In a candid interview with CBS correspondent Seth Doane on Sunday, actor George Clooney offered a sharp critique of Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign, calling her candidacy “a mistake” and suggesting that the 2020 Democratic ticket may have been mishandled in ways that reverberated into the election against President Donald Trump.
Clooney, whose recent public commentary has drawn national attention, discussed his decision to write a New York Times op-ed last year titled, “I Love Joe Biden. But We Need a New Nominee.” The piece, which criticized President Biden’s mental acuity and urged party leaders to consider a primary, became a flashpoint in left-wing debate over the Democratic field. Clooney wrote that observing Biden closely had convinced him that “the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time.” Less than two weeks after the op-ed’s publication, Biden announced he would drop out of the race.
Reflecting on the decision, Clooney said he would make the same choice again. “We had a chance,” he told Doane. “I wanted there to be, as I wrote in the op-ed, a primary. Let’s battle-test this quickly and get it up and going.” He lamented that no primary ultimately took place, a situation he said handicapped Harris in her bid for the presidency.
“I think the mistake with it being Kamala is she had to run against her own record,” Clooney said. “It’s very hard to do if the point of running is to say, ‘I’m not that person.’ It’s hard to do and so she was given a very tough task. I think it was a mistake, quite honestly.” Clooney’s critique underscores a broader conservative concern that the Democratic Party’s choices in leadership and candidate selection left the field vulnerable and untested, particularly against a high-profile Republican opponent like Trump.
The actor also addressed the fallout from Biden’s campaign and his perceived mental decline, which has been documented in books like Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. Clooney recalled instances that alarmed him, including a moment at a Los Angeles fundraiser when Biden reportedly failed to recognize him, further reinforcing the need for his op-ed intervention.
Clooney defended his controversial piece as a matter of honesty. “To not do it would be to say I’m not going to tell the truth,” he told Doane, framing the op-ed as a civic responsibility rather than a partisan attack.
In highlighting Harris’ challenges and Biden’s limitations, Clooney implicitly pointed to the importance of leadership competence and voter transparency, themes that resonate with conservative critiques of the Democratic Party’s handling of the 2024 election.
Clooney’s reflections offer a rare acknowledgment from a prominent Hollywood figure that internal party decisions and the lack of a robust primary process contributed to a challenging electoral landscape for the Democrats.
For observers across the political spectrum, Clooney’s candid assessment underscores the risks of candidate selection without thorough vetting and intra-party debate, lessons that may influence both Democratic strategy and conservative commentary in future election cycles.
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