10 Hollywood stars and moguls calling for Biden to drop out

• Weeks after George Clooney co-hosted a $28 million fundraiser for Biden, he wants him to drop out.

• Biden's Hollywood support has begun to wane as Clooney and other moguls publicly express doubts.

• Despite Biden's backing from the party, some top donors and media giants want a new candidate.

Less than a month ago, some of Hollywood's A-list attended a fundraiser for President Joe Biden's reelection campaign, co-hosted by George Clooney, Julia Roberts, and Barbra Streisand. They raised $28 million.

But in an essay published by The New York Times on Wednesday, Clooney is now calling for the president to drop out of the race.

Biden has claimed that calls for him to step aside following his disastrous debate in June are coming from the party's elite instead of everyday Americans, but he has long relied on Hollywood for support — the star-studded event last month was the most lucrative Democratic Party fundraiser to date.

Though few Democratic lawmakers are publicly calling on the president to end his reelection bid, big donors and Hollywood moguls are openly expressing their doubts.

Here are the media giants who have asked Biden to end his campaign — so far.

George Clooney

Clooney called on Biden to drop out of the race in an essay for The New York Times on July 10.

Clooney wrote that the Biden he saw at the Hollywood fundraiser in June was "not the Joe 'big F-ing deal' Biden of 2010," nor was he "even the Joe Biden of 2020." Instead, he was "the same man we all witnessed at the debate."

He wrote that Democrats would lose the election if Biden remained in the race, and also claimed that "every senator and Congress member and governor" he's spoken with privately agrees with him, regardless of their public comments.

Rob Reiner

Rob Reiner is a longtime Democratic donor who hosted a campaign fundraiser that Kamala Harris attended just a couple weeks ago, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

But on June 7, he took to X, formerly known as Twitter, with a forceful message: "It's time to stop f—-ing around."

The actor and filmmaker lauded Biden's service but explicitly called for the president to step down. In a separate post on July 10, Reiner supported Clooney's op-ed, saying that democracy is at risk in this election and "we need someone younger to fight back."

John Cusack

Throughout his decades-long career, Cusack has been vocal about his political opinions. In 2020, he was one of the most prominent supporters of Bernie Sanders and vowed on social media that "anyone who cannot see or choose not to see what [Trump] is" was out of his life "permanently."

In 2023, Cusack posted on X that he understood why Sanders endorsed Biden for president.

But the "Say Anything" actor changed his tune in July 2024, quoting a post from Rob Reiner to call on Biden to step down.

"There has been no bigger supporter of Biden's domestic policy than Rob — he's right," Cusack wrote.

Abigail Disney

The heiress to the Disney fortune has promised to withhold all further donations to the Democratic Party unless Biden bows out of the race.

Disney has long supported left-leaning political groups — she donated $50,000 to the Jane Fonda Climate political action committee in the spring and $150,000 to Planned Parenthood Votes, another PAC, in 2014, CNBC reported, citing OpenSecrets and an FEC filing.

"This is realism, not disrespect," Disney told CNBC earlier this month. "Biden is a good man and has served his country admirably, but the stakes are far too high."

Michael Douglas

The award-winning actor and producer hosted a fundraiser for Biden earlier this year but sounded skeptical during a July 10 appearance on "The View."

Though he didn't go so far as to ask the president to end his campaign, he did say that he is "deeply, deeply concerned."

When asked his opinions on George Clooney's op-ed begging Biden to step aside, Douglas ceded that the actor had "a valid point."

Michael Moore

A titan of political filmmaking and supporter of progressive causes, Michael Moore published an article on his website asking Biden not to run, saying "your body is begging you."

Moore went further on an episode of his podcast and likened allowing Biden on the debate stage to "the cruelest form of elder abuse I've ever been forced to watch."

Reed Hastings

Hastings, a co-founder of Netflix, shared his thoughts with The New York Times in an email earlier this month.

"Biden needs to step aside to allow a vigorous Democratic leader to beat Trump and keep us safe and prosperous," he wrote.

This is a shift for Hastings and his wife, Patty Quillin, who, according to The Times, donated $1.5 million alone to Biden's campaign in 2020 and more than $20 million to the Democratic Party.

Stephen King

The horror icon has long been vocally anti-Trump, but he added his voice to the movement calling for Biden to exit the race on July 8.

King wrote on X, "Joe Biden has been a fine president, but it's time for him — in the interests of the America he so clearly loves — to announce he will not run for reelection."

Damon Lindelof

Lindelof, best known for work writing on "Lost," "The Leftovers," and "Watchmen," wrote an essay for Deadline on July 3 telling Biden to exit the race.

"I am a lifelong Democrat," he wrote, "I voted for Joe. I wept when the election was called for him."

Lindelof continued, "I believe in Joe Biden. I believe in him so much that we wrote him a sizable check as recently as two weeks ago."

But after the debate, Lindelof's opinion changed. He's now asking his fellow Democrats to stop donating to the party. "A rising tide lifts all boats. A falling Biden sinks them," he added.

Ashley Judd

The actress and political activist published a lengthy opinion piece in USA Today on July 12 calling on Biden to step aside because "beating Trump is too important." She writes that the debate demonstrated that Biden is unable to effectively counter Trump's rhetoric and so must end his candidacy.

She implored the Democratic party to act quickly — they should, she argues, simultaneously express their deep gratitude to Biden and ask him to step aside before the clock runs out.

"Here where I sit in rural Tennessee, it's clear that Americans have already made up their minds against President Biden," Judd concludes.

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