Katherine Firkin: US Correspondent on George Clooney's essay urging Joe Biden to drop from the race

Actor and Democratic donor George Clooney has urged Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race.  

All eyes have been on Biden at the NATO summit in Washington DC.  

Nancy Pelosi says time is running short for him to make a decision.  

US correspondent Katherine Firkin told Ryan Bridge Clooney has written an essay in the New York Times saying they need a new nominee.  

He says the Joe Biden he was with three weeks ago wasn't the Biden of 2010. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Right now, we're going to Catherine Ferkin, a US correspondent,
because the first Democratic senator has questioned President Joe Biden's
election chances. It comes as Nancy Pelosi has weighed into
this in an awkward way too for Joe Biden. Catherine,
Good morning. What's the latest?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, good morning, Ryan. Well, it just really keeps getting
worse for Joe Biden, doesn't it. I mean, now we're
basically a fortnight out from that disastrous debate between the
President and Donald Trump, and just nothing that he does
seems to be helping him in terms of improving his
standing amongst the American public. You know, since the debate,
we saw him, we've seen him out on the campaign trail,

(00:41):
We've seen him call up radio stations and TV stations,
We've seen him do a whole sit down TV interview
about what went wrong. And none of this is resonating
with voters. None of it is changing people's minds. Now,
as you mentioned today, we've heard from the first Democratic
senator who's spoken out with really the most damning comments yet.

(01:03):
Colorado's Michael Bennett says he fears his party could lose
in a landslide to Donald Trump. If Joe Biden stays
on the ticket. The language he used was really, really strong.
He says he believes Donald Trump is on track to
win November's election, and he's worried that he will take
both the Senate and the House if the Democrats don't
make a drastic change. Interestingly, he didn't actually call for

(01:25):
Biden to step down, but rather he said the party
itself now has a moral obligation to do everything it
can to stop Trump from returning to the White House.
You mentioned Nancy Pelosi there in the intro. She's also
given some really quite awkward comments about the fact that
time is running out for Biden to make a decision.

(01:46):
We have also heard from actor and Democratic donor George
Clooney today. He published a guest sam The New York
Times basically saying we need a new nominee. Now. This
is particularly strong because Clooney is a longtime friend of
and he's outwardly passionate about the Democrats. That he says
that Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at

(02:06):
the fundraiser was not the Joe big effing deal Biden
of twenty ten. So unfortunately for Biden, I mean all
the signs appointing to exit stage left.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Ryan, Catherine, thank you very much for that. Are US
correspondent Katherine Ferkin with US Live from the United States
twelve away. For more from News Talk st B, listen
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