New Delhi: Hollywood star George Clooney on Wednesday took a dig at the Donald Trump administration, saying that the United States is being run by the “least qualified people”.
Clooney was speaking on the opening day of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival, where he was given the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement award.
In a press conference, the 65-year-old actor chose the word ‘kakistocracy’ to describe the government in the US, while also expressing hope of “getting through”.
“There’s a great word, a kakistocracy, which is a country run by the least qualified people. I think maybe we have a kakistocracy right now, but we’ll get through it,” he said.
Clooney said he was “ashamed” of what was unfolding in the country, adding that calling it unfortunate would be an “understatement”.
Referring to a recent X post by US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, in which he appeared to mock a female Canadian soldier over her physical appearance, Clooney asked, “Where’s the sense of decency in all of this?”
“And I’m ashamed of all of that, but we will get through it. “And we will come out better on the other side,” he added.
Clooney said that the mid-term elections in November may provide a “check and balance”, and in the 2028 presidential elections, “we will have some restoration into some normalcy”.
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‘Difficult times’
Clooney said that he remains optimistic about the country’s future, while talking about living through “other difficult times”.
“I’m old enough to have been through 1968 in the States when every city in the United States was set on fire and we lost Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy in the same year,” he said, recalling the widespread violence and deployment of tanks around the Capitol.
“We’ve had some other difficult times, but this is one of them.”
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)