George Clooney on failed Hillary Clinton campaign: Speeches 'didn't soar'

George Clooney hasn’t been shy in attacking President Donald Trump or his former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, but in a new interview, the Suburbicon director is also criticizing Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton.

“Hillary, for years and years and years, has been the presumptive nominee, and quite honestly, she was incredibly qualified for the job,” Clooney told The Daily Beast. “But being qualified for the job does not necessarily mean you’re the right person to be president. Here’s what I mean. She was more qualified than even her husband was when he was elected president, but she’s not as good at communicating things. That’s simply true. When she got up and gave a speech, it didn’t soar. Now, that doesn’t mean that she wouldn’t have done a great job as president, and I supported her because by the time we did the fundraiser the primary was over at that point and it was time to get on with picking someone to move forward, and she was the right person to side with.”

Clooney added that he was frustrated by Clinton because “I never saw her elevate her game.”

“I never saw it,” he added. “And I had a lot of liberal friends who were like, ‘She’s not good at this.’ And I see that, and I understand it. I also think, though, that if it was a guy it wouldn’t have been so polarizing. I think the fact that she’s a woman made it a much harder uphill battle. They’ve had the ‘Arkansas Project’ where for 25 years the Clintons have been accused of murdering Vince Foster and accused of tons of stuff, so I thought it was a raw deal. I think that she wasn’t particularly good at articulating the things that she wanted to do, and unfortunately we live at a time right now where articulating what you want to do is more potent in the electorate than the other way around, obviously, when Trump only said he was going to ‘Make America Great Again.’ Don’t you think the next Democrat who runs should just run with a blue hat that says, ‘Make America Great Again?'”

But despite his thoughts on Clinton’s campaign performance, don’t expect Clooney himself to run for office anytime soon.

“The reality is there are many more people who are much better qualified than me,” he said when asked about a political future during the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month. “I think the reason people talk about is that our bench [in the Democratic party] doesn’t seem very good right now, it doesn’t seem very exciting. By this time eight years ago we had already heard Obama give a speech at the convention and there was something going on. But right now nobody really sees anybody out there, so that’s when the Rock or whoever comes into play. For me, I will support whomever I can by doing fundraisers or whatever and helping in ways I’m probably better at than in making policies… I say just try to find a candidate that excites you, and it shouldn’t be me.”