George Clooney compared Joe Biden to George Washington on Sunday, in his first comments since penning a shocking New York Times op-ed calling on the 81-year-old president to not seek reelection.
While Hollywood bigwigs praised Biden, they ignored the intense behind-the-scenes and sometimes chilling public “conspiracys” (including by Clooney himself) that led to the president's downfall.
“The credit goes to the president. He's done the most selfless thing anyone's done since George Washington,” Clooney said in an interview at the Venice Film Festival when asked about his New York Times essay, paying tribute to America's first commander in chief, who retired after two terms.
“All the machinations that got us there are not going to be memorable, nor should they be,” the 63-year-old actor and director added. According to Entertainment Weekly.
After Trump's disastrous debate defeat against Republican rival Donald Trump, Democratic leaders including Nancy Pelosi had banded together to try to boot him out of the July presidential election.
Many figures in Hollywood and the left-leaning media, like Mr. Clooney, have joined the effort through a series of measured public comments and essays.
But Clooney, who titled his essay “I Love Joe Biden, But We Need a New Candidate,” said Sunday that he doesn't want all of this to become history.
“What we need to remember is this selfless act of a man who said it's very hard to give up power. We know that. We've seen it all over the world,” he said.
“All the credit goes to the guy who says, 'I think there's a better way,' and that's really true,” Clooney said of Biden.
Clooney voiced his longtime support and admiration for Biden in a July essay, but said after the presidential debate between him and Trump that he couldn't ignore the impact age has had on the president.
“The only battle he can't win is the battle against time. No one can win that. It's heartbreaking to say this, but the Joe Biden I was with at a fundraiser three weeks ago was not the 'big' Joe Biden of 2010. He's not even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same person we all witnessed at the debates,” Clooney said. Written in the Times.
“Was I tired? Yes. Did I have a cold? Maybe. But our party leaders need to stop saying that 51 million people didn't see what we saw.”
“Joe Biden is a hero. He saved our democracy in 2020. I want him to do the same in 2024,” Clooney concluded, urging the president to step down.
Biden, in his first interview since dropping out of the race to make way for Vice President Kamala Harris, mentioned Pelosi by name as he said he had been pushed out by party elites, adding that House and Senate members running their own reelection campaigns had decided Biden was a drag on their futures.
“Many of my Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate thought I would hurt them in the race and were worried that if I continued to run, I would be interviewed about why Nancy Pelosi said this,” he said. [something] … And I thought that would be a real distraction,” Biden said on “CBS News Sunday Morning” earlier this month.
