At least eight House Democrats have publicly urged Biden not to seek reelection, with Sen. Peter Welch being the first to explicitly do so in the Senate amid growing concerns about his age and health.
“In the national interest, I call on President Biden to withdraw from the race,” the Vermont senator wrote in an opinion piece in The Washington Post.
Biden has sought to stave off a growing number of Democrats who say they cannot win the November election, but growing public resentment is eroding his efforts to turn the tide.
Hollywood star Clooney penned the explosive editorial in The New York Times on Wednesday, just three weeks after co-hosting a massive fundraiser in Los Angeles that raised nearly $30 million for Biden.
“This shocks me to say this, but the Joe Biden I was sitting with at a fundraiser three weeks ago was not the ‘big’ Joe Biden of 2010,” Clooney wrote.
“He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same person we all witnessed at the debates.”
Clooney said Biden would lose the presidential election and Democrats would lose both houses of Congress.
At a June 15 fundraiser in Los Angeles, co-hosted by Clooney and fellow movie star Julia Roberts, Biden appeared tired as he shared the stage with former President Barack Obama.
He flew directly to California from the G7 summit in Italy and blamed jet lag and a cold for his performance in the June 27 televised debate with Donald Trump.
In response to Clooney’s op-ed, the Biden campaign pointed to comments made by the president on Monday in which he indicated he intends to run again in November.
Biden has shunned the media since taking office, but he is scheduled to give a new interview to NBC on Monday in an attempt to woo voters.
– “Overwhelmingly negative” –
But while leading Democrats gave Biden a broad but unenthusiastic endorsement on Tuesday, his efforts to stop the bleeding looked increasingly futile just a day later.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 86, was less keen on her own candidacy on Wednesday, telling MSNBC that “it’s up to the president to decide whether or not he runs.”
“We’re all urging him to make a decision because time is running out,” she said, although Biden repeatedly promised last week that he would continue to campaign.
Pelosi said Biden should hold off on making a final decision until after NATO’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington, which concludes with a highly-anticipated news conference from the president on Thursday.
NATO leaders appeared to rally around Biden as they welcomed him upon his arrival.
French President Emmanuel Macron, under pressure after calling inconclusive early elections, embraced his elder counterpart on the podium and shared a firm handshake.
Biden opened Tuesday’s summit with a powerful speech in which he pledged to deploy new air defenses to Ukraine, stumbling over his words only a few times before finishing his opening remarks.
But his every move between now and November will be monitored for signs of age-related frailty and declining health.
Republicans have also stepped up pressure, with the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee issuing subpoenas to three senior White House aides to testify about Biden’s health, Axios reported.
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