Clooney denies unloading on MSNBC producer after 'Morning Joe' host attributed Biden op-ed to Obama
George Clooney denied unloading on an MSNBC producer after Mika Brzezinski accused Barack Obama of influencing Clooney's July 2024 op-ed calling on Joe Biden to drop out of the race.?
Actor George Clooney denied during a Wednesday interview that he called a producer with MSNBC's "Morning Joe" last year to yell about co-host Mika Brzezinski accusing the actor of taking orders from former President Barack Obama to write an op-ed calling on then-President Joe Biden to exit the 2024 race.
"That never happened. Now, it’s an interesting thing. You know, here‘s a funny thing about this. You‘re writing a book, you know, and all I have to do is tell the truth. I have emails. I was ticked off when it was Mika Brzezinski — who I like, perfectly nice woman — but she said that, you know, that President Obama was behind me writing the op-ed, and that’s not true at all. It has no basis in fact. And I wrote Mike Barnicle and I just said, what is that about?" he told CNN's Jake Tapper.
Clooney wrote a guest essay for The New York Times in early July calling on Biden to drop out of the race. After the opinion piece came out, Brzezinski accused Obama of influencing Clooney to write the essay during "Morning Joe."
Author Chris Whipple wrote in his new book, "Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History," that the "Morning Joe" segment led to Clooney reportedly calling a producer and shouting, "How the f--- could you let her link me with Barack Obama saying he made me write the op-ed?"
Actor George Clooney joined CNN's Jake Tapper for an interview, and denied yelling at a "Morning Joe" producer after Mika Brzezinski suggested Obama influenced him to write the NYT op-ed calling on Biden to drop out. (Screenshot/CNN)
Clooney said Barnicle, who appears on "Morning Joe" often, said he had no idea.
"And I said, the one thing you know about me is that I don’t take my marching orders from anybody. And that’s the only person I know over there. And I wrote him. We have a four-email exchange," Clooney added.
"And then this guy [Whipple] says, I called up a producer, who, I don‘t know how to call a producer there. I don‘t know any producer there. And I yelled at them, which isn't true. And here‘s the problem with that, what that does is it calls into question any other facts in this book," Clooney told Tapper.
George Clooney attends a press event announcing the complete Broadway cast of "Good Night, and Good Luck" at The Wintergarden Theatre in New York City on Feb. 6. (Bruce Glikas/WireImage)
Tapper also asked Clooney if he thought the Democratic Party should have had some kind of primary after Biden dropped out.
"Yeah, if you think about it, and she may have ended up winning that contest," he said, referring to former Vice President Kamala Harris. "And here’s the problem that we were facing with that. Whether or not you agree that that administration was successful or not, that’s a different thing. But the perception was, and how they were running was, that it was a failed administration. I could argue that it’s not, but that’s a different argument."
Clooney continued, "You can’t run against yourself, right? And that’s why that was a difficult campaign. It‘s hard to run against yourself and say, well, yeah, I disagree with all this stuff."
He said it was impossible for Harris because she would have had to "run down" Biden.
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Clooney also said it was his "civic duty" to call for Biden to drop out during the interview with Tapper.
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"I’m a Democrat in Kentucky, so I get it. When I saw people on my side of the street not telling the truth, I thought that was time," he said.
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