George Clooney has ruled out running for president, while revealing which Democrats he thinks would be best to take back the White House in 2028.
The 65-year-old, one of the party’s most prominent donors and fundraisers, discussed the 2028 elections at The Future of Creativity in Venice, Italy, on Friday, saying, “I think we’re all very excited about this young senator from Georgia, Jon Ossoff.”
Clooney added that he also admires Illinois Governor Jay Pritzker and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, but that he would not explicitly support a single politician until after the November midterm elections.
Telegenic Ossoff, 39, was first elected to represent the Peach State in 2021, becoming the youngest person elected to the Senate since 1980, the first senator born in the 1980s and the first millennial U.S. senator.
Age is an important factor for Clooney when it comes to determining who would be a competitive candidate, and says it’s the real reason he wouldn’t run himself.
“I’m 65 years old and I think we need young voices coming up with new ideas and new thoughts,” he declared in a video exclusively obtained by the Daily Mail. He added that he would “absolutely not” put his hat in the ring.
George Clooney, at 65, said ‘absolutely not’ to a candidate for government during a speech in Venice on Friday
The comment was reminiscent of Clooney’s infamous New York Times op-ed from July 2024, when he called on President Joe Biden, then 81, to drop out of that year’s presidential race over concerns about his old age.
“I would love to support everyone, but not people my age or older,” Clooney said during the sit-down. “I think we need to bring in some younger people.”
The actor also praised his influence in the political space and said, “I did it [fundraise] since 1988. I support and work. I was the biggest Democratic fundraiser ever.”
Clooney does indeed have significant influence, with his op-ed on Biden effectively opening the floodgates for other household names to call for the then-president to resign.
In the piece, Clooney wrote about a fundraiser he co-hosted with Biden: “It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was at the fundraiser with three weeks ago was not the Joe ‘big f***ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020.
“He was the same guy we all saw at the debate.”
Biden ended his bid for re-election just eleven days later.
Jon Ossoff, Jay Pritzker and Andy Beshear are three Democrats that Clooney is enthusiastic about
Last October, former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre excoriated Clooney in her book about the election, saying, “Clooney was an A-list Hollywood celebrity and a self-proclaimed proud Democrat. His opinion was huge and would attract enormous attention from both the media and the public.”
She also criticized the decisions made by the Democratic party before Biden withdrew from the race, and viewed her colleagues’ attempt to oust him as a betrayal.
Clooney’s calls “may not have been a calculated prank in the party’s campaign to get the president out, but the letter gave new impetus to the effort,” she wrote.
In October last year, former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre castigated Clooney in her book for writing a controversial essay telling Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential election.
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‘After the publication, more and more party leaders said that Biden had to leave.’
“While his concerns were not entirely unfounded, his assessment did not provide the full context.”
Jean-Pierre also described the fundraiser that Clooney co-hosted with Biden and which she attended.
‘We went through nine time zones. “I was tired, and I’m decades younger than Biden, so it was understandable that he might not have been sprinting around a ballroom or at his most electric when he addressed the star-studded crowd,” she wrote.
