Dave Portnoy argues Democrats set Biden up to fail at debate: 'What did they expect?'
Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy joins 'Fox & Friends' to discuss President Biden's cognitive decline after George Clooney pulled his endorsement.
Dave Portnoy, the founder of Barstool Sports, mocked actor George Clooney for waiting until three weeks after his star-studded fundraiser in which he raised millions of dollars for President Biden to acknowledge he's "a vegetable."
"George Clooney, what a f------ hero this guy is, huh? Comes forward today — now, this guy threw a fundraiser, raised tens of millions, co-chair for Biden, three weeks ago. Today comes out, he’s like, ‘Guess what? The guy you saw in the debate, that vegetable, that’s f------ Biden, he’s a vegetable. He was a vegetable three weeks ago.’ Acting like he’s doing some heroic thing," Portnoy said in a video posted on X.
Clooney called on Biden to leave the 2024 race in a New York Times guest essay on Wednesday, writing, "It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate."
On Thursday, during an appearance on ‘Fox & Friends', Portnoy said "I couldn’t believe they let him do the debate which brings to the point – if all these people – Clooney… whoever, everybody knew that this man is basically a vegetable. Why would you ever let him do that debate unless you wanted to show the world that he is gone and get rid of him? It’s shameful."
George Clooney, seen here with President Biden in 2022, called on the president to drop out of the race in an op-ed on Wednesday. (Bonnie Cash/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
"It was every week, there was a different incident that you just can’t look by. And again, the things he was saying there are making no sense. He was slurring. So it was quite obvious that he was well into decline," Portnoy continued. "And so to put him into a debate – when I saw that he was going to do a live debate, I spit out my coffee and was like ‘how? He cannot do it’. And then he couldn’t do it. And everyone is like ‘oh my God’ -- where have you been? This is not new, you just haven’t been paying attention."
Portnoy later said if he could attend Biden's press conference Thursday, he would ask the president "Who is not letting you step down?"
"Nobody wants to give up power. And he is the most powerful man in the world. And somebody is running that and doesn’t want to give it up. Who is it?" Portnoy told ‘Fox & Friends’.
"This country is so politicized – Republicans believe one thing, Democrats the other – but I don’t know how anybody with a straight face can believe anything that is being said about the president," he also said.
Clooney wrote in The New York Times that "party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we just saw" in the debate. "We’re all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we’ve opted to ignore every warning sign."
The actor joined a growing list of Hollywood elites and megadonors who've turned on Biden following the debate, where his halting, frail and at-times confused performance alarmed supporters. Members of Biden's party, political allies and liberal media figures have also pressured the president to drop out of the race, warning he cannot beat former President Trump.
"So what, George? If [Biden] didn’t do the debate… and wasn’t a vegetable, you were just going to keep your mouth shut?" Portnoy continued in his video posted to X. "And by the way, if you just found out Biden was a vegetable, where have you been for two years? Everyone knows he’s a vegetable."
Portnoy claimed Biden can't "get on and off a stage without getting lost, he talks about dead people like he had lunch with them yesterday. He can’t f------ ride his bike without falling down. He can’t get up and down f------ Air Force One without taking a tumble. No s--- he’s a vegetable. He’s been a vegetable for two f------ years. Democrats don’t care."
He continued, "If I know he’s a vegetable, if Miss Peaches knows he’s a vegetable [referring to his dog] if Clooney knows he’s a vegetable, if the Obamas know he’s a vegetable, if everyone in the world knows Joe Biden is a f------ vegetable, why did he do that debate? Because Democrats wanted to show the world that they have no choice but to f------ whack him," claiming Democrats want to replace him with Gov. Gavin Newsom, whom he referred to as the "good-looking guy from California."
Portnoy claimed that Democrats always secretly wanted to select California Gov. Gavin Newsom to run against former President Trump instead of President Biden. (David McNew/Getty Images)
Newsom has said that he completely supports Biden and would not run against Vice President Kamala Harris if she replaced him at the top of the ticket.
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"It’s all dirty politics," Portnoy said.
He said Democrats "were fine" for the last two years "putting a vegetable in our face. They’re fine with doing a fundraiser three weeks ago for a vegetable. So f--- it, let’s just have Trump run versus a head of lettuce. Honestly? The votes will probably be the same."
He said that people who voted for Biden didn’t actually like the president but rather hate Trump.
"So f--- all these games and stuff. Everyone knows Biden’s a vegetable. So let’s just do the ballot," he joked. "Trump on one side, head of lettuce on the other."
He added that he wanted to be spared Clooney’s op-ed "like ‘Oh my God, Biden’s a vegetable. We can’t.' – you f------ Democrats have known for two years that this guy’s a vegetable, and you keep propping up the vegetable and putting the head of lettuce in our faces."
Portnoy joked that former President Trump should run against a head of lettuce instead of President Biden. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
He accused Democrats of wanting to choose their own candidate rather than having a "free f------ election of other candidates, so you had Biden go win it, and now the Democratic Party is trying to say who comes next. It’s a game."
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He concluded, "They knew he was a head of lettuce. Everybody with a brain knew that."
Fox News Digital reached out to representatives for Clooney, but did not hear back.
Fox News' Greg Norman contributed to this report.
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