Donald Trump won’t be inviting George Clooney to the Kennedy Center anytime soon. After Clooney criticized the president while promoting his fresh Br
Donald Trump won’t be inviting George Clooney to the Kennedy Center anytime soon. After Clooney criticized the president while promoting his fresh Broadway play, Good Night, and Good Luck, Trump fired back, calling the actor a “second rate movie ‘star’” on Truth Social.
On Sunday, Clooney appeared on CBS’s 60 Minutes to promote Good Night, and Good Luck, the stage adaptation of his 2005 film of the same name. Clooney makes his Broadway debut in the play as veteran CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow, who made waves in the 1950s for taking on Senator Joseph McCarthy and the Red Scare. In the interview, Clooney drew parallels between Murrow’s battle with McCarthy and the government’s current battle with the free press, calling it “a fight that is for the ages.”
Clooney pointed to journalistic institutions such as The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, whose editorial staffs are currently embroiled in public disputes with the papers’ billionaire owners, Jeff Bezos and Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, respectively. “ABC has just settled a lawsuit with the Trump administration,” said Clooney, referencing Trump’s recently settled $16 million defamation suit against the network. “And CBS News is in the process. We’re seeing this idea of using government to scare or fine or use corporations to make journalists smaller…. When the other three estates fail, when the judiciary and the executive and the legislative branches fail us, the fourth estate has to succeed.”
“Governments don’t like the freedom of the press,” added Clooney. “They never have. And that goes for whether you are a conservative or a liberal or whatever side you’re on. They don’t like the press.”
Trump must have had his eyes glued to CBS yesterday evening, as he quickly hopped on Truth Social to bash Clooney. “Why would the now highly discredited 60 Minutes be doing a total ‘puff piece’ on George Clooney, a second rate movie ‘star,’ and failed political pundit,” he wrote. Trump went on to reference Clooney’s July 2024 op-ed imploring Joe Biden to step down ahead of the November election. “He fought hard for Sleepy Joe’s election and then, right after the Debate, dumped him like a dog,” Trump wrote. “Later, I assume under orders from the Obama camp, pushed all out for ‘Kamala,’ only to soon realize that that was not going to work out to [sic] well.”
Trump then aimed his ire at 60 Minutes: “60 Minutes even fraudulently inserted Fake answers into her disastrous interview, aired just before Election Day, in one of the most embarrassing and dishonest events in broadcast history…And now George Clooney again? His press agent should be making a fortune!!!”
This is not the first time Trump has criticized Clooney. After Clooney published his op-ed, Trump called him a “fake movie actor” who “never came close to making a great movie.” Clearly, Trump missed Michael Clayton, The Descendants, and Good Night, and Good Luck, but luckily he’ll have the chance to see the stage version of the latter if he happens to swing by New York City in the next few months while looking for programming for the Kennedy Center.
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