Washington
CNN
—
Actor George Clooney, who has been one of President Joe Biden’s biggest Hollywood supporters and donors, called on Biden to drop out of the presidential race on Wednesday, just weeks after Biden headlined a major fundraiser for his reelection campaign.
“I love Joe Biden,” Clooney wrote in a New York Times opinion piece. “As a senator. As vice president. And as president. I consider him a friend. I believe in him.”
But Clooney added that the Biden he saw at a June 15 fundraiser that also featured former President Barack Obama “was not the ‘big’ Joe Biden of 2010. He’s not even the Joe Biden of 2020.”
“He was the same guy we saw in the debate,” Clooney added, referring to Biden’s weak and dismal performance in the June 27 presidential debate on CNN.
The comments were a surprising assessment of Biden’s current situation from someone who has had personal contact with the president, suggesting that the president’s debate behavior, which the White House and Biden campaign have blamed on a cold and a grueling travel schedule, was not out of the ordinary.
Clooney isn’t just a movie star or a big-name donor. He’s been a long-time ally of Biden and has always been a big fan, dating all the way back to Biden’s early days as vice president, when Clooney visited the White House and stopped by Biden’s office, which was down a hallway in the West Wing from the Oval Office, to spend a lot of time discussing aid for Darfur.
Clooney, also close to President Obama, has been in contact with Biden for many years, and the strength of their relationship continued even when Biden criticized the International Criminal Court’s decision in May to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a result of his actions in Gaza, an order that Clooney’s wife, international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, played a key role in crafting. Clooney called a senior White House adviser to complain, but did not withdraw his support at the time or cancel his participation in a June fundraiser. Biden strongly criticized the ICC’s efforts for their implication that they equate Israel with Hamas.
Clooney, whose outreach has made him a kind of compass for many Democrats in Hollywood, has helped him garner a broader base of donors and celebrities who have not traditionally been Biden’s biggest fans or who were hesitant to back him long before the debate.
Asked for comment Wednesday, the Biden campaign pointed to a letter the president wrote to members of Congress on Monday indicating his intention to remain in the race.
Clooney’s opinion piece represents the biggest defection to Biden’s campaign in Hollywood, where it has long relied on big-name endorsements and funding. A handful of Democrats in Congress have also publicly called for him to step down, citing persistent concerns about Biden’s age and mental health.
Clooney’s headline fundraiser raised $28 million for the Biden reelection campaign, the largest single event ever for a Democratic Party. One reason the Los Angeles fundraiser took place on June 15, shortly after Biden’s trip to Italy for the G7 summit, was because it was the only day Clooney said was available, according to a source familiar with the event. Biden has cited last month’s hectic travel schedule before the debate as one of the reasons for his poor performance.
In his opinion piece, Clooney called on key Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to ask Biden to “voluntarily step aside.”
“You cannot win in November with this president,” Clooney warned, adding that lawmakers he had spoken to privately shared his view.
He said Biden should listen to other politicians who are being seen as possible candidates to succeed him, including Maryland Governor Wes Moore, Vice President Kamala Harris, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker.
“The dam has broken,” Clooney wrote. “We can either bury our heads in the sand and pray for a miracle in November, or we can tell the truth.”
Clooney’s opinion piece comes during the most crucial week of Biden’s reelection campaign and as rifts in the Democratic coalition supporting Biden continue to widen, with at least eight senators from Biden’s party publicly calling on him to withdraw as a candidate.
Organizers of at least one fundraiser scheduled for Chicago during the Democratic National Convention have decided to cancel the mid-August event, CNN reported Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the discussions. Organizers have paused discussions about planning the fundraiser until after the Fourth of July holiday to wait for the dust to settle. The host committee decided to cancel the event this week, citing disagreements over how to proceed as support for Biden continues to decline.
The event, organized as a luncheon for a few dozen well-heeled Chicago residents, was just one of many planned for the convention, where the campaign hopes to mobilize enthusiasm and money from big-time supporters in the closing stages of the race. A Biden campaign spokesman told CNN the event was not part of the official fundraising schedule.
Clooney is not the only prominent Hollywood Democrat to call on Biden to step down. Biden surrogate Rob Reiner, who attended a fundraiser with Harris after the debate, also called on the president to step down.
“My friend George Clooney articulated what many of us are saying: We love and respect Joe Biden. We recognize all he has done for this country. But our democracy faces an existential threat. We need young people to fight back. Joe Biden must step aside,” Reiner said in a post on social media platform X on Wednesday, linking to Clooney’s op-ed.
Reiner began calling for Biden to resign earlier this week.
“No more (expletive). If a convicted felon wins, we lose our democracy. Joe Biden has served America with honor, decency and dignity. It’s time for Joe Biden to leave office,” he wrote Sunday.
Biden will attend a key meeting with NATO allies on Wednesday and hold his first solo news conference since the debate on Thursday.
CNN’s Arlette Saenz, Betsy Klein and Isaac Dovere contributed to this report.
