George Clooney Reminds CBS and ABC How to Take on Trump with Three Simple Words

The actor, in a Variety cover story published Tuesday, was “furious” about the major television networks’ shift and demands on the president over the past year.

News parent company Paramount settled Trump’s frivolous lawsuit against “60 Minutes” before the company’s merger with Skydance, a move that required administration approval. And ABC News settled with the president in a separate defamation lawsuit last December.

“If News and ABC had challenged those lawsuits and said, ‘Fuck you,’ we wouldn’t be where we are in the country,” Clooney said.

“That’s just the truth.”

JC Olivera via Getty Images

Clooney, a college journalism student and son of journalist Nick Clooney, played legendary News journalist Edward R. Murrow in the Broadway adaptation of his film “Good Night, and Good Luck” earlier this year.

Murrow used his reporting on the News magazine “See It Now” to confront McCarthy and his Red Scare tactics.

In his interview with Variety, George Clooney noted his concerns about News’ rightward tilt in recent months under Paramount CEO (and Trump ally) David Ellison, as well as Bari Weiss, the conservative journalist who was recently named editor-in-chief of the news division.

The actor noted that Weiss was “dismantling News as we speak,” comments that come just over a week after his controversial decision to do a “60 Minutes” report on the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador.

“I am concerned about how we inform ourselves and how we are going to discern reality without a functioning press,” he said.

Clooney told the magazine that the president, who was once a friend of his, has contributed to “a very difficult time” and his behavior conflicts with Murrow’s ideals.

“It can depress you or make you very angry. But you have to find the most positive way to overcome it,” he argued. “You have to put your head down and move on because giving up is not an option.”