George Clooney Hits Back at Donald Trump After President Celebrated His and Wife Amal’s French Citizenship

George Clooney has fired back after Donald Trump described the actor and his wife Amal Clooney‘s recent naturalization as French citizens as “good news.”

The president, 79, addressed recent reports that George, 64, Amal, 47, and their 8-year-old twins Alexander and Ella, had obtained French citizenship in a Truth Social post on Wednesday, Dec. 31, calling the couple “two of the worst political prognosticators of all time.”

The Jay Kelly actor then responded in a statement obtained by PEOPLE on Jan. 2, saying, “I totally agree with the current president. We have to make America great again. We’ll start in November,” referring to the upcoming midterm elections. The statement was first shared with The Hollywood Reporter on New Year’s Day.

A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond when contacted by PEOPLE for comment.

George’s response comes after Trump wrote that it was “good news” that the Clooneys had “officially become citizens of France which is, sadly, in the midst of a major crime problem because of their absolutely horrendous handling of immigration, much like we had under Sleepy Joe Biden.”

Trump also addressed the July 2024 op-ed that George wrote for The New York Times, in which he urged then-President Joe Biden to step aside. The piece came after Biden’s performance in a June 2024 presidential debate, which sparked concern among many.

Trump continued in Wednesday’s post, “Remember when Clooney, after the now infamous debate, dumped Joe during a fundraiser, only to go onto the side of another stellar candidate, Jamala(K!), who is now fighting it out with the worst governor in the Country, including Tim Waltz, Gavin Newscum, for who is going to lead the Democrats to their future defeat.”

The president also claimed that “Clooney got more publicity for politics than he did for his very few, and totally mediocre movies.”

“He wasn’t a movie star at all, he was just an average guy who complained, constantly, about common sense in politics,” Trump wrote, adding, “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

The post comes after George, who has long been a vocal critic of Trump, said back in 2021 that the Trump name would forever be relegated to the “dustbin of history” following the January 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol.

“That name will now forever be associated with insurrection,” Clooney said at the time on an episode of KCRW’s The Business podcast.

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Amal, a human rights lawyer, has also criticized Trump’s treatment of the press in the past, arguing in 2019 that the president’s rhetoric makes “honest journalists all over the world more vulnerable to abuse.”

Despite his comments about the president as of late, George acknowledged that he once knew Trump “very well” while speaking in a recent interview with Variety.

The actor told the outlet, “He used to call me a lot, and he tried to help me get into a hospital once to see a back surgeon. I’d see him out at clubs and at restaurants. He’s a big goofball. Well, he was. That all changed.”

The Clooneys currently live in France, in part due to George’s concerns about “raising our kids in L.A., in the culture of Hollywood.” George and Amal obtained French citizenship in December 2025, according to a naturalization decree obtained by the French newspaper Journal officiel and viewed by PEOPLE.