Hollywood star George Clooney has called on Democrats to name a new nominee for the 2024 presidential election, claiming President Joe Biden “cannot win.”
Clooney made the call for a new candidate in an op-ed published in The New York Times Wednesday, nearly four weeks after he co-hosted a star-studded Biden fundraiser in Los Angeles. Clooney said he noticed that the 81-year-old president at that event wasn’t the Biden of 2010 or of 2020, but the “man we all witnessed at the debate.”
In referring to Biden’s halting, inarticulate, politically disastrous debate performance, Clooney said, “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.”
The Oscar winner also said that Biden’s interview with George Stephanopoulos “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.”
Clooney emphasized that he was a proud, life-long Democrat who loves Biden, “as a senator. As a vice president and as president.” Clooney said, “I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, he’s won many of the battles he’s faced.”
But, Clooney said, “the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time.”
Clooney also emphasized that this isn’t just his opinion, but “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.”
With that, Clooney called on party leaders to speak up and call on Biden to step aside, saying that the party is filled with “a very exciting bench” of potential contenders, including Kamala Harris, Wes Moore, Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsom, Andy Beshear, J.B. Pritzker and others. Clooney acknowledged that the process of selecting a new nominee will be “messy,” but he said “democracy is messy” and it would “enliven our party and wake up voters who, long before the June debate, had already checked out.”
Clooney concluded his op-ed by saying “Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024.”