Actor George Clooney on Wednesday called for Democratic leaders to coalesce behind a new presidential nominee amid mounting pressure from within the party for President Joe Biden to withdraw from the race.
Clooney, a major Democratic fundraiser, issued his call in a guest essay in The New York Times as prominent Democrats continue to step forward to question Biden's ability to win re-election against former President Donald Trump following Biden's debate performance last month.
"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," Clooney wrote, referring to a star-studded event in Los Angeles that Biden attended last month before the debate. "He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate."Reached for comment, a campaign spokeswoman pointed to Biden's previous comments that he's staying in the race.
Amid Democratic hand-wringing in the days since the debate, Biden has defied calls to drop out and dismissed polling that has found him trailing Trump, although broadly within the polls' margins of error.
Democratic donors, meanwhile, have been divided over how to chart a path forward on a nominee amid the dissension. Referring to the debate, Clooney, who called himself friend of Biden's, wrote that party leaders "need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we just saw. We’re all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we’ve opted to ignore every warning sign."
"We are not going to win in November with this president," he added. "On top of that, we won’t win the House, and we’re going to lose the Senate. This isn’t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and Congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly."
Despite some defections, prominent Democrats in Congress have continued to voice support for Biden — albeit waveringly — after closed-door meetings following their return to the Capitol this week.
In his essay, Clooney also skewered Biden's argument in a letter to members of Congress that his victory in the Democratic primaries shows he has the support of voters.
"It is disingenuous, at best, to argue that Democrats have already spoken with their vote and therefore the nomination is settled and done, when we just received new and upsetting information," he wrote.
"Top Democrats — Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi — and senators, representatives and other candidates who face losing in November need to ask this president to voluntarily step aside," he said.
