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US Vice President Kamala Harris has been endorsed for the Democratic presidential nomination by Hollywood star George Clooney, whose New York Times editorial calling on Joe Biden to step down earlier this month played a major role in pressuring the president into making way.
“President Biden has shown what true leadership is. He’s saving democracy once again,” the actor, 63, said in a statement to CNN.
“We’re all so excited to do whatever we can to support Vice President Harris in her historic quest.”
After three weeks of intense pressure to abandon his pursuit of a second term in the White House following a disastrous debate perfomance against Donald Trump last month, Biden, 81, finally announced that he would do so in a short statement posted to social media on Sunday.
In declaring his plan to depart the race, the president endorsed Harris, 59, his deputy, to be his succcessor on the Democratic Party ticket.
Since then, the party has swiftly united around the Vice President, who has already won the support of more than enough delegates to secure the nomination and the endorsement of a number of Democratic big beasts, with no other challengers for the role having yet come foward.
The party also raised a record-breaking $81m in donations in the 24 hours after Harris signaled her intent to run.
Clooney’s endorsement is arguably one of the most significant she has received so far, given that the actor sent shockwaves through the Biden camp on July 10 with his op-ed in the Times, which called on his “friend” to fall on his sword, just three weeks after he had hosted a $28m celebrity fundraiser on Biden’s behalf featuring Barack Obama and Julia Roberts.
The star, until then one of the president’s most high-profile supporters, said that he had witnessed first-hand a change in the veteran, as he accused party leaders of gaslighting the American public by blaming Biden’s poor performance in Atlanta on the fact that he was suffering from a cold and was exhausted by his busy travel schedule.
“The one battle he cannot win is the fight against time,” Clooney wrote.
“None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser 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.”
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