Hollywood turns on Biden as major supporters and fundraisers call on him to withdraw from race
CNN
Joe Biden is losing a particularly influential corner of support: Hollywood.
Editor’s Note: A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here. Joe Biden is losing a particularly influential corner of support: Hollywood. On Wednesday, George Clooney became the latest — and perhaps most notable — member of the Tinseltown elite publicly to express misgivings about Biden’s candidacy, calling on the embattled president to drop out of the 2024 race. “I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him,” Clooney wrote in a blunt piece for The New York Times. “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,” Clooney added. “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.” Clooney, a major Democratic donor and one of Biden’s most high-profile supporters, concluded his piece by writing, “Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024.”
Nippon Steel is expected to re-file its application for a national security review by American regulators of its $15 billion takeover bid of US Steel, sources familiar with the matter told CNN on Tuesday, buying Japan’s largest steelmaker an additional 90 days to close its acquisition of an American rival after political opposition emerged in an election year.
So far, the attacks that targeted Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah members through their pagers have had devastating consequences. At least nine people, including an eight-year-old girl, were killed, and at least 2,800 were wounded. Over 150 of those injured are in critical condition, according to the Lebanese health minister.