{"id":595061,"date":"2026-04-09T06:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T06:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/595061\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T06:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T06:24:08","slug":"george-clooney-calls-donald-trumps-a-whole-civilization-will-die-tonight-threat-to-iran-a-war-crime-george-clooney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/595061\/","title":{"rendered":"George Clooney calls Donald Trump\u2019s \u2018a whole civilization will die tonight\u2019 threat to Iran a war crime | George Clooney"},"content":{"rendered":"

The long-running war of words between George Clooney<\/a> and the White House has ignited again after the Oscar-winning actor criticised Donald Trump\u2019s threat to Iran that \u201ca whole civilization will die tonight\u201d.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, in a speech to 3,000 high school students in Cuneo, Italy, Clooney said the US president had committed a war crime with his threat.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome say Donald Trump<\/a> is fine,\u201d the 64-year-old told the students at an event organised by the Clooney Foundation for Justice. \u201cBut if anyone says he wants to end a civilization, that\u2019s a war crime. You can still support the conservative point of view but there must be a line of decency, and we must not cross it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response, the White House communications director, Steven Cheung, told the Independent<\/a>: \u201cThe only person committing war crimes is George Clooney for his awful movies and terrible acting ability.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement to Deadline<\/a> on Wednesday, Clooney said: \u201cFamilies are losing their loved ones. Children have been incinerated. The world\u2019s economy is on a knife\u2019s edge. This is a time for vigorous debate at the highest levels. Not for infantile name calling. I\u2019ll start. A war crime is alleged \u2018when there is intent to physically destroy a nation,\u2019 as defined by the Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute. What is the administration\u2019s defense? [besides calling me a failed actor which I happily agree with, having starred in Batman and Robin<\/a>?].\u201d<\/p>\n

Clooney, a longtime Democratic supporter and donor, has been outspoken about his politics for decades, often framing his frankness as a moral responsibility born from being raised by his journalist father and his marriage to the human rights lawyer Amal Clooney. In 2025 he made headlines<\/a> when he wrote an op ed in the New York Times urging the then-president, Joe Biden, to drop out of the presidential race.<\/p>\n

Despite the gulf between their politics, Clooney has spoken about once being on good terms with Trump before his presidency, telling Variety last year<\/a>: \u201cI knew him very well. He used to call me a lot, and he tried to help me get into a hospital once to see a back surgeon. I\u2019d see him out at clubs and at restaurants. He\u2019s a big goofball. Well, he was. That all changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump, not known for having thick skin, often reacts to criticism that comes his way from Hollywood, a world he tried to enter via cameos and reality television. He has been particularly responsive to criticism from Clooney over the years, variously calling him a \u201csecond-rate movie star\u201d<\/a>, a \u201cthird-rate actor\u201d<\/a>, a \u201cfake movie actor\u201d<\/a> who \u201cnever came close to making a great movie\u201d, and a \u201cbackstabber\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In January, Trump criticised France\u2019s decision to grant the actor and his family French citizenship<\/a>, calling the Clooneys \u201ctwo of the worst political prognosticators of all time\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cClooney got more publicity for politics than he did for his very few, and totally mediocre, movies,\u201d the president added<\/a>. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t a movie star at all, he was just an average guy who complained, constantly, about common sense in politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response, and referring to the US midterm elections on 3 November, Clooney told the Hollywood Reporter<\/a>: \u201cI totally agree with the current president. We have to make America great again. We\u2019ll start in November.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The long-running war of words between George Clooney and the White House has ignited again after the Oscar-winning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595062,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-595061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}