Joe Biden should not be President, says Democrat supporter Alan Cumming

Alan Cumming taking a selfie with Kirsty Wark as she presented her last BBC Newsnight

Alan Cumming has said Joe Biden should no longer be US President as the Scottish actor became the latest high-profile Democratic party supporter to call for him to pull out of the race for the White House.

The Traitors US presenter, who has been an American citizen since 2008, follows in the footsteps of movie star and lifelong Democrat George Clooney after Mr Biden stumbled over his words when he faced Donald Trump during a televised debate.

Cumming, who previously backed Mr Biden’s former rival Bernie Sanders, joined the longest serving Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark for her final show on Friday.

Wark asked Cumming, who she said fundraises for Mr Biden’s Democratic party, about the President’s difficulties while campaigning for a second term, including mixing up Russian leader Vladimir Putin with Ukrainian premier Volodymyr Zelensky.

Referring to a fundraising event he hosted for Democrat supporters and Mr Biden the night after the debate, Cumming said: “Everyone was just sort of apoplectic, it was just awful.”

He went on: “It wasn’t good. Nothing about it actually made me think, ‘Oh, that was an aberration the night before’.”

“It’s like we’re all enabling something really bad by not speaking out more.”

He said he was “glad” Hollywood actor George Clooney had urged Mr Biden to step aside, before adding: “We shouldn’t just feel great because he manages to set a firm grasp of foreign policy… what we just saw is that man should not be the President of the United States. And I love him and I admire him greatly.”

Cumming also said: “I can see what’s happened is people were quiet for a while, the Biden campaign went into repair mode and now people have got a bit of a system and an organisation going on thing like the George Clooney, the donors.”

He added: “Joe, we love you, but you know, you’ve got to let it go.”