“I love Joe Biden, but we need a new candidate.” This is the message that actor George Clooney, a friend of the President of the United States, launched in the columns of the New York Times with a harsh article in which he dumps Biden, after his disappointing performance in the TV duel at the end of June with Donald Trump. “I love Joe Biden,” he writes, “as a senator, as a vice president and as a president, I consider him a friend, I believe in him. I believe in his character, I believe in his morals. In the last four years he has won many of the battles he has faced.”
“But one battle that can’t be won,” he added, “is the battle against time. None of us can. It’s devastating to say, but the Joe Biden who was at the fundraiser three weeks ago was not the ‘fucking great’ Joe Biden of 2010. And he wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all saw at the debate.”
Biden “was tired? Yes,” Clooney continued in his speech, “did he have a cold? Maybe. But our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we saw.” “We are all terrified,” he added, “by the prospect of a second Trump term, the signals of which we have chosen to ignore. The interview (Biden gave last week, ed.) with George Stephanopouos only reinforced what we saw the week before.” “As Democrats,” he continued, “we hold our breath or turn down the volume every time we see the President, whom we respect, when he exits Air Force One or returns to the microphone to answer an unexpected question.”
“Is it fair to point out these things?” the actor asks. “It has to be. It’s a question of age, nothing else. We are not going to win in November with this President, and we are not going to take the House and lose the Senate. That’s not just my opinion, that’s the opinion of every senator, congressman and governor I’ve spoken to privately, regardless of what he or she says publicly.” The actor names possible candidates, from Wes Moore to Kamala Harris, from Gretchen Whitmer to Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear and JB Pritzker and others. Clooney asks to decide quickly and then go to the convention scheduled for next month.
“Will it be chaotic? Yes,” he replies, “democracy is chaotic, but it would revive the party and wake up the voters. The short time until election day would be an advantage, not a danger. This can be an exciting moment for democracy, as we have seen with the two hundred or so candidates who stepped aside in France to save their democracy from the far right.” “Joe Biden,” he concludes, “is a hero: he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024.”