George Clooney has added his voice to the chorus of people calling on Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race, saying on Wednesday that the president is not the same person he was in 2010 (or even 2020), cannot win in November, and must step aside now for the good of democracy.

In an op-ed published in The New York Times, Clooney writes that he is a “lifelong Democrat” who has organized some of the party’s biggest fundraisers of all time, adding that he “love[s]” Biden, considers him a friend, and believes in the president’s “character” and “morals.” Yet he thinks that Biden is simply too old to win, a conclusion he’s drawn based on both the debate performance watched by more than 51 million people in late June and his observations of Biden up close last month. “It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010,” the actor writes. “He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”

According to Clooney, if Biden stays in the race, Democrats will lose both the White House and the Senate, and fail to retake the House. “This is the opinion of every senator and Congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private,” the actor claims. “Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.”

While some insist that it is simply too late in the game to put a new candidate on the ballot—and think it would ensure a Donald Trump win—Clooney believes otherwise:

All of the scary stories that we’re being told about what would happen next are simply not true. In all likelihood, the money in the Biden-Harris coffers could go to help elect the presidential ticket and other Democrats…. Let’s hear from Wes Moore and Kamala Harris and Gretchen Whitmer* and Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear and J.B. Pritzker and others. Let’s agree that the candidates not attack one another but, in the short time we have, focus on what will make this country soar. Then we could go into the Democratic convention next month and figure it out.

Clooney concludes by writing: “Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024.” After his op-ed was published, filmmaker Rob Reiner wrote on X: “My friend George Clooney has clearly expressed what many of us have been saying. We love and respect Joe Biden. We acknowledge all he has done for our country. But Democracy is facing an existential threat. We need someone younger to fight back. Joe Biden must step aside."

Clooney is, of course, not the first person to call on Biden to drop out; since the debate, nearly a dozen elected Democrats, the New York Times editorial board, and a number of wealthy and connected donors have similarly said the president should be replaced. On Wednesday, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told MSNBC’s Morning Joe: “It’s up to the president to decide if he’s going to run. We’re all encouraging him to make that decision, because time is running short.” (On the flip side, Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have come out forcefully in their support of Biden, with the latter telling reporters this week: “The matter is closed…Joe Biden is our nominee. He is in this race and I support him.”)

It’s unclear whether Clooney’s op-ed will be enough to convince the president and those advising him. Speaking in Wisconsin last week, Biden declared, “I’m not letting one 90-minute debate wipe out three and a half years of work. I’m staying in the race, and I will beat Donald Trump.” He also told George Stephanopoulos that the only reason he would even consider stepping aside would be if God told him to do so. “If the Lord Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get out of the race,’ I’d get out of the race,” he said, adding, “The Lord Almighty’s not comin’ down. I mean, these hypotheticals, George.”

*Whitmer has said that even if Biden steps down, she will not run.