George Clooney calls breaking with Biden in 2024 his ‘civic duty,’ says Democrats weren’t telling truth
Actor and longtime Democratic supporter George Clooney is standing by his decision to call for a change in the party’s 2024 presidential nominee. In a new interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Clooney described his break with President Joe Biden as a matter of principle.
“It was a civic duty,” Clooney said in a preview of the full interview airing later on Wednesday. He explained that his decision was prompted by what he saw as dishonesty from his own political allies.
“I’m a Democrat in Kentucky so I get it. When I saw people on my side of the street not telling the truth, I thought that was time,” he added.
Clooney, who hosted a high-profile fundraiser last year that brought in over $30 million for Biden’s 2024 campaign, surprised many when he published a New York Times guest essay just weeks later urging Biden to step aside.
The Times essay praised Biden’s record but warned about the limits of age.
“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.”
The essay came on the heels of Biden’s brutal debate performance against Donald Trump that set off a panic within the Democratic Party. Less than a month later, Biden bowed out of the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for the party’s nomination.
Clooney also reflected on the former president’s declining presence, noting a stark contrast between Biden towards the end of his term and the energetic figure he once knew.
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“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. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020,” he wrote.
“He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”
In his CNN interview, Tapper praised Clooney’s candor, calling it “brave,” a sentiment not universally shared within the Democratic Party. Clooney acknowledged the backlash he’s faced since the essay was published but remained resolute.
“The idea of freedom of speech, the specific idea of it is, you know you can’t demand freedom of speech and then say, ‘But don’t say bad things about me.’ That’s the deal, you have to take a stand if you believe in it,” he said. “Take a stance, stand for it, and then deal with the consequences. That’s the rules.”
Clooney backed Harris, the party’s eventual nominee, and praised Biden’s decision to step aside as “saving democracy once again.”
Biden gave one of his first public speeches since leaving office on Tuesday, condemning recent policy changes under a second Trump administration. Biden’s keynote address ran less than an hour.
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A new book, “Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History,” released earlier this month, offers new insights into the final months of Biden’s presidency. Author Chris Whipple, a former “60 Minutes” producer, writes that Biden’s inner circle increasingly limited his contact with longtime friends and allies to hide his alleged decline.
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According to the book, Clooney was particularly angered by an MSNBC segment that suggested his essay may have been influenced by former President Barack Obama. Whipple writes that Clooney “went absolutely ballistic” over the implication.
