George Clooney on Kamala Harris’s candidacy: ‘I think it was a mistake, quite honestly’

As we now know, for many white Democrats, the problem with Joe Biden’s age was that his vice president was a Black and Indian woman. Their concerns about President Biden’s age were inextricably linked to the fact that if anything happened to him, Kamala Harris would be president. That was what was so bizarre to me last year – I voted for Biden in 2020, knowing that he was already a very old man, but I loved the fact that he chose Kamala Harris as his VP and his successor. Choosing Kamala made me love Biden even more, and it made me more eager to vote for him. But for people like George Clooney, they simply lost their f–king minds at the idea of a Harris presidency or Harris presidential nomination. All of the “Biden must drop out” bullsh-t was tied to the podbro pipe dream of an “open primary” and “contested convention” bypassing Kamala Harris (then the sitting vice president) in August, just a few months before an election. They simply never wanted Kamala to be Biden’s successor, period, the end. Well, George Clooney has returned to his favorite topic:

George Clooney has called out Hunter Biden for “outright lies” in his expletive-laden rant trashing Clooney’s role in pushing former President Joe Biden out of the 2024 presidential race. An interview on CBS Sunday Morning gave Clooney the chance to address the comments made by President Biden’s son. Hunter, 55, took aim at Clooney, 64, during an interview on Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan in July, roughly a year after the actor wrote a consequential New York Times op-ed urging Biden not to seek re-election.

“F— you. What do you have to do with f—ing anything? Why do I have to f—ing listen to you?” Hunter said. “What right do you have to step on a man who’s given 52 years of his f—ing life to the service of this country and decide that you, George Clooney, are going to take out basically a full page ad in the f—ing New York Times to undermine the president…”

Clooney—who has previously defended the op-ed as a “civic duty”—fired back in the interview with Sunday Morning’s Seth Doane, saying, “I could spend a lot of time debunking many of the things [Hunter] said because many of the things he said were just outright lies: Obama didn’t put me up to it, it wasn’t my fundraiser—it was my fundraiser, all the things.”

“But the reality is I don’t think looking backwards like that is helpful to anyone, particularly to him. I don’t think it’s helpful for the Democratic party, and so I’m just gonna wish him well on his ongoing recovery and I hope he does well and just leave it at that. I have many personal opinions about it, but I don’t find it to be helpful to have a public spat with him.”

On Sunday, Clooney again defended his op-ed while calling Biden’s decision to effectively hand then-Vice President Kamala Harris the Democratic nomination after dropping out a “mistake.”

“We had a chance. 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. I think the mistake with it being Kamala is she had to run against her own record and it’s very hard to do if the point of running is to say, ‘I’m not that person,’” Clooney told Doane. “It’s hard to do, and so she was given a very tough task. I think it was a mistake, quite honestly. But, we are where we are.”

[From The Daily Beast]

We’re now, what? About sixteen months past Clooney’s NYT op-ed, and here are some things I believe about that moment now: I don’t think Clooney wrote it, but he put his name to it because he agreed to the general ideas therein. I also believe that Clooney’s perspective, and the perspectives of the men behind the op-ed and the “open primary/contested convention” pipe dream, are fundamentally anti-democratic. Think about what they’re arguing – that the sitting Democratic vice president should have been ignored and passed over so they could have a sausage-party mini-primary in August, but Kamala wouldn’t be allowed to participate and it was somehow unfair to the bros that Kamala… simply got the support and convention delegates she needed to take over the nomination in a matter of days. Kamala’s name was already on the real primary ballots as well, earlier in 2024. But it was a “mistake” for… people to support her, George swears! The Democrat bros should have run someone else without the support Kamala was getting! Keep in mind, George and his family live in France and Italy now.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.

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59 Responses to “George Clooney on Kamala Harris’s candidacy: ‘I think it was a mistake, quite honestly’”

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  1. Quite honestly george you were a mistake!! Now sit down and STFU!!!

    • Brassy Rebel says:

      Now that he’s old and losing his looks, the nepo baby side of him is really coming out. Talk about “we are where we are”! He is where he is because his aunt, Rosemary, was a well known band singer and movie star in the forties, and his dad, Nick, was also well known as a radio and television presenter.

      • Rachelee says:

        It’s not really the nepo baby thing. He’s worth millions and he’s invested a lot of money to Democratic candidates and he now believes he should be able to say what happens in Democratic politics. I’m not defending him — he’s a tool. But his money is more important than his dead relatives at this point.

    • AB says:

      Lmao I said the same thing to my phone, reflexively (“YOU were a mistake!”). But yes he needs to have all the seats. We all know VP Harris was a great candidate with a huge amount of support (who most likely DID win the election but that’s for another post).

    • Justpassingby says:

      The only respectable thing he could do at this stage is apologize to the world. But he won’t. Because he’s George Clooney and he’s f* entitled.

  2. ThatGirlThere says:

    Keep doing your civic duty and call out the guy you helped get elected George. He just had a “Shit on Americans” Halloween party, why not share your concerns about that instead of concerning yourself with Hunter Biden? Clooney’s arrogance is astounding.

    Kamala was a fantastic candidate and the country is suffering from not having her lead us. And believe me so will Italy and France. No one can escape the reach of the U. S. It’s only going to get worse before it gets better.

  3. Weniam says:

    Time to sit down George, no one is listening.

  4. Lauren says:

    My question is, who exactly did they want to run at so late in the game with name recognition? There wasn’t anyone that they could get last minute like that. The whole plan was nuts from the beginning. There was no one but Harris.

    • PunkyMomma says:

      Although he supported Harris immediately, I do think there was a “draft Gavin Newsom” movement in the Democratic Party.

    • FYI says:

      His explanation is illogical. EVERYONE would have to “run on their record,” and the point of running NEVER is to say, “I’m not that person.” What is he even on about? He had no business commenting on any of it in the first place, because he plays dress-up for a living. What gives him the idea that anyone wants to hear from him on this subject at all?

    • Eurydice says:

      If they were genuinely worried about Biden’s health and they really wanted Harris, they could have persuaded Biden to step down and have Harris take over. Then she could have run as the incumbent. But this way, they put a rock around her neck and expected her to soar like an eagle.

  5. bubblegum dreams says:

    Just go away and STFU.

  6. JenCF says:

    Literally what is wrong with this man.
    He needs to stop defending his opinions that nobody cares about. He isn’t looking forward, not supporting any current candidates for anything and not actively discussing any possible future of the Democratic Party. He’s just passive-aggressively beefing with Hunter Biden. Please George, sit down and shut up.

  7. Caro says:

    He’s so loathsome.

  8. Maxine Branch says:

    Clooney is dead to me. All the current mess can be attributed to the insecurities of himself and the other soft Democrats who would not support a sitting Vice President because of her race.

  9. North of Boston says:

    Shut Up George!

    Just SHUT UP!!!!

    You don’t live here, you’re not impacted by MAGA, Trump, Project 2025.

    We get it, you didn’t want the smart, experienced, qualified BLACK WOMAN to be president. You’ve already showed us your ass several times. Just STOP already!!!!

  10. Mtl.ex.pat says:

    Time to shut up Georgie. You’ve done enough damage.
    @maxine -100%

  11. Danielle says:

    I have a theory about why so many men in the Democratic Party took issues with Kamala Harris. It’s because they can’t handle not being the center of the narrative any more. Kamala highlighted women’s issues and issues that affect people of color. Not being the focus basically made many (not all, obviously, but come on) of these (very mediocre) white men throw a tantrum.

    It’s also about racism and misogyny.

    • Robert says:

      But we still can’t get this conversation going. Anytime you hear them talk about the election on tv. They always try to blame some policy or other. None of them will just say it’s because she was a woman of color. And until we can have that conversation. No woman or person of color will ever be the democratic candidate again.

  12. Henny Penny says:

    Harris was a terrific choice. But in the choice between the prosecutor and the felon, white America choose the felon. George doesn’t even live here anymore. He sh!t on everything and then ran to safety. He’s dead to me.

  13. lamejudi says:

    Thank you to all the Celebitches commenting shut up.

  14. BlueSky says:

    White men are afraid of women they cannot control, especially BW. Kamala was not going to bow down to them and do their will. She was smart and more than qualified.
    That is what really scares them. If Kamala was a WM there would not have been a discussion of bypassing him.

  15. Mightymolly says:

    The president of Mexico and Prime Minister of Japan are women. These are hardly the go to nations for bragging on the status of women. And yet they are more advanced in their ability to see women as leaders.

    Meanwhile Clooney is married to a successful WOC, so he probably considers himself solid in his liberal cred.

  16. Eurydice says:

    “I’m just gonna wish him well on his ongoing recovery…” What an arrogant a-hole.

    He set himself up as the Voice of the Democratic Party and now he doesn’t think looking backwards is helpful. Ok, Mr. Voice – what rallying cry for the future do have for us now? “We are where we are.” Yes, indeed – we are here in the US and you are in Italy, thank you very much.

    • Beana says:

      Thank you! Someone criticizes George, so he throws in a jab about his prior addiction. You know, maybe George should have run himself – that is precisely the Republican playbook.

  17. Roo says:

    He completely ignores the fact that she did an unbelievable job gathering financialsupport, delegates, and boots on the ground in a ridiculously short time. No one had ever done that, and he gives her absolutely no fucking credit for it!

    Did he help the Dems with her victory? No. He sowed chaos with the Dem nomination, criticized everyone and everything from his villa in Italy, and has faced no consequences from the disastrous “election” of Trump (yeah, I still don’t believe he won fairly).

    Please take a seat, George. No one cares what you think. The adults in the room are dealing with the mess you and your cronies made.

    Go back to your sad little made-for-TV premiers with your buddy.

    • Emmy Rae says:

      >>He completely ignores the fact that she did an unbelievable job gathering financial support, delegates, and boots on the ground in a ridiculously short time. No one had ever done that, and he gives her absolutely no fucking credit for it!

      That is a GREAT point.

  18. Jess M says:

    Between this and his efforts to rehap Pitt’s reputation, I am done with him. He’s just the latest in a long line of “liberal” white guys who don’t care about women or people of color.

  19. Sue says:

    George sure has a lot to say about American politics for someone who decided to not live in America anymore,

  20. Brassy Rebel says:

    I’m old enough to remember when he said he thinks people have heard enough from him. That’s because it was only a few weeks ago. Just because he was asked a question doesn’t mean he had to answer it, especially since CBS news is now a wholly owned subsidiary of MAGA. No doubt, they were doing some 💩 stirring.

    About ten days ago, MVP Harris was in London on her book tour. The moderator of her event was a British-Nigerian novelist. You would not expect this lady to know much about American politics, but even she was incredulous that, given the short time frame, there were those who wanted to run a primary. Harris agreed it was impossible but anyone who wanted to jump in and start contacting delegates was free to do so. No one did. That was “the process” everyone kept demanding. It’s also notable that no one names the magical 🦄 candidate these idiots were sure would appear to save us from Trump. It was a bad year for Democrats. People need to accept that and move on. It’s also likely that had Biden not run and a primary was held, Kamala would have won it. White male Democrats need to get over themselves. Black people, especially Black women, are the base of the Democratic party. Not wealthy fading movie stars who live in Italy.

  21. Mina_Esq says:

    I’ve come to despise this man with the burning passion of a thousand suns, and I’m not even American. He pretends to be an intellectual, but he simply isn’t one. He is out of his depth. I’ve honestly also started to side-eye Amal.

  22. Lightpurple says:

    Hey, Clooney, you have a well-documented history of negative attitudes and behavior towards women that your marriage to a much younger woman doesn’t erase.

    You did enough damage.

    GO AWAY!

  23. Lili says:

    is this George throwing kamala under the bus to deflect from the Virginia book and his Mention. He needs to STFU and go into Hiding he has caused enough chaos

  24. SIde Eye says:

    Why is he still talking????

  25. E says:

    It must be nice to feel righteous in a villa on lake como, not having to feel the effects of the op-ed you *didn’t* write undermining Harris.

  26. lisa says:

    just the fact that this uneducated guy from the facts of life has a platform is pissing me off

    • Heather says:

      This! Clooney has a high school diploma. Period. What an embarrassment he must be to his wife—his acting career in no way shape or form has educated him to speak on global politics.

  27. wordnerd says:

    What in the Harlequin doll hell is happening to his face in that top picture?

    I believe Ricky Gervais said it best at the Golden Globes a few years ago: “So if you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech. You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg.”

    Sit down and shut up, George.

  28. Giddy says:

    George in all seriousness and civility I would like to say Fuck You George Clooney!

  29. Jillian says:

    George made a huge dick move and now everybody thinks he’s a douchebag. Shutting up is free but try telling an old white guy that. I’m glad he’s aging so poorly

  30. megs283 says:

    did he think HE would be nominated? Is that his beef? UGH.

  31. Newt says:

    I can’t even look at him now. If he comes on my TV, I turn it. He’s so gross. People like him are responsible for getting Trump re-elected so he’s not to be trusted.

    My late mother ADORED him. She’d be so sick about this whole thing. I’m glad she’s not here to see all of this.

  32. Angelica Schuyler says:

    Shut Up George. Just shut the F up. We don’t want to hear anything you have to say. Take your racist, misogynistic behind back to Italy and have several seats.

    Black women are the foundation and cornerstone of the democratic party and you really believed it would be okay to bypass the sitting Vice President to have an open primary and that wouldn’t be seen as the blatant disrespect that it was? Chile, please.

    MISS 👏ME 👏WITH 👏THAT👏!!!!

  33. aj says:

    He’s so wrong but thinks he’s right. Can’t imagine a world where he is wrong.
    Thing that burns me the most is “wish well him on his recovery”. He brought that up to make a point that George is somehow a better person. BS. Not even close. I’m tired of people thinking that addiction= people are bad and thugs and worthless criminal types. It can lead to bad things, but that was an INTENTIONAL low blow.

  34. Just Me says:

    What is his endgame? Why does he continue to defend the indefensible? He needs to accept the consequences of his actions and just STFU (I say this as someone who used to adore him).

  35. Brassy Rebel says:

    The bright side of this is that he is being well and truly dragged. I love that for him!

  36. AA says:

    Omg, STOP TALKING! From the guy who lives in France/Italy now. Go away. You already are loathed, and you’re making it worse.

  37. Kay says:

    I’m waiting for the has been to write or say something negative about the Orange Caligula. He’s safely tucked away in Italy while the rest of us have to live through this nightmare.

    George Clooney, kindly, shut the hell up.

  38. Becks1 says:

    I don’t even understand what he’s saying. She was running against her record? Trying to say I’m not that person?

    I think the problem with her campaign – and it wasn’t really “with” her campaign, but related to it – was that by that point the media and the talking points were all about what a failure the Biden administration was. So she had to spend a lot of time playing defense and saying “well actually…” and then she was accused of running away from Biden etc. but the Biden administration wasn’t a failure so she was starting from a false place to begin with, if that makes sense. She had to play catch up and not just in terms of the actual campaigning, but in trying to override those talking points that had taken hold.

    Anyway all that to say – eff you george clooney. shut up. He’s not the only reason we’re here, but he’s a big part of it.

    • jais says:

      Becks, I tried to make this same comment but it kept getting deleted. If the issue was only that Biden was too old, as they were saying at the time, then why did she need to run against her own record with him? The issue wasn’t that Biden’s administration was a failure so what did she need to run away from? Wasn’t George’s main issue the fact that Biden was too old so why would George now say she needed to run against her record with Biden. Wasn’t George fine with Biden except for his age or was that not the case? Now did the media make it out like Biden’s administration was a failure? Yeah. But that’s not really what George is addressing here so he’s not even making sense in defending himself.

      • Becks1 says:

        @Jais exactly! Was the issue his age, his cognitive abilities, or his administration’s record? By replacing him with Harris, we fixed the age and cognitive issue. So is Clooney now trying to say that Biden’s record was the issue?

        Maybe he should have taken out an op ed to talk about all the good things the Biden administration was doing.

  39. s808 says:

    saying Harris running was mistake when we have an absolute dumpster fire of a president is in office now is just….I understand why people spit on others sometimes cause are you f*cking kidding me???

  40. QuiteContrary says:

    He needs to f*ck right off.

    The nerve of this privileged movie star thinking his input is valued … He’s completely clueless.

  41. Enza says:

    Oh FFS, Shut up George.

  42. Arbre says:

    Jane Fonda is out at rallies, using her profile to support Jasmine Crockett in Texas’ redistricting fight while George Clooney is yammering to anyone who will listen about his op-ed while sitting on his billion dollar tequila fortune…. from his mansions and estates in London, Italy, and France. JFC, talk about peak Boomer behaviour. Sure makes me miss Robert Redford. (BTW, Jane is like 30 years older than Clooney and is both out-classing and running circles around him)

  43. Emmy Rae says:

    “wish him well in his recovery” is such a low blow. No matter how honest you are about struggles with addiction, people will still hit you with it when they lash out. If he wanted to respectful he could just… wish him well. End of.