Iconic actor and liberal philanthropist George Clooney is saying the quiet part out loud for his colleagues in Hollywood: it’s time for Joe Biden to step down.

The “Ocean’s” star published his thoughts on the New York Times website on Monday under the blaring headline “I Love Joe Biden. But We Need a New Nominee.” In a guest essay, the “lifelong Democrat” expresses his eternal thanks to President Biden for leading his party out of the Trump era before cautioning that he won’t be able to win a rematch this year.

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“But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate,” Clooney writes.

“Was he tired? Yes. A cold? Maybe. But our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we just saw. We’re all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we’ve opted to ignore every warning sign. The George Stephanopoulos interview only reinforced what we saw the week before. As Democrats, we collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president, who we respect, walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question.”

Clooney’s about-face comes just weeks after he and other A-listers gathered for a fundraiser with Biden where they lavished his campaign with tens of millions of dollars. Even then, the signs were obvious: former President Barack Obama was seen guiding his former veep from the stage, holding on to his elbow, a repeat performance of their night together in New York just days earlier.

Whatever sway Clooney and the glitterati hold may have arrived too late: by Wednesday it appeared that the White House had limited the list of Democratic defections to just seven members of the U.S. House and U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-VA). Senior Democrats went on the record to reiterate their belief in a Biden-led ticket, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and even progressive darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). And Democratic operatives are even floating the possibility of a “blitz primary” to replace Biden, an idea that Clooney seems supportive of in his piece.

“Would it be messy? Yes. Democracy is messy. But would it enliven our party and wake up voters who, long before the June debate, had already checked out? It sure would. The short ramp to Election Day would be a benefit for us, not a danger. It would give us the chance to showcase the future without so much opposition research and negative campaigning that comes with these ridiculously long and expensive election seasons. This can be an exciting time for democracy, as we’ve just seen with the 200 or so French candidates who stepped aside and put their personal ambitions on hold to save their democracy from the far right.”

Clooney concludes, “Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024.”

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