George Clooney is finally speaking on the pressure campaign he helped mount to urge President Joe Biden not to seek reelection.
At a Venice Film Festival screening of his action-comedy “Wolfs” on Sunday, Clooney called Biden’s decision to end his campaign for president “the most selfless thing anybody’s done since George Washington.”
Clooney urged Biden to drop out of the race in an op-ed in the New York Times following Biden’s disastrous debate performance in July. The A-lister is a long-time Democratic Party booster who had hosted a fundraiser for the president just three weeks prior. Clooney said what he saw at that party shocked him, noting that Biden was losing a “fight against time.”
“The Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not…the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate,” Clooney wrote.
Biden announced his decision to call off his campaign in a televised address from the Oval Office shortly thereafter.
“The defense of democracy is more important than any title,” Biden said at the time. “I draw strength, and find joy, in working for the American people. But this sacred task of perfecting our Union is not about me.”
In spite of his prominent push, Clooney doesn’t want any credit for Biden’s move and Kamala Harris’ subsequent polling surge.
“All the machinations that got us there, none of that’s gonna be remembered and it shouldn’t be,” Clooney said in Venice. “You know, it’s very hard to let go of power. We know that. We’ve seen it all around the world. And for someone to say, ‘I think there’s a better way forward,’ all the credit goes to him, and that’s really the truth.”