WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden’s tribulations were previewed in Hollywood days before he got on the debate stage.

At a fundraiser organized by George Clooney and packed with luminaries including former President Barack Obama, Biden was a listless figure, perhaps merely jet-lagged after flying straight from Italy but clearly not the man they knew.

Oh brother, where art thou? Clooney wondered.

It was a flashing-light moment for the actor, producer and prodigious Democratic donor and for others in the crowd. Then came the debate debacle, which set off 50 shades of panic among Democrats and pitted Biden loyalists against those now convinced a successor should take the party into November.

Two weeks after debate night, more than 15 Democratic lawmakers have gone out on a limb and called publicly for a president they’ve long supported to exit the race. Many more kept their newfound alarm about Biden semi-private. Mega-donors froze in the moment, wondering if they were plowing fortunes into a lost cause.

The bleeding of support continued past Biden’s NATO news conference Thursday night. Immediately afterward, Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, posted on X that Biden should end his campaign. Several others did as well.

From Michael Moore to James Carville to Rob Reiner, voices from the intelligentsia and liberal Hollywood pitched in over the past two weeks to tell the president he should go. He said hell no.

It’s been an excruciating reckoning for all in the family, and it’s not over.

Lawmakers were furious that the White House kept Biden in such a bubble for so long that Americans could be blindsided by how bad he was on the stage with Trump. Biden’s camp was furious at the public show of disloyalty by those who want him replaced on the ticket and the relentless focus on Biden’s every word and step.

Most stayed with Biden over those two weeks as dissent alternately flared, faded and sparked anew, like tamped-down embers in a dry forest. Democrats on both sides of the Biden divide were left fearing the prospects of a Donald Trump win.

“I think we could lose the whole thing and it’s staggering to me,” Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado told CNN, speaking for many others as well as himself. He meant the presidency, the Senate and the House, in what he worries may be a Trump landslide.

On Friday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York told colleagues in a letter that he met Biden after the press conference the night before and “directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the Caucus has shared in our recent time together.”

With the calendar rushing toward the Democratic convention in August, the debate in Atlanta upended Democratic officials, lawmakers and voters. Biden was befogged from the first words he uttered, or muttered. Voters had long felt Biden, now 81, was too old to be effective but they had never seen him like this. More than 51 million people watched it.

Biden hadn’t been on his game for some time before June 27. He appeared pale and his movements were slow after the Group of Seven summit in Italy nearly two weeks earlier.

After the long flight from Europe, Biden was unable to turn it on for his 30-minute onstage conversation with late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel and Obama at the June 15 fundraiser. It’s not often a popular former president and the brightest Hollywood stars join to rally behind a candidate, and donors and other Democrats hoped the event would get Biden’s motor running. He was conspicuously lackluster.