Clooney: Pressuring Biden to drop out was a "mistake"

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74. Did Salon botch the quote? From their source and others it sounds like he said the "mistake" was choosing Harris.

From the Times article that Salon article used as a source, it appears that Clooney regards the mistake as replacing Biden with Harris, not his call for Biden to step down.

It's even clearer in these other articles (both using Clooney's CBS interview as their source):
Clooney follows up the "mistake" quote by saying he would still write his op-ed (calling for Biden to step down), even knowing what he knows now.

https://variety.com/2025/film/news/george-clooney-mistake-kamala-harris-replace-joe-biden-1236568042/

George Clooney Says It Was a ‘Mistake’ to Have Kamala Harris Replace Joe Biden in the 2024 Presidential Election: ‘She Was Given a Very Tough Ask’

George Clooney said during a recent sit-down on CBS’ “Sunday Morning” that he had no regrets about writing his New York Times op-ed insisting that former president Joe Biden bow out of the 2024 presidential election. However, in hindsight, he feels that it was a “mistake” to have Kamala Harris step in for Biden as the democratic nominee.

When asked if he would write his NYT op-ed again if given the chance, Clooney replied, “Yes. We had a chance. I wanted there to be, as I wrote in the op-ed, a primary. Let’s battle-test this quickly and get it up and going. I think the mistake with it being Kamala is she had to run against her own record. It’s very hard to do if the point of running is to say, ‘I’m not that person.’ It’s hard to do, and so she was given a very tough task. I think it was a mistake, quite honestly. But we are where we are. We were gonna lose more House seats, they say. So I don’t know. To not do it would be to say, ‘I’m not gonna tell the truth.'”

https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/article/clooney-biden-harris-mistake-21135484.php
George Clooney says replacing Biden with Harris was a ‘mistake’

George Clooney said it was a “mistake” to replace President Joe Biden with Vice President Kamala Harris atop the Democratic presidential ticket in 2024 without a primary.

Speaking to reporter Seth Doane on “CBS Sunday Morning,” the actor who famously wrote a New York Times Op-Ed column urging Biden to remove himself from the ticket shortly before the president withdrew said Harris had to run against her own record, which is “very hard to do.”

“If the point of running is to say, ‘I’m not that person,’ you know, it’s hard to do, and so she was given a very tough task,” Clooney said in the interview broadcast Sunday, Nov. 2. “I think it was a mistake, quite honestly, but we are where we are.”

Asked if he would write the Op-Ed again knowing what he knows now, Clooney immediately answered “yes.”