George Clooney calls on ‘friend’ Joe Biden to drop-out as Trump teases VP choice at Florida rally: Live

Weeks after he hosted a fundraiser that brought in $28m for President Biden’s re-election campaign, actor George Clooney called for the 46th president to stand down from seeking another term in the wake of his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump.

Clooney, a longtime supporter of the Democratic Party whose wife, Amal Clooney, is a prominent human rights attorney, penned an emotional op-ed in The New York Times on Wednesday in which he said he “loves” Biden as a senator, vice president, and as president, and considers him a friend.

He also said he believes in Biden’s character and morals, and touted how he has “won many of the battles he’s faced” since taking office in January 2021.

But Clooney cautioned that there is “one battle” Biden can’t win: “the fight against time.”

Andrew Feinberg reports from Washington, DC.

Ritchie Torres, the Democratic rep of the Bronx in New York, says that the party has to proceed with “an unsentimental analysis of the cold hard numbers” in deciding how to proceed with “whomever we nominate” as the candidate in November’s election.

He does not mention Joe Biden at all.

”In determining how to proceed as a party, there must be a serious reckoning with the down-ballot effect of whomever we nominate,” Torres says.

“An unsentimental analysis of the cold hard numbers—which have no personal feelings or political loyalties—should inform what we decide and whom we nominate. If we’re going to choose a particular path, we should be clear-eyed about its consequences.”

After initially being given no role at next week’s Republican National Convention, Ron DeSantis — the Florida governor and past rival of former President Donald Trump — has now been added to the speaking schedule.

“I will confirm a change in schedule that means he will now be speaking,” a source familiar with the decision who is helping plan convention activities told NBC News.

The source would not confirm which night of the convention DeSantis would speak. CNN first reported Tuesday that DeSantis would not have a speaking role.

A source close to DeSantis said they had never been told they would not be speaking at the convention.

“We have been told for a while we had a speaking slot and have never been told we do not,” the source said.

Democratic Rep Pat Ryan, who represents New York’s 18th congressional district — a frontline swing district — has asked Joe Biden to step aside “to deliver on his promise to be a bridge to a new generation of leaders”.

Ryan told The New York Times in a phone interview: “I’d be doing a grave disservice if I said he was the best candidate to serve this fall.”

“For the good of our country, for my two young kids, I’m asking Joe Biden to step aside in the upcoming election and deliver on the promise to be a bridge to a new generation of leaders.”

He added: “I really hope, with all my heart, that he will listen.”

Ryan is the eighth member of Congress to publicly call on Biden to stand down.

Speaking at his Doral resort in Miami on Tuesday night, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee went on a bizarre rant about the rising cost of the favorite breakfast meat, blaming the price hike on inflation under the Biden administration.

Here’s Kelly Rissman with what the purported billionaire had to say:

Donald Trump has pushed back on reporting by The Bulwark that JD Vance’s beard is a dealbreaker when it comes to his potential as a running mate for the former president.

Trump, who famously likes people to look good on television and to look the part, denied the claim while speaking with Brian Kilmeade on Fox News this morning, instead saying the beard made Vance look like “a young Abraham Lincoln”.

Vance is considered a rising star within the Republican Party, having sprung onto the political scene in 2016 after his successful memoir Hillbilly Elegy. With Trump’s support, he was elected to Congress in 2022.

Ariana Baio has the story.

Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, the representative for Massachusetts’s 5th congressional district, responds to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s remarks on MSNBC’s Morning Joe today regarding Joe Biden’s candidacy for the party.

“President Biden is the nominee. There is just no light between our caucus and the work we have done with this administration and the work that we will do in the future. As always, this decision is up to the President.”

Lifelong Democrat, major party fundraiser, and Hollywood star George Clooney has penned an op-ed in The New York Times declaring his love for Joe Biden but adding that the party needs a new nominee.

I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, he’s won many of the battles he’s faced.

But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the 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.

Giving his reasons, he continues:

It is disingenuous, at best, to argue that Democrats have already spoken with their vote and therefore the nomination is settled and done, when we just received new and upsetting information. We all think Republicans should abandon their nominee now that he’s been convicted of 34 felonies. That’s new and upsetting information as well. Top Democrats — Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi — and senators, representatives and other candidates who face losing in November need to ask this president to voluntarily step aside.

Clooney adds that the Democratic Party has “an exciting bench”, specifically name-checking “Wes Moore and Kamala Harris and Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear and J.B. Pritzker and others”.

Would it be messy? Yes. Democracy is messy. But would it enliven our party and wake up voters who, long before the June debate, had already checked out? It sure would. The short ramp to Election Day would be a benefit for us, not a danger.

After citing the recent election in France and how the electorate held off the far-right, he concludes:

Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024.

With President Joe Biden about to meet newly-elected British prime minister Sir Keir Starmer for the first time, here’s a look back at other similar encounters, including the famous hand-holding moment between Donald Trump and Theresa May.