In an op-ed in the New York Times on Wednesday, tequila magnate and actor George Clooney wrote that President Joe Biden should not run as the Democratic nominee in 2024. “I love Joe Biden,” Clooney wrote. “But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time.”
Clooney may know a thing or two about this: If anyone is winning the battle against time, it is him. But by joining the whimpering chorus of Democrats calling for Biden to step aside after his disastrous debate performance, Clooney is taking on a noted grudge-holder in Joe Biden. Their relationship has been a little tense for a couple months now.
Before May, Clooney was in lockstep with the Biden campaign, bundling millions for his effort in 2020 — as he did for Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (a friend) before him. But two months ago, Amal Clooney, the esteemed human-rights lawyer who happens to be the actor’s wife, sat on a review board that essentially greenlit the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s decision to apply for a warrant to charge Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant with war crimes over the invasion in Gaza. (A recent calculation by The Lancet puts the civilian death toll in Gaza at around 186,000 people, roughly 8 percent of the territory’s population.) As the administration supplying Israel with its munitions to carry out the war, the Biden camp wasn’t thrilled by this action, coming from an international body that the U.S. is not even a party to. White House officials called the decision an “overreach,” while Secretary of State Antony Blinken reportedly told Republican senator Lindsey Graham he would “welcome working with you” on sanctioning ICC members.
With the prospect of his wife facing sanctions by the U.S. government, the Washington Post reported that Clooney texted Biden fundraiser and adviser Steve Ricchetti to express his concerns — and hinted that his support of the president was not unconditional. It appears that the beef was partially resolved: In June, Clooney hosted a star-studded event for Biden’s reelection that raised $28 million. But after Oldgate, Clooney went in on just the issues. “The Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010,” he wrote. “He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.” The campaign, in full defensive mode, even tried to intervene to stop the story from publishing, according to the Wall Street Journal.
In the hours after Clooney bravely stood up for Hollywood’s disgruntled donor class, he has attracted some notable haters. Delaware Senator Chris Coons, a close Biden ally, said on MSNBC that that he was “more of a Matt Damon guy than a George Clooney guy.” Donald Trump, meanwhile, wrote on Truth Social that Clooney “turned on Crooked Joe like the rats they both are” and that he should go back to where he came from. “Clooney should get out of politics and go back to television,” Trump wrote. “Movies never really worked for him!!!” He also posted a clip from Up in the Air in which Biden is spliced in showing Clooney firing the president. Clooney’s op-ed is even fueling speculation about what his friend Barack Obama is doing behind the scenes, with Politico reporting that he informed the former president before publication. “While Obama did not encourage or advise Clooney to say what he said, he also didn’t object to it,” the report states.
For the time being, Biden has bigger problems to deal with, though he has unfollowed Clooney on X. But with presidential powers at an all-time high, thanks to the Supreme Court, we would advise that Clooney does not take any unchaperoned drives upstate anytime soon.
