Actor George Clooney, a prominent fundraiser for the Democratic Party, passionately urged US President Joe Biden to end his struggling reelection campaign on Wednesday. Clooney, a key figure in Hollywood's support for the Democrats, joined a growing number of public figures urging Biden, 81, to step down following his debate performance against Donald Trump last month.
"I love Joe Biden," Clooney wrote in The New York Times. "I consider him a friend, and I believe in him...But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time." Describing himself as a "lifelong Democrat", Clooney recently co-hosted a star-studded fundraiser with Biden in Los Angeles, which also featured former president Barack Obama. The Biden campaign reported that the event raised a record $28 million.
"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, referencing a famous hot-mic clip from Biden's vice-presidency. "He wasn't even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate," Clooney said, directly challenging Biden's claim that his poor debate performance was a one-off.
Clooney noted that with Biden at the top of the ticket, Democrats "are not going to win in November", will lose control of the Senate, and won't gain a majority in the House of Representatives. "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," Clooney wrote.
He also joined critics who have compared Democrats' reluctance to replace Biden to the Republican Party's unwavering support for Trump. "We love to talk about how the Republican Party has ceded all power... to a single person who seeks to hold on to the presidency, and yet most of our members of Congress are opting to wait and see if the dam breaks," he said. But with several lawmakers already openly calling for Biden to step aside and more expressing worries, "the dam has broken", Clooney said, urging more to come forward.
The Oscar-winner dismissed concerns that Biden's exit would create chaos four months before an election in which the Democrats hope to prevent Trump from regaining power, and did not endorse a replacement candidate. "We Democrats have a very exciting bench. We don't anoint leaders or fall sway to a cult of personality; we vote for a president," he said. The party should consider contenders such as Vice-President Kamala Harris, Maryland Governor Wes Moore, and others, Clooney wrote, "then we could go into the Democratic convention next month and figure it out".
