‘You know George’: Biden failed to recognise Clooney at major fundraiser, new book says

Washington: Joe Biden failed to recognise mega-star George Clooney at a major fundraiser the actor hosted for Biden’s campaign, according to a new book investigating the former president’s physical and mental decline and his team’s efforts to play down its significance.

The book, by CNN journalist Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson, paints a picture of an elderly man who, by 2024, was struggling to manage the demands of the presidency and the intense schedule of a re-election campaign.

George Clooney, Joe Biden, Julia Roberts and Barack Obama at a Democratic fundraiser on June 15, 2024.Credit: X - @JoeBiden

It reports that Clooney flew from Europe, where he was working on a film, to Los Angeles for the June 15, 2024 fundraiser that ultimately raised a record-breaking $US30 million for Biden. The president, too, had jetted in from the G7 in Italy, and arrived at the Peacock Theatre looking “diminished”.

Clooney, a major Democratic donor, had not seen Biden since an event in Washington in December 2022. The book says the actor knew Biden might be tired, but the man before him – shuffling and seemingly guided by an aide – looked “as if he’d aged a decade” in 18 months.

The book quotes an unnamed Hollywood identity who watched as Biden greeted guests at the shindig. “It was like watching someone who was not alive,” the person said. “It was startling. And we all looked at each other. It was so awful.”

Biden gave Clooney the same generic greeting – “thank you for being here” – as everybody else. “You know George,” an aide prompted.

“Yeah, yeah,” Biden reportedly responded. The two men then had an exchange in which Clooney asked Biden how he was, and enquired about his G7 trip. “It was fine,” the president said.

It seemed clear to those involved in the encounter that Biden had not recognised Clooney, one of the world’s most famous people, Tapper and Thompson write.

Biden’s aide offered a further prompt: “George Clooney.” The president then said: “Oh, yeah! Hi George!”

The account of that conversation was contained in an extract of the book Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, which was published in The New Yorker.

The two men had last seen each other at the White House in December 2022. Clooney thought Biden had declined markedly since then.Credit: AP

The fundraiser itself left many attendees deeply worried about Biden’s health and capability after his frail performance in a friendly Q&A with former president Barack Obama and talk show host Jimmy Kimmel.

Obama guided Biden off the stage at the end of the Q&A after the president appeared to freeze, in a moment that was captured on video and went viral.

The event took place less than two weeks before the presidential debate in which Biden fumbled, rambled and infamously ended one incoherent response with: “We finally beat Medicare.”

While he dug in and remained the Democratic nominee for more than three weeks, Biden eventually bowed out of the race and endorsed then-vice president Kamala Harris as his replacement.

But Biden’s initial decision to run again – rather than stand aside earlier and allow for a full, open primary contest – remains a “sliding doors moment” in US political history.

Many Democrats feel a different candidate, with more time to campaign and the capacity to differentiate themselves from Biden and his policies, would have had more success against Donald Trump in November 2024.

The book, which has not yet been released publicly, promises more reporting about efforts within the White House and Biden’s team to downplay or “cover up” the president’s condition.

Democratic Party figures sought to brush away the revelations about Biden and Clooney this week.

Biden finally bowed out of the presidential race and gave his endorsement to Kamala Harris.Credit: AP

“We’re just looking forward,” said the Democrats’ leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, while Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker – a potential 2028 presidential candidate – said “all this stuff … is very backward looking”.

Last week, Biden, 82, appeared on The View on America’s ABC News with his wife Jill. They both disputed the accounts of Biden’s decline in multiple books.

“They are wrong. There’s nothing to sustain that,” Joe Biden said. He pointed to his last six months in office as evidence that he could still do the job.

Biden described the notorious debate as a “terrible night”. Asked by host Whoopi Goldberg why the Democrats then bought into the narrative that he had to stand aside, Biden said: “The Democratic Party at large didn’t buy into it, but the Democratic leadership and some of the very significant contributors did.”

One such contributor was Clooney, who, two weeks after the debate, wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times calling on his friend Biden to withdraw.

“The one battle he cannot win is the fight against time,” Clooney wrote. He added that the Biden he saw at the fundraiser was “the same man we all witnessed at the debate”. The piece was a key moment in the campaign for Biden to stand down.

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.