Actress Ashley Judd has also joined calls for President Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race following his performance in the US debate last month, saying she fears he could lose to Republican Donald Trump in November.
In an op-ed for USA Today published Friday, Judd called on Biden to “resign voluntarily and gracefully” so his party could support a “talented, robust Democrat” for the presidency. She described Biden during the debate as “unable to confront Trump while he spews a torrent of vitriolic lies unchecked.”
Judd, who openly supports Biden and other Democrats across the country, pointed to the political activism that has accompanied her decades-long Hollywood career. Her allegations against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein helped spark the #MeToo movement.
Judd warned that she feared Trump would “exercise the power of the presidency with unprecedented, incalculable cruelty and injustice” if voters re-elect him to the White House. She said time is running out for Democrats to replace Biden with a candidate who can defeat him.
“We will not tolerate another day of distraction or division among us,” she said.
Judd did not comment on a possible successor to Biden at the helm of the candidacy, and a lawmaker did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on who she might suggest.
Her call comes at a time when Democrats are considering whether to continue Biden as their party’s nominee after concerns about his age and ability to win the general election against Trump.
Earlier this week, movie star and longtime Democrat George Clooney said in a New York Times op-ed that he loves Biden but that the party would lose the presidential election and all congressional races with him as its candidate. He spoke of a weaker Biden, as he described it during a fundraiser in Los Angeles last month.
Judd was at the White House in April to help the Biden administration promote its new national suicide prevention strategy. In 2022, she lost her mother, singer Naomi Judd, to suicide. The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Ashley Judd’s article.
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Kinnard reported from Chapin, South Carolina and can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP.
Meg Kinnard, Associated Press
