George Clooney is calling for President Biden to step aside in favor of a new nominee for the 2024 election. And he’s not alone.
Despite being one of the many famous faces to endorse President Biden in the past — and even very recently — he has also seemed to grow skittish following the first Presidential debate of the season.
Biden’s 2024 reelection bid is a complex decision, for him and for America. It is also a vital one. Particularly as the grim specter of disgraced former president Donald Trump extends across the nation.
Just last month, Clooney was co-hosting Biden fundraisers. Now, he’s asking the “hero” POTUS to bow out.
President Joe Biden should make way for a new nominee, George Clooney argues
On Wednesday, July 10, George Clooney wrote about President Biden and the 2024 election in a guest column in The New York Times.
“I love Joe Biden,” Clooney began. “As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him.”
He then elaborated: “Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, he’s won many of the battles he’s faced.”
“But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time,” George Clooney lamented pessimistically. “None of us can.”
Clooney expressed: “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.”
Biden’s first 2024 presidential debate with his opponent did not go well. And though the opposition party has made it clear in recent years that debates do not matter to them any more than personal conduct or a laundry list of crimes, the Democratic Party seems to lack the will to match that energy. Instead, pundits on the Left have been in a panic, metaphorically running around like headless chickens. And it seems that Clooney feels similarly.
Clooney wrote that this was about more than Biden’s debate performance
His NYT op ed also mentioned that he did not find BIden’s answers to George Stephanopoulos to adequately explain why he struggled during the debate.
Ironically, Stephanopoulos, was approached a day earlier by a stranger in NYC and asked for his thoughts on President Joe Biden’s fitness for office.
“I don’t think he can serve four more years,” candidly replied the ABC News anchor, who had just sat down with Biden a few days earlier for his first on-camera television interview following the CNN presidential debate.
“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,” Clooney alleged in his essay.
“We’re all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we’ve opted to ignore every warning sign,” Clooney expressed. “The George Stephanopoulos interview only reinforced what we saw the week before.”
“As Democrats, we collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president, who we respect, walk off Air Force One, or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question,” George Clooney then claimed without evidence.
He highlighted his concern about how this is about more than the Oval Office. This is about retaking the House, about retaining the Senate — vitally important in holding the line.
And then there are state legislatures and governor races, all of which could fall victim to feckless, easily swayed voters who would let hand-wringing pundits or their own general lack of enthusiasm sway their votes — or prevent them from voting at all. That’s not quite how Clooney described it, but still.
Other A-list actors of a certain age share his concerns
Clooney repeatedly emphasized that his issue with Biden is age — and “nothing more” than that. And, of course, his fear that America cannot win in November with Biden at the helm.
That’s likely true during this present news cycle. The fact that corporate media grows bored with a topic and moves on to something else is both a blessing and a curse.
Ultimately, Clooney may be right or wrong. Come a Second Term Biden or a new nominee, come victory or bitter defeat, there will be no end of hindsight arguments and “told you so” arguments. Squabbling is, as always, inevitable and self-defeating.
Also on Wednesday, Michael Douglas appeared as a guest on The View. Though he was not there to address the (very new at the time) op ed, he did weigh in on George Clooney’s argument.
“This is such a tough one. I adore the guy. Fifty years of public service, a wonderful guy, and this just happens to be one of these elections that’s just so crucial,” Douglas remarked.
He added: “I don’t necessarily worry about today or tomorrow but a year down the line, I worry. I am concerned.”
