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George Clooney responds to Donald Trump telling him to 'get out' of politics: 'I will if he does'

B.Martinez20 min ago
George Clooney is wading back into politics to resume his feud with Donald Trump .

Earlier this summer, the Oscar-winning actor and producer penned a New York Times op-ed titled, "I Love Joe Biden, but We Need a New Nominee," joining the chorus of Hollywood voices calling for President Joe Biden to end his re-election bid . Trump didn't take kindly to Clooney's involvement and penned a social media response dubbing him a "fake movie actor" and urging him to "get out of politics and go back to television."

"I will if he does," the Oceans 11 star said during Tuesday's Jimmy Kimmel Live . "That's a trade-off I'd do."

Trump's outrage aside, Clooney went on to shrug off the idea that he significantly impacted Biden's decision to step down and instead redirected the praise to the current president.

"The bottom line is that it's very hard to let go of power and President Biden did something really extraordinary," Clooney told host Jimmy Kimmel . "And honestly, I do think that's what should be focused on."

Kimmel then asked Clooney if the thought of Trump winning the presidency gave him any pause about speaking out: "Have you thought about, if Donald Trump wins, have you thought about the possibility he might use the power of the federal government against you personally?"

"Yeah, I have. But I'm confident in the fact that he's coming after you first," Clooney said with a laugh, alluding to Kimmel's consistently critical coverage of the former president. "You know that theory about you don't have to be faster than the bear, you just have to be faster than the one kid? You're that one kid, pal."

Kimmel then proposed another idea, joking, "Have you thought about writing an op-ed in the Times asking him to step down? Because it worked once, why not try it again?"

"Yeah," Clooney laughed. "He's a big fan of mine."

Prior to Biden's July 21 announcement that he would be dropping out of the race and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris , Clooney was one of many to express concern about his ability to lead the Democratic Party to victory.

"The Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ' big f-ing deal ' Biden of 2010," Clooney wrote in his July 10 op-ed . "He wasn't even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate."

In the wake of Biden's much maligned performance at the June 27 debate against Trump, Clooney also pointed to the president's 81 years of age, adding, "As Democrats, we collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president, who we respect, walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question."

The actor also alleged that he had spoken privately to numerous Democratic senators and members of congress who shared the sentiment that "we are not going to win in November with this president."

Clooney previously addressed the role that his op-ed may have played in Biden's decision while attending a Venice Film Festival press screening of his upcoming movie Wolfs . The actor argued that in the end, only the president's decision to step aside would go down in history. "All the rest of it will be long gone and forgotten," he said. "And so I'm just very proud of where we are in the state of the world right now, which I think many people are surprised by, and I think we're all very excited by the future."

You can see Clooney delve into the subject in the Jimmy Kimmel Live clip above.

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