Kentucky native, actor George Clooney calls for Joe Biden to step aside in campaign

Kentucky’s most famous native son has joined the nation’s hottest discussion: President Joe Biden’s place on this year’s Democratic ticket.

And actor George Clooney’s message to Biden is clear: step aside.

“I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him… But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time,” Clooney wrote in a New York Times oped, echoing concerns others have raised about the president’s age in the wake of a disastrous debate performance.

“This is about age. Nothing more. But also nothing that can be reversed. We are not going to win in November with this president,” he wrote.

The Lexington-born actor’s opinion is shared by many elected officials in private, he said. That includes “every senator and congress member and governor” that he’s spoken to.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s team has not responded to an inquiry on whether or not he has spoken to Clooney on the matter.

Beshear’s own name has been bandied about for replacing Biden on the ticket or as a vice presidential nominee alongside current Vice President Kamala Harris.

Clooney mentioned the governor when listing off potential candidates for Democrats to choose from leading up to next month’s Democratic National Convention.

“Let’s hear from Wes Moore and Kamala Harris and Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear and J.B. Pritzker and others. Let’s agree that the candidates not attack one another but, in the short time we have, focus on what will make this country soar,” Clooney wrote.

While Clooney is known best for his roles in blockbuster films like “Ocean’s Eleven,” “Gravity,” “O Brother, Where Art Thou,” he’s also a powerhouse fundraiser for Democratic candidates. He’s served as a nexus for Hollywood money going to progressive and Democratic politicians dating back to former president Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election bid.

Last month, he co-hosted the most lucrative fundraiser for a Democratic candidate ever, raising more than $28 million for Biden’s re-election.

Now, Clooney favors transferring that money to another candidate.

“Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024.”

The actor drew on his personal interactions with the president at the recent fundraiser to illustrate his point on Biden’s age.

“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 was the same man we all witnessed at the debate,” Clooney wrote.

In response to the oped, former Obama strategist David Axelrod called Clooney’s oped “devastating” during an appearance on CNN.

Clooney’s call was backed up by a number of Hollywood donors, including Rob Reiner, whose directorial credits include 1980s hits like “Stand By Me” and “When Harry Met Sally.” Reiner, a longtime financial supporter of Democrats, was at a debate night party in Los Angeles also attended by Beshear.

“My friend George Clooney has clearly expressed what many of us have been saying. We love and respect Joe Biden. We acknowledge all he has done for our country. But Democracy is facing an existential threat. We need someone younger to fight back. Joe Biden must step aside,” Reiner posted to X.