just weeks ago hosted a fundraiser for Biden’s reelection campaign, called for the president to exit the 2024 race.
Clooney wrote, “I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. … In the last four years, he’s won many of the battles he’s faced.”
However, Clooney added, “But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time.”
Clooney called it “devastating to say,” 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.”
In his first post-debate television interview, Biden insisted to ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos that the debate was just one “bad night.”
The stinging language lands Clooney among a chorus of Democrats — from elected officials to high-profile celebrity donors — asking the president to allow another, younger nominee to lead the Democratic Party’s ticket.
Acknowledging it would be “messy,” Clooney says change would “enliven our party and wake up voters” who “checked out long before the June debate.”
“The short ramp to Election Day would be a benefit for us, not a danger,” Clooney argued. “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.”
A Biden campaign official did not respond directly to the op-ed, but pointed ABC News to Biden’s recent comments that he is remaining in the race.
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