Actor George Clooney, a stalwart Democratic fundraiser who most recently helped raise a whopping $30 million for President Joe Biden, is now calling on him to end his campaign for reelection due to his advancing age.
Clooney went out of his way to stress his feelings about the president in his opinion piece for The New York Times, which was titled, “I Love Joe Biden. But We Need A New Nominee.”
“I love Joe Biden,” Clooney wrote. “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.”
But Biden, like everyone, cannot roll back the clock, Clooney said.
“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.
Biden’s poor performance at last month’s debate with former President Donald Trump still has Democrats scrambling two weeks afterward as party leadership considers whether to support an alternative candidate.
“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,” Clooney went on. Biden’s team had said that a cold had made the president’s voice shallow and raspy at the debate.
Democrats, the actor said, are in a white-knuckle position every time the president — “who we respect” — is positioned in front of a camera or microphone, afraid of another bad slip-up.
“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,” Clooney said. “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.”
Clooney argued that it was “disingenuous” to say the matter of Biden’s nomination is settled when “we just received new and upsetting information,” and that a new candidate would “in all likelihood” be able to make use of the Biden campaign’s millions in funds. Clooney encouraged Democrats like Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and California Gov. Gavin Newsom to throw their hats into the ring and partake in debates where they agree not to attack one another.
“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 actor said.
Read the full piece at The New York Times.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.