‘Cannot win fight against time’: George Clooney asks Biden to leave presidential race

Hollywood star and lifelong Democrat George Clooney has added his voice to calls for Joe Biden to leave the presidential race.

Clooney said in a New York Times opinion piece that he loves Biden, but the party would lose the presidential race as well as any control in Congress with him as the nominee.

“We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we will not win the House, and we are 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,” wrote Clooney. He’s hosted several high-dollar Hollywood fundraisers, including for Biden last month.

Biden has refused to end his re-election bid after his weak debate performance against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump.

A “different” Biden

Clooney said he observed a different Joe Biden at that event.

“The one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It is 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 was not even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate,” he wrote.

“Was he tired? Yes. A cold? Maybe. But our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people did not see what we just saw. We are all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we have opted to ignore every warning sign,” Clooney said.

“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 has won many of the battles he has faced,” he added.

Need for new nominee

Clooney argued the party should pick a new nominee at its convention next month, saying the process would be “messy” but “wake up” voters in the party’s favour. “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 argued.

“We Democrats have a very exciting bench. We do not 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 are best qualified to lead this country and take on some of the deeply-concerning trends we are seeing from the revenge tour that Donald Trump calls a presidential campaign,” Clooney wrote.

Clooney further wrote that they all think Republicans should abandon their nominee now that he has been convicted of 34 felonies.

(With inputs from agencies)