Donald Trump Attacks “Fake Movie Actor” George Clooney After NYT Op-Ed

President Joe Biden and Donald Trump are most likely aligned on one topic these days: not being huge fans of George Clooney. On Wednesday, Clooney published a New York Times op-ed saying that Biden should drop out of the 2024 presidential race due to his age. That night, Trump went on Truth Social to bizarrely blast the Oscar-winner, criticizing Clooney for turning his back on Biden—who, as a reminder, is running against Trump—while insulting Clooney, calling him a “fake movie actor” and maintaining that “movies never really worked for him!”

Clooney voiced his opinions in a story headlined “I Love Joe Biden. But We Need a New Nominee.” The lifelong Democrat and major Democratic party donor showers Biden with compliments in his essay, calling him both a “friend” and a “hero.” But despite his personal affection for the president, Clooney states in no uncertain terms that he believes Biden must bow out of the 2024 election due to his advanced age—saying that he saw Biden’s diminished capabilities firsthand at a glitzy Hollywood fundraiser where Biden appeared alongside stars like Julia Roberts and Barbra Streisand. “It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010,” Clooney wrote. “He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”

“This is about age. Nothing more,” Clooney continued. “But also nothing that can be reversed. We are not going to win in November with this president.” Biden, for his part, has repeatedly said that he is not dropping out of the race, despite increasing calls from major members from his own party to do so.

Though you might assume Trump would cheer on anyone criticizing Biden at this point, the former president actually attacks Clooney in his Truth Social post. “So now fake movie actor George Clooney, who never came close to making a great movie, is getting into the act,” writes Trump. “He’s turned on Crooked Joe like the rats they both are.” His words have a clear subtext: given the fact that Trump surged ahead of Biden in polls after the debate, Trump and his allies are reportedly desperate for President Biden to stay in the race. Attacking Clooney for criticizing Biden rather than celebrating Clooney may just be Trump playing chess, not checkers.

In any case, the former president and current convicted felon still used his disdain for Clooney to criticize the sitting president. “What does Clooney know about anything?” Trump asked. “He uses the Democrat ‘talking point’ that Biden, the WORST President in the history of the United States, has ‘saved our Democracy.’” Trump goes on to criticize Biden for inflation, the war in Afghanistan, and his handling of the border.

Ultimately, Trump’s post ends where it began: criticizing George Clooney. He ends his rant with a bizarre jab at Clooney’s status as a movie star, imploring that the Oscar winner “get out of politics and go back to television. Movies never really worked for him!!!,” adds Trump, with three exclamation points. Ouch.

To say that George Clooney is a “fake movie actor” who “never came close to making a great movie” is, of course, blatant Trumpian misinformation. While Clooney has had his share of misses (the less said about The Monuments Men, the better), he’s had plenty of hits and critically acclaimed titles in a wide-ranging and illustrious career. Clooney has starred in and/or directed serious fare like Michael Clayton, Good Night and Good Luck, The Ides of March and Syriana, which won him the best supporting Oscar. He’s also great in dramas with a comedic bent like The Descendants, Up in the Air (both of which earned him leading actor Oscar noms), Burn After Reading, O Brother Where Art Thou, and the incredibly underrated Intolerable Cruelty. Heck, the Oceans 11 franchise alone would be enough to cement Clooney as one of the great movie stars of our time. His undeniable charisma and chemistry with Julia Roberts was so great in the Oceans films that they teamed up again twenty years later for the delightful Ticket to Paradise.

Apparently for Trump, none of those films or performances compare to the masterpiece that was [checks notes] a cameo appearance in Home Alone 2. Or maybe he was just a huge fan of ER?