The 2024 Presidential Campaign is heating up, which is certainly to be expected at this point in the year, but what’s been unexpected this time is exactly what the conversation has been about, and who is involved in it.
George Clooney has made some very public, controversial comments about President Joe Biden which has resulted in a strong response from the Biden campaign as well as some ribbing by late-night host Stephen Colbert at the expense of a guy who often gets flack for not being the best Batman actor.
What George Clooney Said About Joe Biden
Ever since the first Presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, where it is generally agreed Biden’s performance was not up to par, there have been questions about the President’s age, with some suggesting that perhaps the President should not run. Some in politics have gone so far as to state publicly that Biden should step aside and let somebody else take the nomination.
However, things moved outside politics this week when politically active actor George Clooney joined the chorus of those asking Biden to step aside in an editorial for The New York Times. The actor had only recently hosted a fundraiser for the President, but in the op-ed Clooney stated that, while he considered the President a friend, and knew how capable he had been in the past, the man he saw during the recent fundraiser was “the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”
A public statement like that from George Clooney would certainly arouse comment, and it has done so, both from the Biden campaign and others.
How The Biden Campaign, And Stephen Colbert, Responded To Clooney
President Biden and his campaign have been fighting off accusations that the Commander-in-Chief isn’t up to the task since the debate, and the response to George Clooney’s op-ed was no different. In a statement, the campaign claimed that Biden had spent three hours at the fundraiser, while Clooney had only been there for a few minutes. During the monologue of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the host aimed at the actor, making a joke about a film that is not among George Clooney's best movies, and certainly not among his best costumes. Colbert said…
George Clooney is really busy. He’s gotta leave. He's out protecting Gotham as Nipple Man. That’s the Batman movie where his parents were murdered in a drive-by nurpleing.
Jokes at the expense of George Clooney’s Batman aren’t exactly new, and Clooney has been honest about what he sees as his failure as Batman before. The Batman "nipple suit" is often a target. The making of Batman & Robin was a strange affair that led to what is, in the opinion of many one of the worst superhero movies ever made.
While politics is always a major topic of late-night shows, one can expect that if Hollywood celebrities continue to get involved in the current race, it will only become stronger fodder for jokes. Whether celebrities will impact the Presidential race is another question entirely.
