George Clooney in an interview with The New York Times referred to President Trump as a “charismatic carnival barker” and scorned GOP leaders for thinking their loyalty to Trump will benefit their careers after he leaves office.
Times reporter Kyle Buchanan spoke to Clooney about his movie “The Midnight Sky,” his first in nearly five years, and asked for his thoughts on Biden’s upcoming presidency.
Buchanan noted that Biden has said he will be able to reach across the aisle once Trump is gone and asked Clooney if he thought that was true.
“No, not about that. The world is different now. I mean, Ted Cruz, think about what a yutz this guy is! If a guy said that my wife was ugly and my father killed Kennedy, there is no way in the world you could have me come out and say, ‘I’ll defend you,’ ” said Clooney.
Cruz, the Texas Republican senator, feuded with Trump during the 2016 GOP presidential primary, when the president at one point insulted Cruz’s wife and at another point suggested Cruz’s father had been involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
“Every single one of these guys have aspirations for bigger things — Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Mike Pence, all of them,” said Clooney. “They think people will travel with them because, ‘I’ve stuck with you, Don,’ but the truth is, they won’t. They stay with Donald because Donald, for all of his immense problems as a human being, is a charismatic carnival barker.”
Buchanan observed that in Clooney’s new film, there is a scene where Clooney’s character tells a little girl, “Never take it off, no matter what,” making note that mask-wearing has gained very different connotations since Clooney made the movie.
“The idea that we politicize things like this is crazy,” said Clooney. “Had Trump come out at the very beginning and said, ‘We’re all going to wear masks because it’s the right thing to do and it’s going to save a lot of lives,’ the whole country would have gotten behind him and he would have been re-elected. But he thought it would affect his economy, so he chose to say it didn’t exist. And now we’re going to have 350,000 people dead.”
In an interview last week with Howard Stern, Clooney spoke to those who refuse to wear a mask to abide by public health guidelines saying, “Just put a f—ing mask on.”
“This thought where everybody is like, ‘Well it’s my freedom.’ It’s like, that’s not how this shit works, dumbass,” Clooney said to Stern.
Toward the end of the interview, Buchanan asked if Clooney would similarly make a career change like Trump has, going from being a celebrity to stepping into politics.
Clooney, who has donated to Democratic politicians and been active in causes for years, replied, “That’d be fun, wouldn’t it? Gee, what a great way to spend the last third of my life, trying to make deals with people that have no intention of making deals.”