George Clooney and President Donald Trump have an entangled past.
“I knew him very well,” Clooney recalled to Variety in December 2025. “He used to call me a lot, and he tried to help me get into a hospital once to see a back surgeon.”
According to Clooney, Trump was always “a big goofball” until entering politics in 2016. The former Celebrity Apprentice host was elected president non-consecutively in 2016 and 2024.
Keep scrolling for a full breakdown of Clooney and Trump’s history, friendship and more:
Forming a Friendship
While speaking with Variety in 2025, Clooney detailed the nature of his bond with Trump.
“I’d see him out at clubs and at restaurants. He’s a big goofball,” the actor said. “Well, he was. That all changed.”
Trump ran for president as a Republican, while Clooney has publicly shared his liberal beliefs.
“It’s a very trying time,” Clooney told the outlet. “It can depress you or make you very angry. But you have to find the most positive way through it. You have to put your head down and keep moving forward because quitting isn’t an option.”
All About Politics
Clooney and Trump’s political ideologies changed the course of their relationship, with the actor even publishing a 2024 op-ed in The New York Times ahead of the general election. Instead of condemning Trump, Clooney spent the entire essay calling for then-President Joe Biden not to seek reelection. (Biden eventually did drop out, endorsing former Vice President Kamala Harris before she lost to Trump.)
“I don’t know if it was brave. It was a civic duty,” Clooney later told CNN in June 2025 of publishing the article. “I found that people on my side of the street — I’m a Democrat … in Kentucky, so I get it — when I saw people on my side of the street not telling the truth, I thought that was time.”
He added, “The idea of freedom of speech, the specific idea of it is, you can’t demand freedom of speech and then say, ‘But don’t say bad things about me.’ That’s the deal. You have to take a stand. If you believe in it, take a stand, stand for it and deal with the consequences. That’s the rules.”
Leaving the States
Shortly after speaking with Variety in 2025, news broke that George and wife Amal Clooney were granted French citizenship alongside their two children. Trump, meanwhile, addressed the move days after George’s interview was published.
“Good News! George and Amal Clooney, two of the worst political prognosticators of all time, have officially become citizens of France,” Trump wrote via his Truth Social platform in December 2025. “[The country] is, sadly, in the midst of a major crime problem because of their absolutely horrendous handling of immigration, much like we had under Sleepy Joe Biden.”
Trump, also taking aim at Clooney’s 2024 essay, further claimed that George “got more publicity for politics than he did for his very few, and totally mediocre movies.”
“He wasn’t a movie star at all,” Trump claimed. “He was just an average guy who complained, constantly, about common sense in politics.”
George Clooney Responds to the Drama
George clapped back after Trump’s social media comments.
“I totally agree with the current president,” he said in a January 2026 statement, per Variety. “We have to make America great again. We’ll start in November.”
Trump, who popularized the “Make America Great Again” movement amid his presidential campaigns, will not be able to seek a third term per the U.S. constitution.
George Clooney Fires Back at Donald Trump’s Jabs at His Acting
While speaking to a group of Italian high school students in April 2026, George Clooney accused Donald Trump of committing a war crime by threatening that “a whole civilization [would] die” in Iran unless there was a resolution in the opening of the Strait of Hormuz. (The United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire and the temporary reopening of the strait on April 7, 2026.)
Following Clooney’s remarks, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung took a jab at the actor and his career.
“The only person committing war crimes is George Clooney for his awful movies and terrible acting ability,” Cheung said in a statement to The Independent.
Clooney subsequently fired back in a statement to Luxury Handbag Shopping, “Families are losing their loved ones. Children have been incinerated. The world’s economy is on a knife’s edge. This is a time for vigorous debate at the highest levels. Not for infantile name-calling.”
