As comedians were joking about Donald Trump at the Kennedy Center’s Mark Twain Prize on Sunday night, the president was fixated on a 60 Minutes segment about George Clooney.
The actor is starring on Broadway as Edward R. Murrow in an adaption of Good Night, and Good Luck.
Trump wrote on Truth Social, “Why would the now highly discredited 60 Minutes be doing a total ‘puff piece’ on George Clooney, a second rate movie ‘star,’ and failed political pundit. He fought hard for Sleepy Joe’s election and then, right after the Debate, dumped him like a dog. Later, I assume under orders from the Obama camp, pushed all out for ‘Kamala,’ only to soon realize that that was not going to work out to well.”
In the 60 Minutes segment, Clooney didn’t name Trump, but referred to the president’s attacks on the media. That included Trump’s $20 billion defamation lawsuit against CBS over a 60 Minutes segment last year featuring an interview with Kamala Harris. CBS is seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed but, as the show noted in its Clooney interview, the network’s parent Paramount Global is seeking FCC approval for its acquisition by Skydance. Trump’s team and Paramount Global have had settlement discussions, something that has raised consternation at 60 Minutes and the news division given that the president’s lawsuit is, in the eyes of many legal experts, frivolous.
Clooney said, “We’re seeing this idea of using government to scare or fine or use corporations — to make– journalists smaller. Governments don’t like– the freedom of the press. They never have. And– that goes for whether you are a conservative or a liberal or whatever side you’re on. They don’t like the press.”
Clooney also defended his decision to write a New York Times op ed in July that urged President Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race. Clooney cited not just the disastrous June debate between Biden and Trump, but his appearance with Biden at a fundraiser earlier in the month.
Clooney said, “I was raised to tell the truth. I had seen– the president up close for this fundraiser, and I was surprised. And so I feel as if there was– a lot of profiles in cowardice in my party through all of that. And I was not proud of that. And I also believed I had to tell the truth.”
In his Truth Social post, Trump complained that Clooney’s press agent “should be making a fortune.” Clooney’s rep declined comment on behalf of the actor.
Amid Trump’s attacks on 60 Minutes, the show has been running a series of hard-hitting pieces on the early weeks of Trump’s presidency. And last week, it ran a segment on a group of students who lost a chance to play with the U.S. Marine Band because of Trump’s executive order banning diversity, equity and inclusion policies and programs across the federal government.
