George Clooney praises Joe Biden for bowing out of presidential race after op-ed: 'All the credit goes to him'

George Clooney is commending President Joe Biden for stepping aside as the Democratic nominee in the 2024 presidential race.

Earlier this summer, the Oscar-winning actor and producer was one of several political and Hollywood figures who called for the president to end his re-election bid, going as far as penning a New York Times op-ed titled, "I Love Joe Biden, but We Need a New Nominee." Now, Clooney is breaking his silence on Biden’s decision to bow out of the race and put his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris.

"I've never had to answer that question, so I suppose I'll do it here," Clooney said Sunday at the Venice Film Festival press screening of his upcoming movie Wolfs when asked about his essay. The crowd promptly erupted into applause, to which Clooney responded, "The person who should be applauded is the president, who did the most selfless thing that anybody's done since George Washington."

"All the machinations that got us there, none of that's gonna be remembered and it shouldn't be," Clooney continued. "What should be remembered is the selfless act of someone who… You know, it's very hard to let go of power. We know that. We've seen it all around the world. And for someone to say, 'I think there's a better way forward,' all the credit goes to him, and that's really the truth."

Before Biden's July 21 announcement that he would be dropping out of the race and endorsing Harris, Clooney expressed concern about his ability to lead the Democratic Party to victory. 

"The Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe 'big f---ing deal' Biden of 2010," Clooney wrote in his July 10 op-ed. "He wasn't even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate."

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Voicing his worries about the president's age — he is 81 — in the wake of his much maligned performance at the June 27 debate with Donald Trump, Clooney added, "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."

The actor also alleged that he had spoken privately to numerous Democratic senators and members of congress  and that "every single one" shared the sentiment that "we are not going to win in November with this president." Clooney was one of many entertainers to express such concerns, with others including Stephen King, Rob Reiner, Michael Moore, John Cusack, and Michael Douglas.

Addressing the role his more notable critics may have played in Biden's decision, Clooney argued that only the president's decision to step aside would go down in history. "All the rest of it will be long gone and forgotten," he said at the Wolfs press conference in Venice. "And so I'm just very proud of where we are in the state of the world right now, which I think many people are surprised by, and I think we're all very excited by the future."

Since dropping out of the race, Biden has stood firmly behind Harris and her pick for vice president, Tim Walz. "My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my vice president," he wrote in his initial announcement. "And it's been the best decision I've made. Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it's time to come together and beat Trump. Let's do this."