George Clooney calls Hunter Biden’s rant about op-ed ‘outright lies,’ Kamala Harris’ presidential bid ‘a mistake’

George Clooney is slamming Hunter Biden for voicing “outright lies” in his expletive-filled rant attacking the actor for his 2024 presidential election op-ed.

Earlier this year, Hunter made headlines for angrily calling out Clooney’s New York Times op-ed titled, “I Love Joe Biden, but We Need a New Nominee,” which called for his father Joe Biden to drop out of last year’s presidential race. Hunter defended his dad and directed a “f— you” at Clooney several times in an interview published roughly a year after the consequential essay.

Addressing Hunter’s comments during a recent chat with CBS’ Sunday Mornings that aired Nov. 2, Clooney made it clear that he has no intention of going back and forth with Hunter on the subject.

“I could spend a lot of time debunking many of the things he said because many of the things he said were just outright lies,” Clooney told the outlet. “Obama didn’t put me up to it, it wasn’t my fundraiser, it was my fundraiser — all the things. But the reality is I don’t think looking backwards like that is helpful to anyone, particularly to him.”

He continued, “I don’t think it’s helpful for the Democratic party, and so I’m just gonna wish him well on his ongoing recovery and I hope he does well and just leave it at that. I have many personal opinions about it, but I don’t find it to be helpful to have a public spat with him.”

Elsewhere in the conversation, Clooney shared his thoughts on the decision to appoint Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee, pointing out that he suggested an open primary in his 2024 op-ed.

“I think the mistake with it being Kamala is she had to run against her own record,” Clooney explained. “It’s very hard to do if the point of running is to say, ‘I’m not that person.’ It’s hard to do, and so she was given a very tough task. I think it was a mistake, quite honestly. But, we are where we are. We were gonna lose more House seats, they say. So, I don’t know.”

Last year, the Oscar-winning actor and producer was one of several political and Hollywood figures who called for President Biden to end his re-election bid. Like others, Clooney pointed to Biden’s much maligned performance at a June 27 debate. But he also called upon his longtime friendship with the politician and recalled a fundraiser run-in that made him concerned about Biden’s ability to win the election and serve another presidential term.

“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe ‘big F—ing deal’ Biden of 2010,” Clooney wrote in his essay. “He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”

Hunter suggested in his explosive July interview that “Obama people” gave Clooney “the blessing” to write the Times op-ed and additionally argued that Clooney mischaracterized the fundraiser encounter.

“F— him! F— him and everybody around him,” Hunter told Channel 5’s Andrew Callaghan of Clooney’s op-ed. “I don’t have to be f—ing nice. No. 1, I agree with Quentin Tarantino. F—ing George Clooney is not a f—ing actor. He is f—ing like…I don’t know what he is. He’s a brand.”

Get your daily dose of entertainment news, celebrity updates, and what to watch with our EW Dispatch newsletter.

Hunter continued, “What do you have to do with f—ing anything? Why do I have to f—ing listen to you? What right do you have to step on a man who’s given 52 years of his f—ing life to the service of this country and decide that you, George Clooney, are going to take out basically a full page ad in the f—ing New York Times to undermine the president?”

Clooney has shared no regrets about his decision to pen the op-ed, telling celebrity.land that it was his “civic duty” to speak out. “You have to take your stand if you believe in it,” he said in April. “Take a stand, stand for it and then deal with the consequences. That’s the rules, so when people criticize me — they criticized me for my stance against the war 20 years ago, people picketed my movies, and they put me on a deck of cards — I have to take that, that’s fair. I’m okay with that, I’m okay with criticism for where I stand. I defend their right to criticize me as much as I defend my right to criticize them.”

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly