Biden didn't recognize George Clooney at June fundraiser ahead of debate: Jake Tapper book

Then-President Biden didn't recognize actor George Clooney at a fundraiser in June, ahead of the presidential debate, according to CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson's new book.

Clooney, a longtime acquaintance of Biden and a major Democratic fundraiser, was surprised at Biden's "diminished" state during the event, per Tapper and Thompson's new book, “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again.”

"Biden hobbled out from around the corner. Clooney knew the president had just arrived from the G7 Leaders’ Summit in Apulia, Italy, that morning and might be tired, but hooooooooooly s---, he wasn’t expecting this," the book reads, according to NBC News, which obtained an advance copy on Tuesday.

"The president appeared severely diminished, as if he’d aged a decade since Clooney last saw him in December 2022. He was taking tiny steps and had an aide guiding him by his arm," according to the book.

Biden appeared to not recognize Clooney when he tried to make small talk with him and gave short answers. Then the aide told Biden, "George Clooney."

“Oh, yeah!” Biden said. “Hi, George!”

Former President Barack Obama was also at the fundraiser, and "didn’t know what to make of how his former running mate was acting," the book reads.

"At one point, in a small group of a few dozen top donors, Biden began speaking — barely audibly — and trailed off incoherently. Obama had to jump in and preside. At other moments during photos, Obama would hop in and finish sentences for him. The former president decided that the fault lay with Biden’s busy schedule."

Following Biden's presidential debate with President Trump a few weeks after the fundraiser, Clooney called for the Democratic presidential candidate to drop out of the race.

“It’s devastating to say it, but 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 an op-ed for The New York Times. “He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”

Regarding the book, a spokesperson for Biden said, “We have not reviewed the book, and the authors did not fact-check the book with us, despite it being a common practice to do so. So we are not going to respond to every bit of this book they choose to release via select leaks in the reporters’ efforts to make a profit.”

“We continue to await anything that shows where Joe Biden had to make a presidential decision or where national security was threatened or where he was unable to do his job. In fact, the evidence points to the opposite — he was a very effective president,” the spokesperson added.