Academy Award-winning actor George Clooney thinks the Democratic Party needs to get its priorities straight, but it’s unlikely they will look to him for leadership in that area.
In an interview with Esquire magazine released on Monday, the 64-year-old actor recalled challenging times in U.S. history, such as the Civil War, the Vietnam conflict, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy Jr. He pointed out that the unrest during those 1968 shootings was marked by street riots and a deep national split that eventually subsided.
According to Clooney, the U.S. is again in a period where things will get worse before they get better.
“We’ll make it through, though a lot of harm will be done because of our current situation. It’s truly heartbreaking to witness,” Clooney mentioned. “And Democrats are going to need to pull themselves together.”
Clooney was an outspoken critic of Donald Trump during his presidency, labeling him a “dumb goofball” who was eager to befriend celebrities prior to gaining office.
He also expressed dissatisfaction with Trump’s Democratic rival, Joe Biden. Clooney urged Biden to step down after a disastrous July 2024 presidential debate between the aging candidates.
“I have great admiration for Joe Biden,” Clooney wrote in a New York Times op-ed just days before Biden, then aged 81, exited the race. “But the battle he can’t overcome is the one against age.”
The “Gravity” actor told Esquire he doesn’t envision doing anything like that again.
“I don’t think so,” Clooney said. “I think people have heard enough from me.”
Clooney explained in his New York Times piece that he’d recently attended a fundraiser for Biden where he realized the incumbent wasn’t up for another four years in office. He told Esquire he felt a need to speak out at that time “because I’d been a personal witness to things.”
Trump has called Clooney “a second rate movie star.”
Biden’s son Hunter Biden also addressed Clooney in a July interview where he wondered “What right do you have to step on a man who’s given 52 years of his f—–g life to the service of this country?”
