Biden backer George Clooney tells president he can’t beat Trump

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After supporting him last month at a glitzy fundraiser in Los Angeles, George Clooney has told Joe Biden he needs to drop out of the upcoming U.S. presidential race.

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Sharing his new views in a New York Times opinion piece, the 63-year-old Oscar winner and lifelong Democrat conceded that the 81-year-old president stands little chance of beating presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump at the ballot box this November.

“We are not going to win in November with this president,” he said, bluntly.

“I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. 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,” Clooney wrote.

“But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. 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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Clooney said Democrats have been “so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term” that they didn’t pay attention to the warning signs that Biden was on the decline. But he added that Biden’s interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos last week only solidified his belief that the president must step aside.

“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,” he wrote.

Clooney urged Democrats must quickly move to select a new candidate at next month’s convention and he encouraged the party’s most well-known names — including Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi — to tell Biden he needs to drop out of the election.

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“We Democrats have a very exciting bench,” Clooney said. “We don’t anoint leaders or fall sway to a cult of personality; we vote for a president. We can easily foresee a group of several strong Democrats stepping forward to stand and tell us why they’re best qualified to lead this country and take on some of the deeply concerning trends we’re seeing from the revenge tour that Donald Trump calls a presidential campaign.”

Clooney then named several potential replacements, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Govs. Wes Moore of Maryland, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Gavin Newsom of California, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Kentucky’s Andy Beshear.

The Ocean’s 11 star has been a vociferous critic of Trump. Back in 2017, when he spoke to Postmedia, Clooney dismissed Trump a Hollywood wannabe.

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“Donald Trump pays $100,000-a-year to the Screen Actors Guild and has a star on Hollywood Boulevard. I don’t have a star on Hollywood Boulevard, but Donald Trump does,” he swiped.

He also bashed Trump’s onetime chief strategist Steve Bannon, calling him “a failed f—ing screenwriter.”

“If you’ve ever read that bulls— screenplay (referring to The Thing I Am, Bannon’s infamous rap musical), it’s unbelievable,” Clooney said at the time. “Now, had he in some miraculous way got that thing produced, he’d still be in Hollywood making movies and licking my ass to come do one of his stupid-ass screenplays… That’s who Steve Bannon is.”

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Clooney’s abandonment of Biden, who has maintained he plans to keep campaigning, follows similar pleas from author Stephen King and filmmaker Rob Reiner.

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“Joe Biden has been a fine president, but it’s time for him—in the interests of the America he so clearly loves—to announce he will not run for re-election,” King shared in an X post Monday morning.

Damon Lindelof, who is best known for co-creating the TV hit Lost, also spoke out against the president in a guest column that appeared in Deadline. “Our president’s debate performance has been characterized in many ways; disappointing, upsetting, terrifying… but for me it was simply game-changing,” he wrote.

In an email obtained by the New York Times, Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, a prominent Democratic donor, reportedly wrote that Biden needs to drop out and the Democratic Party needs to find another candidate to take on Trump.

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“Biden needs to step aside to allow a vigorous Democratic leader to beat Trump and keep us safe and prosperous,” Hastings wrote.

The View co-host Sara Haines also begged Biden to walk away. “I think President Biden needs to step down and be replaced,” Haines told her co-hosts. 

When Harry Met Sally director Reiner also urged Biden to leave the race in a message shared with his 2.3 million followers on X.

“It’s time to stop f—ing around,” Reiner wrote. “If the Convicted Felon wins, we lose our Democracy. Joe Biden has effectively served U.S. with honor, decency, and dignity. It’s time for Joe Biden to step down.”

In closing his message, Clooney said it will be “messy” for the Democratic Party to swap leaders so close to election day, but implored Biden to leave. “He saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024,” he wrote.

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Meanwhile, Trump is enjoying watching Biden’s freefall.

In a leaked video clip, obtained by the Daily Beast and shared to X last week,  the 78-year-old Trump was seen sitting in a golf cart as he brutally dismissed Biden’s chances of re-election this fall.

“We kicked that old, broken down pile of crap,” Trump said assessing his victory over his rival. “He’s a bad guy.”

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