Logan Church: Biden's screwed now Hollywood's against him

Analysis: George Clooney’s call for US President Joe Biden to step aside is significant, writes 1News US correspondent Logan Church.

As a Democrat president, you know things are turning to custard when Hollywood turns on you.

US President Joe Biden woke up to the worst political headache imaginable today – one of your top supporters and fundraisers publishing an opinion piece in one of the nation’s biggest newspapers, calling for you to step aside.

Hollywood heavyweight George Clooney loves Joe Biden. He said so himself in that op-ed.

Clooney organised and hosted a fundraiser for Biden only a few weeks ago, raising a whopping $47.6m for the president’s re-election campaign.

But then came Biden’s first debate against Donald Trump, where he lost his train of thought, couldn’t make coherent sentences, and made the guy who repeatedly lied seem far more presidential.

Then came the follow-up interview on American television, which was Biden’s opportunity to show the world he still had it.

And did he?

Put it this way – the person who transcribed the interview before it was sent to us had to use question marks in the bits where they couldn’t understand what Biden was saying.

Democrats started quietly saying Biden needed to stand aside if the party had any hope of beating Trump later this year.

Then they started talking louder.

Then George Clooney called for it in the New York Times.

“The one battle [Biden] cannot win is the fight against time,” he wrote.

"We are not going to win in November with this president ... this isn’t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor who I’ve spoken with in private.”

Ouch.

Then, to make things worse (or better, depending on your view of President Biden), Democrat heavyweight and friend of Biden, Nancy Pelosi, came out on television and said Biden had a decision to make.

"It's up to the president to decide if he is going to run,” she said.

“We're all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short.”

It was somewhat awkward given Biden has spent the entire week telling the world that he is “staying in the race”.

All of this is happening against the backdrop of the current NATO summit, where world leaders are in Washington DC in one of the most volatile years of NATO’s existence.

Our Prime Minister is there too, invited as a friend of NATO, even if New Zealand is not part of the alliance.

Christopher Luxon has spent a lot of his time in Washington DC meeting with both Republican and Democrat politicians, and talking with Biden at a NATO dinner today.

At several press conferences he has refused to say anything about internal US politics, but he’s clearly trying to build relationships with a range of leaders ahead of what could be a seismic shift in America.

So, you may ask, could the Democrats pick a new presidential candidate?

I’ll leave the answer to Mr Clooney.

“Would it be messy? Yes. Democracy is messy. But would it enliven our party and wake up voters who, long before the June debate, had already checked out? It sure would.”