George Clooney endorses Harris after calling for Biden's Exit
(CNN) ― Actor George Clooney on Tuesday endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, hailing her “historic” White House bid following President Joe Biden’s exit from the 2024 presidential race.
Clooney is seen by many Democratic backers in Hollywood as a sort of compass given his engagement and activism. When he penned a New York Times op-ed earlier this month calling for the president to not seek reelection in the wake of his disastrous debate performance, it was one of several watershed moments in a movement that ultimately ended with Biden’s decision on Sunday to exit the race.
“President Biden has shown what true leadership is. He’s saving democracy once again. We’re all so excited to do whatever we can to support Vice President Harris in her historic quest,” Clooney said in a statement to CNN on Tuesday.
Before his op-ed, Clooney’s standing with Biden had helped rally wider donor and celebrity support, even among some who had never been big Biden fans and were not enthused about backing him long before the debate. The June fundraiser he headlined raised $28 million for Biden’s reelection campaign, the most for the Democratic Party from a single event in history.
So when he wrotethat the Biden he saw during the fundraiser, which also included former President Barack Obama, “was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020,” it was a startling admission from a leading Democratic booster and someone who has interacted with Biden privately that, in his view, the president was unfit to serve to another term.
“He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate,” Clooney added in his op-ed, referencing Biden’s faltering performance at the June 27 presidential debate on CNN.
Clooney’s new statement is the latest in a wave of endorsements, including those from state delegations, that have helped push Harris over the threshold needed to secure the Democratic presidential nomination.
She’s been backed by well more than the 1,976 pledged delegates needed to win the nomination on the first ballot, according to CNN’s delegate estimate.
CNN’s Michael Williams contributed to this report.
Lately, overtourism has become a problem. The elevators in downtown stations are constantly filled with foreign tourists dragging large suitcases.
I am always concerned that there might not be space for wheelchair users, making it difficult for them to use the elevators.
I hope that either elevators exclusively for wheelchair users are installed in busy railway stations or that staff are stationed in front of the elevators to prioritize guiding wheelchair users.
This afternoon, I was busy with office work. When I started to feel tired and checked the time, it was exactly 3 o'clock, so I decided to take a break. I had some warabi-mochi sweets that I bought at a supermarket on the way to the office.
Cet après-midi, j'étais occupée avec le travail de bureau. Lorsque j'ai commencé à me sentir fatiguée et que j'ai regardé l'heure, il était exactement 15 heures, alors j'ai décidé de faire une pause. J'ai pris des warabi-mochi que j'avais achetés dans un supermarché en route pour le bureau.
Warabi-mochi: Traditional Japanese sweets made from bracken starch. They are typically served with sweet soybean flour (kinako) and sugar sprinkled on top.
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. Then we could go into the Democratic convention next month and figure it out.
Would it be messy? Yes. Democracy is messy. But would it enliven our party and wake up voters who, long before the June debate, had already checked out? It sure would. The short ramp to Election Day would be a benefit for us, not a danger. It would give us the chance to showcase the future without so much opposition research and negative campaigning that comes with these ridiculously long and expensive election seasons. This can be an exciting time for democracy, as we’ve just seen with the 200 or so French candidates who stepped aside and put their personal ambitions on hold to save their democracy from the far right.
Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024.
George Clooney is an actor, director and film producer.
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. We all think Republicans should abandon their nominee now that he’s been convicted of 34 felonies. That’s 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.
All of the scary stories that we’re 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 wouldn’t be left off ballots in Ohio. We Democrats have a very exciting bench. We don’t 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’re best qualified to lead this country and take on some of the deeply concerning trends we’re seeing from the revenge tour that Donald Trump calls a presidential campaign.
Was he tired? Yes. A cold? Maybe. But our 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. The George Stephanopoulos interview only reinforced what we saw the week before. As Democrats, we collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president, whom we respect, walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question.
Is it fair to point these things out? It has to be. This is about age. Nothing more. But also nothing that can be reversed. We are not going to win in November with this president. 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 who I’ve spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.
We love to talk about how the Republican Party has ceded all power, and all of the traits that made it so formidable with Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, to a single person who seeks to hold on to the presidency, and yet most of our members of Congress are opting to wait and see if the dam breaks. But the dam has broken. We can put our heads in the sand and pray for a miracle in November, or we can speak the truth.
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