George Clooney takes on Donald Trump, dubs him as 'Hollywood elitist'

Hollywood star George Clooney took on US President Donald Trump and his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, dubbing them "Hollywood elitists".

During an interview on the French program "Rencontres de Cinema," the Oscar-winning actor mentioned Meryl Streep's speech during the Golden Globes in January when she blasted the president as a bully and said  it's wrong for conservatives to dismiss Streep's speech just because she is a wealthy actress, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

 "When Meryl spoke, everyone on that one side said, 'Well that's elitist Hollywood speaking.' Donald Trump has 22 acting credits in television. He collects USD 120,000 a year in his Screen Actors Guild pension fund. He is a Hollywood elitist," Clooney said.

"Steve Bannon is a failed film writer and director. That's the truth. That's what he's done. He wrote a Shakespearean rap musical about the LA riots that he couldn't get made...He made a lot of money off of 'Seinfeld'...He's elitist Hollywood, I mean, that's the reality," he added.

The 55-year-old actor also called for journalists to continue to hold Trump's "feet to the fire." "We have a demagogue in the White House. We need the fourth estate, which is journalists, to hold his feet to the fire.

"They didn't do a very good job during the campaign and they haven?t done a particularly good job yet, but those things will change," he said. Clooney said that Americans tend to do "a lot of dumb things over a period of time, but we?re also pretty good at fixing them." The actor mentioned the war in Iraq as an example.