WASHINGTON: In interviews published one year after Joe Biden abandoned his re-election bid, his son Hunter lashed out at actor George Clooney for leading the public charge on calling for the elderly president to bow out.
“Fuck him. And everybody around him,” Biden’s younger son said in a profanity-laced interview with independent journalist Andrew Callaghan, who has 3 million followers on YouTube.
“Really, do you think in middle America, that voter in Green Bay, Wisconsin, gives a shit what George Clooney thinks about who she should vote for?” Biden also said in a podcast with Jaime Harrison, former chair of the Democratic National Committee.
Clooney was one of the first high-profile Democrats to publicly call on Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, just three months before the election.
Biden, then 81 years old, was at the time facing growing doubts in his own camp about his health and mental acuity, after a disastrous debate with Donald Trump at the end of the June.
“I Love Joe Biden. But We Need a New Nominee,” read the headline for Clooney’s essay, published in the New York Times on July 10, 2024. The Oscar-winning actor and producer recounted having seen the president at a Hollywood fundraiser the month prior, describing him as no longer the politician he was in 2010 or 2020.
“I consider him a friend, and I believe in him...In the last four years, he’s won many of the battles he’s faced,” Clooney wrote.
“But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time.”
Less than two weeks later, on July 21, the president announced he was quitting the race.
In the interviews released on Monday, Hunter Biden angrily remembered the events leading to the end of his father’s decades-long political career.
“Why do I have to f***ing listen to you? What right do you have to step on a man who’s given 52 years of his f***ing life to the service of this country and decide that you, George Clooney, are going to take out basically a full page ad in the f***ing New York Times?” he said in the Callaghan interview.
Plagued for years with legal troubles and drug addiction, Hunter Biden became a favorite target of Republicans, who viewed him as the president’s Achilles Heel.
Hunter received an unconditional pardon from his father in December 2024, after Trump defeated the Democratic replacement candidate, vice president Kamala Harris.
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Hunter Biden slams Clooney on anniversary of father’s campaign exit
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Hunter Biden slams Clooney on anniversary of father’s campaign exit
Peru Congress to debate impeachment of interim president
LIMA: Peru’s Congress is set to consider Tuesday whether to impeach interim president Jose Jeri, the country’s seventh head of state in 10 years, accused of the irregular hiring of several women in his government.
A motion to oust Jeri, 39, received the backing of dozens of lawmakers on claims of influence peddling, the latest of a series of impeachment bids against him.
The session, set for 10:00 am local time (1500 GMT), is expected to last several hours.
Jeri, in office since October, took over from unpopular leader Dina Boluarte who was ousted by lawmakers amid protests against corruption and a wave of violence linked to organized crime.
Prosecutors said Friday they were opening an investigation into “whether the head of state exercised undue influence” in the government appointments of nine women on his watch.
On Sunday, Jeri told Peruvian TV: “I have not committed any crime.”
Jeri, a onetime leader of Congress himself, was appointed to serve out the remainder of Boluarte’s term, which runs until July, when a new president will take over following elections on April 12.
He is constitutionally barred from seeking election in April.
The alleged improper appointments were revealed by investigative TV program Cuarto Poder, which said five women were given jobs in the president’s office and the environment ministry after visiting with Jeri.
Prosecutors spoke of a total of nine women.
Jeri is also under investigation for alleged “illegal sponsorship of interests” following a secret meeting with a Chinese businessman with commercial ties with the government.
- Institutional crisis -
The speed with which the censure process is being handled has been attributed by some political observers as linked to the upcoming presidential election, which has over 30 candidates tossing their hat into the ring, a record.
The candidate from the right-wing Popular Renewal party, Rafael Lopez Aliaga, who currently leads in polls, has been among the most vocal for Jeri’s ouster.
If successfully impeached, Jeri would cease to exercise his functions and be replaced by the head of parliament as interim president.
But first a new parliamentary president would have to be elected, as the incumbent is acting in an interim capacity.
“It will be difficult to find a replacement with political legitimacy in the current Congress, with evidence of mediocrity and strong suspicion of widespread corruption,” political analyst Augusto Alvarez told AFP.
Peru is experiencing a prolonged political crisis, which has seen it burn through six presidents since 2016, several of them impeached or under investigation for wrongdoing.
It is also gripped by a wave of extortion that has claimed dozens of lives, particularly of bus drivers — some shot at the wheel if their companies refuse to pay protection money.
In two years, the number of extortion cases reported in Peru jumped more than tenfold — from 2,396 to over 25,000 in 2025.
A motion to oust Jeri, 39, received the backing of dozens of lawmakers on claims of influence peddling, the latest of a series of impeachment bids against him.
The session, set for 10:00 am local time (1500 GMT), is expected to last several hours.
Jeri, in office since October, took over from unpopular leader Dina Boluarte who was ousted by lawmakers amid protests against corruption and a wave of violence linked to organized crime.
Prosecutors said Friday they were opening an investigation into “whether the head of state exercised undue influence” in the government appointments of nine women on his watch.
On Sunday, Jeri told Peruvian TV: “I have not committed any crime.”
Jeri, a onetime leader of Congress himself, was appointed to serve out the remainder of Boluarte’s term, which runs until July, when a new president will take over following elections on April 12.
He is constitutionally barred from seeking election in April.
The alleged improper appointments were revealed by investigative TV program Cuarto Poder, which said five women were given jobs in the president’s office and the environment ministry after visiting with Jeri.
Prosecutors spoke of a total of nine women.
Jeri is also under investigation for alleged “illegal sponsorship of interests” following a secret meeting with a Chinese businessman with commercial ties with the government.
- Institutional crisis -
The speed with which the censure process is being handled has been attributed by some political observers as linked to the upcoming presidential election, which has over 30 candidates tossing their hat into the ring, a record.
The candidate from the right-wing Popular Renewal party, Rafael Lopez Aliaga, who currently leads in polls, has been among the most vocal for Jeri’s ouster.
If successfully impeached, Jeri would cease to exercise his functions and be replaced by the head of parliament as interim president.
But first a new parliamentary president would have to be elected, as the incumbent is acting in an interim capacity.
“It will be difficult to find a replacement with political legitimacy in the current Congress, with evidence of mediocrity and strong suspicion of widespread corruption,” political analyst Augusto Alvarez told AFP.
Peru is experiencing a prolonged political crisis, which has seen it burn through six presidents since 2016, several of them impeached or under investigation for wrongdoing.
It is also gripped by a wave of extortion that has claimed dozens of lives, particularly of bus drivers — some shot at the wheel if their companies refuse to pay protection money.
In two years, the number of extortion cases reported in Peru jumped more than tenfold — from 2,396 to over 25,000 in 2025.
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