George Clooney floated his preferred Democratic bench for 2028, took his own name off the table and drew a two-word dismissal from the White House after turning his Venice Film Festival appearances into a string of political broadsides.
The 65-year-old “Good Night, and Good Luck” star weighed in Friday at The Future of Creativity in Venice, Italy, where Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia landed at the top of his list.
“I think we’re all very excited by this young senator from Georgia, Jon Ossoff,” Clooney said.
Clooney also named Illinois Gov. Jay Pritzker and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear as Democrats he admires, but said he would wait until after November’s midterms before throwing support behind any one politician.
George Clooney says “stories are always dangerous to people who peddle in fear” in a moving speech at the #VeniceFilmFestival:
"So yes, movies don’t stop wars, they don’t lower inflation, they don’t fix elections. But they do do something remarkable. They remind us that a… pic.twitter.com/rdeWsHx3XO
— Variety (@Variety) September 2, 2026
The longtime Democratic donor and fundraiser said his own age should keep him out of the race — and should push the party toward younger faces.
“I am 65 years old, and I think that we need some young voices that are coming up with new ideas and some new thoughts,” Clooney said.
He said he would “absolutely not” run.
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“I would be more than excited to support anyone but not people who are my age or older,” he said. “I think we need to get some younger people in.”
Clooney also reminded the Venice audience that his Democratic fundraising work stretches back decades.
“I’ve done it [fundraise] since 1988. I’ve been supporting and working. I was the biggest Democratic fundraiser ever,” he said.
That clout became hard to miss during the 2024 campaign, when Clooney’s op-ed about President Joe Biden helped make it easier for other celebrities to urge the then-president to exit the race.
Clooney wrote then that Biden’s appearance at a fundraiser weeks earlier did not match the politician he remembered from 2010 or 2020.
“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe ‘big f***ing deal’ Biden of 2010,” Clooney wrote. “He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”
Biden ended his re-election campaign 11 days after Clooney’s op-ed.
The White House kept its response shorter after Clooney’s latest criticism of the current administration.
Asked about the actor’s remarks, a White House spokesperson answered, “Nobody cares.”
Spencer Pratt, the former reality star and Los Angeles mayoral candidate, dragged the Clooneys’ Venice glamour into the fight.
Pratt’s X post followed a Page Six report on Amal Clooney’s festival outfit, which included a custom Haider Ackermann for Tom Ford look, $149,000 Cartier earrings and a Cartier diamond bracelet listed at $225,000.
“$500M net worth George Clooney could’ve permanently housed 8 homeless people for the rest of their lives with the money he spent on a single-use dress for his wife at a 4 hour event,” Pratt wrote.
“I will never tolerate a woke scold lecture from these people. Just be an ostentatious celebrity and own it.”
$500M net worth George Clooney could’ve permanently housed 8 homeless people for the rest of their lives with the money he spent on a single-use dress for his wife at a 4 hour event.
I will never tolerate a woke scold lecture from these people. Just be an ostentatious celebrity… https://t.co/X1TO4lL9r9— Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) September 4, 2026
Clooney’s Venice stretch had already moved between red-carpet honors and political warnings.
People reported that Clooney accepted the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement award at the festival’s opening night ceremony, then used the stage to talk about fear, power and storytelling.
“We’re living through a moment in time where people in charge, the people with the most money, are telling us to fear one another,” he said.
“But we know better than that, don’t we? Because history does teach us a lesson. It teaches us something.”
Clooney said authoritarians first go after people outside elected office.
“They’re journalists who ask questions. They’re the artists who refuse simple answers; the filmmakers, writers, actors and musicians who insist that someone you never met is deserving of your empathy.”
He said people afraid of books, music and stories “are never the heroes in history.”
“So, yes, movies don’t stop wars, they don’t lower inflation, they don’t fix elections, but they do something remarkable,” Clooney said. “They remind us that a stranger is never a stranger, and that he might just be the hero in somebody else’s story.”
Deadline reported that Clooney also talked U.S. politics with reporters before the ceremony.
“I’m always very optimistic about things,” he said. “We’re at a moment in time that’s unfortunate. … That’s an understatement.”
Clooney reached back to 1968, mentioning violence, burning cities, tanks around the capital and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.
“I’m old enough to have been through 1968 in the States, when every city in the United States was set on fire, and we lost Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy in the same year,” Clooney said.
“We’ve had some other difficult times, but this is one of them.”
The actor brought up “kakistocracy,” which he defined as a country run by “the least qualified people.”
“I think maybe we have a kakistocracy right now, but we’ll get through it,” Clooney said. “We will have an election in November that should be a check and balance. And then in 2028, we will have a restoration of some normalcy.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also entered Clooney’s Venice remarks after posting an X screenshot from a Canadian Cadet Program Instagram post featuring award recipients in the military youth program.
Hegseth captioned the image “(this is real)” with a Canadian flag emoji while trade tensions between the U.S. and Canada were underway.
“You see what the secretary of Defense just tweeted out a picture about women from the military in Canada, and you’re going, ‘What’s wrong with you?’” Clooney told reporters Wednesday.
“Where’s the sense of decency in all of this?”
Clooney said he was “ashamed of all that” and called out “the idea that cruelty is the base.”
“But we will get through it, and we will come out better on the other side,” Clooney said.