Ana Navarro has slammed Hollywood actor George Clooney for publicly calling on Joe Biden to resign in his scathing op-ed for the New York Times, saying the president has been “relentlessly dragged down” for the past three weeks.
During Monday’s episode of The View, the panel, led by moderator Whoopi Goldberg, weighed in on Biden’s surprising decision to remove himself from the 2024 presidential race, and Navarro, 52, didn’t hold back when sharing her thoughts.
The Republican political strategist admitted: ‘I felt sad. You know, as I’ve said here many times, I love Joe Biden and I’m filled with gratitude towards Joe Biden today. So, Joe Biden, thank you for everything, for 54-plus years of career… So I felt sad in the same way that when you see a champion athlete retire, leave it all on the field and walk off into the sunset, that made me sad, it made me nostalgic.
“I was also upset that some people who were supposedly his friends had been dragging him relentlessly for three weeks. I hope that many of those donors who came out and said all kinds of things about him come back now with a big check!”
Pointing his finger directly at the Ocean’s Eleven actor, he then said: ‘George Clooney, with you!’ as the live studio audience laughed at his direct comment.
Ana Navarro criticizes George Clooney for publicly calling for President Joe Biden to resign
The View’s Ana claimed that Biden, 81, has been “dragged relentlessly” for the past three weeks.
Navarro went on to praise the president, saying, “I’m grateful to his staff, I’m grateful to Jill Biden, they’ve taken a lot of criticism over the last three weeks, a lot of attacks. They’ve been part of a very stable and steady administration.”
“I will always be grateful. They got us out of the hell that was COVID and they got us out of the hell that was Trump, so I will be grateful until the end of my days,” she added.
Earlier this month, Clooney turned on Biden, demanding he drop out of the 2024 race following their disastrous debate and widespread concerns about whether he can serve four more years.
The Hollywood megastar, who has hosted fundraisers for the 81-year-old, said Biden failed to win the “battle against time” in his first-person piece and also condemned Democratic Party leaders for ignoring “every warning sign” of Biden’s physical and mental decline, and for trying to defend his disastrous performance against Donald Trump.
He added that Democratic voters “collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume every time we see the president, whom we respect, step off Air Force One or return to a microphone to answer an unscripted question.”
Clooney wrote in The New York Times: “I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As vice president and as president. I consider him a friend and I believe in him. I believe in his character. I believe in his morals. Over the last four years, he has won many of the battles he has faced.
“But the one battle he can’t win is the battle against time. None of us can. It’s devastating to say, but the Joe Biden I stood with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all saw at the debate,” she said.
Clooney added: “Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024.”
Sara Haines defended Clooney when Sunny Hostin (right) claimed people were “forcing” Biden out
Clooney is pictured at his $28 million fundraiser in June with Biden, Julia Roberts and former President Barack Obama.
The New York Times article appeared just three weeks after Clooney hosted a record-breaking $28 million fundraising event for the president on June 16.
The View panel has also been a big supporter of Biden, and during the debate on Monday’s show, Sunny Hostin admitted, “I wasn’t comfortable with the idea that people were forcing him to resign.”
She added: “I didn’t feel comfortable with the cannibalization that I saw in the Democratic Party, but I do feel comfortable that he made this decision with his inner circle, with Dr. Jill Biden, with his family, and he decided to do it on his own.”
However, Sara Haines also spoke out, saying, ‘I’m also grateful and thankful to Biden for his decades of service, but I take a bit of issue with Ana and Sunny’s take on the party imploding.
“There’s room for criticism when you’re talking about the most important job in the world, and I don’t think those people who are friends, even George Clooney’s op-ed was really moving and beautifully written, saying, ‘This is hard to say out loud.’ A lot of those people were torn.”
(tags to translate)dailymail