George Clooney wrote a lengthy op-ed urging former president Joe Biden to step aside and pass the torch to another Democrat, while also praising Biden’s years of service to the country. But according to author Chris Whipple, Clooney completely lost it on a Morning Joe producer after co-host Mika Brzezinski floated the idea that Barack Obama might’ve influenced his New York Times piece. In his new book, “Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History,” Whipple claims Clooney called up a producer friend at MSNBC and had a full-on meltdown over what he saw as a wild and baseless theory.
Also read: Actor George Clooney, a high-profile Biden supporter and fundraiser, asks president to leave race
George Clooney had a ‘meltdown’ after Morning Joe’s take on his Biden op-ed
Clooney was one of the many Democrat supporters who urged Biden to bow out of the 2024 race against Donald Trump. The move came just weeks after he helped raise millions for the Democratic candidate. “His phone lit up and it’s George Clooney — a good friend of his — and Clooney went absolutely ballistic,” author Chris Whipple claimed, as quoted by PageSix. “What ensued was an exchange of F-bombs for, you know, several minutes.”
Clooney, according to Whipple, was fuming, mostly because no one on Morning Joe challenged Mika Brzezinski’s baseless theory that his op-ed was somehow influenced by Obama. On July 11, 2024, Brzezinski said on-air, “This wasn’t George Clooney. … I think that Barack Obama has a lot of influence, and I think that there’s, there’s a lot there.” According to reports, the Midnight Sky star kept cursing out his producer friend (whose name wasn’t revealed) for not standing up for him. In response, the producer reportedly said, “George, it’s just not a movie, where you go script page to script page.” Clooney didn’t take it well and allegedly snapped back with an expletive. Whipple claimed the producer fired right back. Journalist Tara Palmeri, 37, weighed in, saying, “I’ve got to give it to the producer. Not many would push back at an A-lister like that.”
But Clooney’s rage didn’t stop there. According to the author, he called his producer friend a second time. “‘This is a morning talk show on a cable channel. Nobody gives a f*** if we say Biden should get out or stay in,’” the producer reportedly told the “angry” Hollywood A-lister. “‘George, I told you before. We’ll try and take care of it tomorrow morning. I promise you,’” he assured him. However, Clooney, still not convinced, allegedly said, “‘I don’t know whether I trust you,’” which set the producer off. “‘Well, if you don’t trust me, stop calling me,’” he allegedly fired back.
Clooney has been a longtime Democrat supporter having endorsed former President Barack Obama, then Hillary Clinton, and later Biden. He hosted fundraisers for Biden in both 2020 and 2024. But after the great debate debacle (where Biden failed to convince most Democrats that he was the right candidate to take on Trump), Clooney published his op-ed urging him to step down. Other A-listers followed suit on social media. Eventually, Biden stepped aside and endorsed his Vice President, Kamala Harris, as the 2024 Democratic nominee. Harris went on to lose to Trump in November.
