End your run now, George Clooney tells Biden as he hosts Nato leaders

George Clooney called on Joe Biden to end his election campaign as the US president welcomed world leaders to a Nato summit in Washington DC on Wednesday.

The Hollywood star, who is a major Democratic donor and described himself as a friend of the president, said Mr Biden was no longer “the same man” voters saw in 2010, nor the candidate who stood for office in 2020.

Calling for the Democratic Party to “figure it out” at its national convention next month, he added: “We are not going to win in November with this president.”

The 81-year-old president is facing growing pressure from figures in his own party to make way for a younger nominee before November’s presidential election, following his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump on June 27.

At least eight House Democrats have openly called on Mr Biden to not seek re-election, but Peter Welch became the first in the Senate to explicitly do so on Wednesday.

“For the good of the country, I’m calling on President Biden to withdraw from the race,” the Vermont senator said in an opinion piece in the Washington Post.

Clooney and Mr Welch’s remarks came as Mr Biden welcomed world leaders to Washington for the annual Nato summit, and met Sir Keir Starmer for the first time.

Both leaders will deliver press conferences on Thursday, with the spotlight particularly focused on Mr Biden after his recent string of gaffes.

Nancy Pelosi, the former House Speaker and Democratic grandee, said on Wednesday that she would support whatever decision Mr Biden makes on his campaign, ignoring his public insistence that he will fight on.

“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.”

Mr Biden appeared to have silenced doubters within his own party this week with a forceful letter to his colleagues and an interview with ABC in which he said only the “Lord Almighty” could convince him to stand down.

But when Clooney became the latest high-profile Democrat to use his platform to urge Mr Biden to reconsider his campaign, it added to concerns about his health on Capitol Hill.

“The one battle he cannot win is the fight against time,” Clooney said in an article for The New York Times.

“None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at [a] fund-raiser was not the Joe “big f—ing deal” Biden of 2010.

“He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”

In 2010, Mr Biden was caught on a hot microphone telling Barack Obama that his landmark health legislation was a “big f—ing deal.

Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, met congressmen on Wednesday and said he would pass their concerns to the president.

‘Terrifying threat of a Trump presidency’

Some Democrats are worried that Mr Biden will not only lose the presidency, but make Democrats in congressional races more unpopular. 

They have said that the presidency and both branches of Congress could fall to Trump, making it more difficult for Democrats to oppose his policies. 

Ritchie Torres, a Democrat representative in New York, said that Democrats needed to consider the “down-ballot effect of whomever we nominate”. 

“Blindness is not bliss,” he said, “amid the terrifying threat of a Trump presidency.”

Mr Biden’s presence on the ballot could turn New York, a previous safe haven for Democrats, into a “battleground” state, data shows.

An analysis by Cook Political Report, an election forecaster, suggested Mr Biden is likely to lose in the swing states of Nevada, Arizona and Georgia.

Mr Pelosi, 84, said the critics should wait until after the Nato summit before making any decisions about going public with demands for him to stand down.

So far, seven Democrats have issued public statements, with more speaking to journalists about their concerns behind the scenes.

Mr Clooney said that “every senator and congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private” believed the Biden campaign was headed for disaster.

There is no mechanism for Mr Biden to be deposed by his party, and any change in nomination would be made under a process designed by him.

Sir Keir flew into the Nato summit on Tuesday night after being sworn in as an MP in Parliament and met Mr Biden in the White House on Wednesday.

Asked what he wanted to get out of the meeting, he said he hoped to build on “a very special relationship we have between the UK and the US”.

“We make a unique contribution in Europe to Nato and therefore it’s a very good opportunity for me to talk to the President about how we take forward the important work at this summit,” he said.

He also suggested that Mr Biden was not too old for the job, arguing that his own government’s pledge to force peers to retire at 80 was not a reflection on the capabilities of any leader.

“We’ve got 800-plus members of the House of Lords, it’s simply too big. We need to reduce it,” he said.

“So it doesn’t reflect on how other elected representatives are chosen in other countries, it’s to do with the size of the House of Lords.”

Mr Biden’s Nato press conference on Thursday will be closely watched by critics for gaffes that will spur on their attempts to remove him.

His first event of the summit on Tuesday night appeared to pass without a hitch, and supporters hope that the scripted appearance will enable him to avoid any public mistakes.

Concerns about his age come as Nato members discussed whether Ukraine should be allowed to use long-range missiles to strike military targets inside Russia.

Sir Keir said the UK government would continue to allow its weapons to be used by Kyiv in cross-border attacks, but stopped short of confirming whether that included Britain’s air-launched Storm Shadow cruise missiles.

He said the weapons would “obviously be used in accordance with international humanitarian law”.

The chief of defence staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, had previously said the weapon could only be used inside “Crimea and mainland Ukraine”.

Anthony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, separately said that missile-equipped F-16 fighter jets would be delivered to Ukraine imminently, and would “be flying in the skies of Ukraine this summer”.

Ruben Brekelmans, the Dutch defence minister, said the discussions were focused on whether Kyiv can use long-range missiles to strike Russian aircraft before they mount attacks on Ukrainian territory.

He told The Telegraph the discussions were “about the range that those munitions can be used in Russia”.

Nato members will on Thursday release a communique setting out their joint approach to Ukraine for the next year.

The US and Germany have successfully blocked an attempt by some Eastern European countries to set out a timeline for Ukraine joining the alliance, amid concerns that could draw the West into direct conflict with Russia.

Instead, members will offer more military hardware and a “well-lit bridge” to membership that gives more detail on the criteria for membership than at last year’s summit in Lithuania.

In a nod to the ongoing conflict, Russia served “chicken kievs” at a dinner to celebrate assuming the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council on July 1.

The menu used the Russian spelling of Kyiv’s name, which is also commonly used for the dish.

Sergiy Kyslytsya, the Ukrainian ambassador to the UN, said: “The moral decay of Russian diplomacy is glaring.”