Joe Biden Seemingly Put Final Nail In The Coffin Of George Clooney Friendship

Former President Joe Biden and Hollywood heartthrob George Clooney have been friends for a long time, so you know a situation is dicey when your own friend writes an op-ed for The New York Times about how you need to step down as POTUS. Clooney did that because of Biden's perceived failing mental capacities, which many people felt made Biden unable to continue on as the leader of the U.S. This political drama is covered in "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again," a new book by reporters Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, and it explains exactly why Clooney decided to write that article for The New York Times.

According to Tapper and Thompson, Biden was well aware he was hanging out with Clooney, an activist, in 2022 at the Kennedy Center Honors. A short two years later, however, Biden reportedly had no idea who Clooney was — while he was speaking to him. There's plenty of actors whose faces are known but their names aren't; George Clooney is not one of those actors. "Clooney was shaken to his core. The president hadn't recognized him, a man he had known for years," Tapper and Thompson wrote in their book (via Variety). That moment made it abundantly clear to Clooney that the democrats needed a new person to run for president that November, instead of having Biden try to secure a second term.

Former President Joe Biden wasn't the only politician seemingly annoyed by George Clooney's piece in The New York Times. President Donald Trump also wasn't thrilled, considering how Clooney is a loyal democrat, while Trump is the face of the Republican Party. Trump ran to Truth Social to trash-talk Clooney. "So now fake movie actor George Clooney, who never came close to making a great movie, is getting into the act. He's turned on Crooked Joe like the rats they both are," he said.

Clooney laughed the whole thing off when he appeared on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" a few months later. "He's a big fan of mine," Clooney joked to host Jimmy Kimmel, who's also made it clear that he hates Trump. However, the feud didn't end there. It took a pause, but then Trump brought his petty beef with Clooney to the next level in March after Clooney shared his disapproval of the Trump administration during an interview on "60 Minutes."

The next month, Clooney did an "Actors on Actors" Variety interview with Patti LuPone and did all but pull an "Avenue Q" and sing how Trump "is only for now." He told LuPone, "The authoritarian, the demagogue, it goes away when they go away and he will go away." Clooney added, "We'll all get through it and, you know, we do eventually find our better angels. We have every other time."