George Clooney admits it was a “mistake” for Kamala Harris to replace Joe Biden in the 2024 race, calling her task “very tough.”
George Clooney is reflecting on his political stance from earlier this year — and he’s not holding back.
During a new interview on CBS’ Sunday Morning, the Oscar-winning actor said that while he doesn’t regret urging former President Joe Biden to step aside from the 2024 presidential race, he now believes it was a “mistake” to have Vice President Kamala Harris step in as the Democratic nominee.
When asked if he’d still write his viral New York Times op-ed again, Clooney said he would. “Yes. We had a chance,” he explained. “I wanted there to be a primary — to battle-test this quickly and get it up and going.” But he added that Harris faced an impossible situation. “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.’ … She was given a very tough task.”
Clooney’s comments come after his July 2024 essay, which made headlines across Hollywood and Washington. In that piece, he bluntly stated that Democrats couldn’t win in November with Biden as the nominee.
“We are not going to win in November with this president,” he wrote. “We won’t win the House, and we’re going to lose the Senate.” He also claimed that many Democratic leaders privately agreed with him, even if they wouldn’t say so publicly.
Back when Clooney’s op-ed was first published on July 10, 2024, titled “I Love Joe Biden. But We Need a New Nominee” in The New York Times, it sparked one of the biggest political debates of the year. In that essay, Clooney expressed admiration for Biden’s decades of service but argued that the president’s age and recent debate performance had made it clear he couldn’t lead the party to victory.
“The one battle he can’t win is the fight against time,” Clooney wrote, urging Democrats to consider new leadership for the upcoming election.
A few months later, in an April 2025 interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Clooney defended his controversial stance, calling it his “civic duty.” He explained that he felt many in his party weren’t being honest about Biden’s health and viability as a candidate. “You have to take a stand if you believe in it,” Clooney told Tapper. “Then deal with the consequences. That’s fair.” Despite the criticism, he maintained that he did what he thought was right for the country.
The op-ed didn’t just stir political circles — it created family-level drama, too. Hunter Biden publicly criticized Clooney in interviews, saying the actor shouldn’t have undermined his father’s campaign. The debate over Clooney’s comments fueled larger conversations about Biden’s age, health, and the challenges facing the Democratic Party as it tried to unify behind a new nominee.
Following the op-ed’s publication, Clooney faced both support and backlash for speaking out.
Clooney noted that he’s no stranger to backlash — recalling how he was criticized for opposing the Iraq War two decades ago. “People picketed my movies and put me on a deck of cards,” he said. “I have to take that. I’m OK with criticism for where I stand.”
Still, despite acknowledging that having Harris lead the ticket may not have been the best move, Clooney doesn’t seem to regret pushing for change. “We are where we are,” he said. “To not do it would be to say, ‘I’m not gonna tell the truth.’”
