U.S. elections: George Clooney endorses Kamala Harris

Actor George Clooney on Tuesday endorsed U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris, hailing her “historic” White House bid following President Joe Biden’s exit from the 2024 presidential race.

Clooney is seen by many Democratic backers in Hollywood as a sort of compass given his engagement and activism. When he penned a New York Times op-ed earlier this month calling for the president to not seek re-election in the wake of his disastrous debate performance, it was one of several watershed moments in a movement that ultimately ended with Biden’s decision on Sunday to exit the race.

“President Biden has shown what true leadership is. He’s saving democracy once again. We’re all so excited to do whatever we can to support Vice President Harris in her historic quest,” Clooney said in a statement to CNN on Tuesday.

Before his op-ed, Clooney’s standing with Biden had helped rally wider donor and celebrity support, even among some who had never been big Biden fans and were not enthused about backing him long before the debate. The June fundraiser he headlined raised US$28 million for Biden’s reelection campaign, the most for the Democratic Party from a single event in history.

So when he wrote that the Biden he saw during the fundraiser, which also included former president Barack Obama, “was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020,” it was a startling admission from a leading Democratic booster and someone who has interacted with Biden privately that, in his view, the president was unfit to serve another term.

“He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate,” Clooney added in his op-ed, referencing Biden’s faltering performance at the June 27 presidential debate on CNN.

Clooney’s new statement is the latest in a wave of endorsements, including those from state delegations, that have helped push Harris over the threshold needed to secure the Democratic presidential nomination.

She’s been backed by well more than the 1,976 pledged delegates needed to win the nomination on the first ballot, according to CNN’s delegate estimate.

CNN’s Michael Williams contributed to this report.