A top Hollywood fundraiser for US President Joe Biden called for a new Democratic presidential candidate on Wednesday, arguing that the party cannot win the White House in November 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 is not only my opinion, this is the opinion of every senator and Congress member and governor who I have spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly," George Clooney, an actor, director and film producer, said in an op-ed in "The New York Times".
Clooney, who hosted a very successful fundraiser for Biden in June, 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.
Clooney said they all think Republicans should abandon their nominee now that he has been convicted of 34 felonies. That is new and upsetting information as well. "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.
"All of the scary stories that we are being told about what would happen next are simply not true. In all likelihood, the money in the Biden-Harris coffers could go to help elect the presidential ticket and other Democrats. The new nominee would not be left off ballots in Ohio," he said.
"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.