Hollywood turns on Biden as major supporters and fundraisers call on him to withdraw from race

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By Oliver Darcy, CNN

New York (CNN) — Editor’s Note: A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.

Joe Biden is losing a particularly influential corner of support: Hollywood.

On Wednesday, George Clooney became the latest — and perhaps most notable — member of the Tinseltown elite publicly to express misgivings about Biden’s candidacy, calling on the embattled president to drop out of the 2024 race.

“I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him,” Clooney wrote in a blunt piece for The New York Times. “Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, he’s won many of the battles he’s faced.”

“But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can,” Clooney added. “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, a major Democratic donor and one of Biden’s most high-profile supporters, concluded his piece by writing, “Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024.”

The unreserved take from Clooney added even more pressure on Biden to exit the race. More importantly, Clooney’s candid assessment is representative of the mounting pressure Biden is facing out west, where his all-important and deep-pocketed support in Hollywood is quickly eroding.

The potential loss of Hollywood spells major problems for the president, who has not only counted on the City of Angels for the strong surrogates it has offered him, but also for the film industry’s ability to raise millions of dollars to power his campaign. In fact, the Hollywood fundraiser that Clooney headlined last month and referenced in his piece, raised a staggering $30 million — more than any other Democratic fundraiser in history.

Now that crucial support is in flux. Since Biden’s hard-to-watch performance at the CNN debate, a number of influential Hollywood voices have gone public with their concerns about his candidacy, with many calling on the president to exit the race.

Director Rob Reiner shared Clooney’s op-ed Wednesday on X, writing that “democracy is facing an existential threat” and that Biden “must step aside” to make way for “someone younger to fight back” against Donald Trump. Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings told The Times last week that Biden needs to “step aside.” The “LOST” creator Damon Lindelof wrote a piece for Deadline, saying Biden “has to go” and urging fellow Hollywood denizens to stop writing checks until a new candidate is named. Disney heiress Abigail Disney also said she would withhold donations until Biden is replaced. And Endeavor boss Ari Emanuel said at a conference that he was “pissed off at the founding fathers” for having never put an age limit on the presidency.

“Donald Trump said, ‘I’m the only one.’ Right? ‘I alone can make all these problems go away.’ And now Biden is saying, ‘I’m the only one that can beat Trump.’ Seems like it’s pretty similar here, {but} we have a great bench in the Democratic Party,” Emanuel said last week. “We’re looking at a man who’s saying the other guy’s a liar, and he’s telling us malarkey!”

Turing the tide in Hollywood will be a difficult challenge for Biden, who is simultaneously struggling to keep Democratic members of Congress and governors from expressing concerns about his ability to defeat Trump and serve another term in office. I’m told that the Biden campaign has actively been making phone calls to Hollywood supporters, working to maintain their support in this turbulent moment.

As for Clooney, a senior Biden campaign adviser told me, “POTUS won’t be sitting front row at ‘Oceans 14.’” But, the person added, Biden is “encouraged by the strong grassroots support we’re seeing and he’s determined to earn every vote and win this election.”

The-CNN-Wire
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