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July 10 (UPI) -- Rep. Pat Ryan, D-N.Y., and actor George Clooney on Wednesday joined a growing number of Democrats and Democratic Party supporters urging President Joe Biden to end his re-election campaign. Several of Biden's campaign advisers also have scheduled a Thursday meeting with Senate Democrats to discuss his presidential campaign and chances of winning re-election.
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Ryan is the eighth Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives to urge Biden to withdraw his candidacy.
He said he wants Biden to step down and make way for a "new generation of leaders," especially one who might be better able to defeat former President Donald Trump.
Trump is the presumptive GOP nominee and is expected to secure the Republican nomination during the GOP's national convention in Milwaukee that runs from Monday through Thursday.
"Trump is an existential threat to American democracy," Ryan said. "It is our duty to put forth the strongest candidate against him."
He said Biden no longer is that candidate.
Actor George Clooney in an op-ed published Wednesday in the New York Times said he is a "lifelong Democrat" and "proud of what my party represents and what it stands for."
Clooney said the Democratic Party can't win another term in the Oval Office with Biden as a candidate and joined a growing chorus of voices urging him to resign.
Despite his expressed love and support for Biden, Clooney urged the president to withdraw his candidacy for a second term in office just weeks after helping raise tens of millions of dollars for his re-election campaign.
Clooney said in June that he, actress Julia Roberts and former President Barack Obama "co-hosted the single largest fundraiser supporting any Democratic candidate ever for President Biden's re-election."
That event raised about $30 million for Biden's re-election campaign, but Clooney now wants a different presidential candidate on the Democratic Party ticket.
"I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president," Clooney said. "I consider him a friend."
Clooney said he believes in Biden's character and morals and said Biden has "won many of the battles he's faced" over the past four years.
"The one battle he cannot win is the fight against time," Clooney said.
Clooney said the Biden the nation witnessed during the June 27 presidential debate with Trump wasn't the same Biden he knew in 2010, 2020 or during the fundraiser that he co-hosted three weeks ago.
"We're all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we've opted to ignore every warning sign," Clooney said.
"Our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51million people didn't see what we just saw," Clooney said of Biden's performance during the June debate. "The George Stephanopoulos interview only reinforced what we saw the week before."
He said Democrats "collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president ... walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question."
He said the problem is Biden's age and its effect on his mental acuity, which can't be reversed.
"We are not going to win in November with this president," Clooney said. "On top of that, we won't win the House, and we're going to lose the Senate."
He said every senator, representative and governor with whom he's spoken in private agrees Biden's candidacy will lose the presidency, House and Senate to the Republican Party during the Nov. 5 election.
Clooney wants Biden to withdraw his candidacy and allow the Democratic Party to nominate a different candidate during its national convention in Chicago that starts on Aug. 19.
Biden, though, said he won't withdraw, especially after dominating the recent Democratic Party state primaries and securing 3,896 delegates when only 1,968 are needed to secure the party's nomination.
Biden said the people have spoken and want him to run for re-election.
He called his debate performance one bad night among 3.5 years of political success as a president and a lifetime as a Democratic lawmaker.
Despite his apparent intent to stay in the race, the traditional Democratic Party stronghold of New York has become a swing state that Trump might win.
During the past four months, Biden's polling lead in New York has slipped from eight points to a virtual tie, Politico reported Wednesday.
The poll movement comes despite Trump's recent conviction in a Manhattan court on 34 felony counts related to a non-disclosure agreement with and payment to former porn actress Stormy Daniels in 2016.
Biden hasn't campaigned in New York and apparently is counting on the state's voters to give him New York's 28 electoral votes.
"We're still acting like this is a one-party state, which for pretty much 20, 25 years it has been," Mark Levine, the Democratic Manhattan Borough president, told Politico.
"I truly believe we're a battleground state now," Levine said.
