George Clooney praises Joe Biden for ending presidential run
George Clooney has praised President Biden for ending his campaign, calling it “the most selfless thing a president has done since George Washington.”
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For George Clooney, art is imitating life a little too closely lately.
Clooney warned Americans in a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday about the government’s increasing encroachment on journalism – and President Donald Trump was not pleased.
The actor said his latest role in Broadway’s “Good Night and Good Luck” offers a stark message for the country. “When the other three estates fail, when the judiciary and the executive and the legislative branches fail us, the fourth estate has to succeed,” Clooney told fellow cast members in footage of an early table read shown during the “60 Minutes” clip. The fourth estate refers to the press.
“Good Night and Good Luck,” originally a 2005 film written and directed by Clooney, follows renowned journalist Edward R. Murrow as he faces intimidation from Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the communist Red Scare in the 1950s.
For Clooney, it offers an increasingly relevant message.
“Governments don’t like the freedom of the press. They never have. And that goes for whether you are a conservative or a liberal or whatever side you’re on,” he told the outlet. “They don’t like the press.”
“We’re seeing this idea of using government to scare or fine or use corporations — to make journalists smaller,” Clooney said, referencing several recent lawsuits brought by Trump against major news organizations.
“It’s a fight that is for the ages, it will continue. You see it happening at the L.A. Times. You see it happening at the Washington Post, for God’s sake,” Clooney said.
“Journalism and telling truth to power has to be waged, like war is waged. It doesn’t just happen accidentally. It takes people saying, ‘We’re going to do these stories, and you’re going to have to come after us.’”
Trump was less than enchanted by the interview, taking to Truth Social on Sunday to call the segment “a total ‘puff piece’” and Clooney “a second-rate movie ‘star’ and failed political pundit.”
“He fought hard for Sleepy Joe’s election, and then, right after the Debate, dumped him like a dog,” Trump wrote, alluding to an op-ed published in the New York Times in which Clooney called for then-President Joe Biden to step down.
“Later, I assume under orders from the Obama camp, pushed all out for ‘Kamala,’ only to soon realize that this was not going to work out too well,” Trump continued.
Clooney has long been a staunch supporter and donor to the Democratic party. His open letter to Democrats in July came amid increasing calls for Biden to step aside. Asked if he stood by the choice to speak out, Clooney said he did.
“I’ll make it kind of easy,” he told “60 Minutes.” “I was raised to tell the truth.” The actor reiterated claims made in his op-ed that he had seen Biden at a fundraiser and was surprised by what he saw as a lack of mental acuity.
“I feel as if there was a lot of profiles in cowardice in my party,” he said. “And I was not proud of that. and I also believed I had to tell the truth.”
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