Joe Biden Failed To Recognise George Clooney At 2024 Fundraiser, New Book Claims

Former US President Joe Biden did not recognise actor George Clooney at a fundraiser in the last month of his 2024 presidential campaign, according to an excerpt of a forthcoming book. An excerpt from the book, titled 'Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again,' revealed that when Clooney greeted Biden backstage before the fundraiser, the president appeared "severely diminished, as if he'd aged a decade since the actor last saw him in December 2022". "He was taking tiny steps and had an aide guiding him by his arm," the authors wrote in an excerpt of the book, as per CNN. 

The fundraiser took place in June 2024, right after Biden arrived from a three-day trip to Italy for the G7 conference. As he entered the fundraiser, he greeted various guests. However, an aide seemed to have to remind him who George Clooney was when he began speaking with him. "You know George," the assisting aide told the President, as per the excerpt from the book published in the New Yorker on Tuesday. 

"Yeah, yeah," Biden said to one of the most recognisable men in the world. "Thank you for being here."

"It seemed clear that the President had not recognised Clooney," the authors of the book wrote, per CNN. "It wasn't a straight line of decline; he had good days and bad. But until the last day of his presidency, Biden and those in his innermost circle refused to admit the reality that his energy, cognitive skills, and communication capacity had faltered significantly. Even worse, through various means, they tried to hide it," they said. 

Clooney was "shaken to his core" by the interaction with Biden, a man he had known for years, the authors said. "It was not okay," recalled another Hollywood VIP who witnessed the interaction. "That thing, the moment where you recognise someone you know - especially a famous person who's doing a f**king fundraiser for you - it was delayed. It was uncomfortable," the excerpt read.  

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The authors of the book said that Clooney was not the only guest in attendance that evening who was concerned. "Other high-dollar attendees who posed for photographs with Obama and Biden described Biden as slow and almost catatonic. Though they saw pockets of clarity while watching him on television and onstage later that night, there were obvious brain freezes and clear signs of a mental slide. It was, to some of them, terrifying," the authors said. 

The incident is one of the details included in the book from CNN's Jake Tapper and Axios' Alex Thompson. According to The Hill, it also mentions Biden aides considering whether the president needed a wheelchair if he were reelected and attempting to shield him from staff members to not reveal his frailties. 

The book will be released on May 20. It is based on more than 200 interviews, mostly with Democratic insiders, almost all of which occurred after the 2024 election.