Actor George Clooney is now publicly admitting that Democrats made a “mistake” by replacing former President Joe Biden with Kamala Harris during the 2024 election, saying the decision left Harris with a “very tough task” and no room to define herself, as reported by Breitbart [1].
Speaking with CBS Sunday Morning, Clooney said he still stands by his earlier push for Biden to step aside but believes the party mishandled the process of finding his replacement.
“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,” Clooney said.
“I think the mistake with it being Kamala is she had to run against her own record. 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 added that despite his concerns, Democrats accepted the outcome. “But we are where we are. We were gonna lose more House seats, they say. So I don’t know. To not do it would be to say, ‘I’m not gonna tell the truth,’” he said.
The actor faced significant backlash after President Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, with many Democrats blaming him for helping to push Biden out of the race. Reports at the time described Clooney as feeling like a “scapegoat” for the party’s losses.
Speaking later with Jake Tapper on CNN, Clooney defended his decision to call on Biden to step down, describing it as an act of responsibility. “Well, I don’t know if it was brave,” he told Tapper. “It was a civic duty.”
In his widely discussed op-ed, Clooney said he had seen signs of Biden’s cognitive decline months earlier, recalling a fundraiser where Biden appeared diminished alongside former President Barack Obama.
Despite noticing those signs, Clooney did not publicly urge Biden to withdraw until after his first debate with President Trump, where the former president’s performance led to widespread concerns within the Democratic Party.
“When I saw people on my side of the street, not telling the truth, I thought that was time,” Clooney said.
George Clooney says calling for Biden to drop out of 2024 race was his ‘civic duty’ https://t.co/2eyZMrHVhr [2] pic.twitter.com/3r4VJ7vhCw [3]
— New York Post (@nypost) April 16, 2025 [4]
Clooney acknowledged that some in his circle remain upset with him over the decision, particularly given that Harris went on to lose both the Electoral College and the popular vote to President Trump.
Despite the controversy, he maintained that his actions were based on honesty, not politics.