Recommendations of the Editorial team
American actor, director and producer George Clooney attended the “A Captivating Story” event as part of the Freedom Games on October 25, 2025 in Łódź, Poland. The leading ideas festival in Central and Eastern Europe brings together representatives from politics, culture, business and public life from home and abroad in panel discussions, author discussions, lectures, workshops, concerts and artistic performances.
Clooney has no regrets about writing an opinion piece in The New York Times calling on former President Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential election. However, the actor now says it was a “mistake” that Kamala Harris stepped in as the new candidate.
Speaking to CBS’ Sunday Morning, Clooney explained that he would write the article again in retrospect: “We had a chance,” he said. “As I wrote in the article, I wanted a primary. We should quickly put the whole thing to the acid test and get it going.”
“Kamala Harris was a mistake”
“I think the flaw in it becoming Kamala is that she had to run against her own record. That’s very hard to do when the point of running is to say, ‘I’m not that person.’ This is difficult to implement and so she had a very difficult task. I think that was a mistake, honestly. But it is what it is. It is said that otherwise we would have lost even more seats in the House of Representatives. So I don’t know. Not saying it would be like hiding the truth.”
Reporter Seth Doane then asked Clooney if he had seen Hunter Biden’s aggressive response to the article. Clooney confirmed this, saying he could “spend a lot of time refuting a lot of the things he said.” This also includes the claim that Barack Obama incited him to do this – which Clooney described as false.
“But the reality is that I don’t think looking back like that helps anyone – especially [Hunter]” said Clooney. “I don’t think it helps the Democratic Party. So I’ll just wish him well in his continued recovery, hope he’s doing well, and leave it at that. I have a lot of personal opinions on this, but I don’t think it’s helpful to argue with him publicly.”
“The one battle he cannot win is the battle against time.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Clooney explained his decision to speak out publicly: “I do it when I feel like I have the responsibility to do it, quite honestly.” He added: “My father always told me to challenge people with more power and protect people with less power. … That’s what I believe in. That’s what we teach our children too.”
In July of last year, Clooney published a widely reported opinion piece in the New York Times calling for Biden to resign. He wrote: “The one battle he cannot win is the battle against time.”
“We will not win in November with this president,” Clooney wrote. “Plus, we’re not going to win the House, and we’re going to lose the Senate. That’s not just my opinion – that’s the opinion of every senator, every member of Congress and every governor I’ve spoken to privately.”
Eleven days later, on July 21, Biden withdrew from the presidential race and endorsed Harris – who Clooney subsequently also endorsed.