George Clooney has said that Donald Trump will not win the US presidential election as the American public will not be ruled by fear.

“There’s not going to be a President Donald Trump,” he said. “Fear is not going to drive our country. We’re not afraid of Muslims or immigrants or women. We’re not going to be afraid of anything.”

Clooney was speaking at the Cannes film festival press conference for Money Monster, a thriller directed by Jodie Foster that also features Julia Roberts and Skins star Jack O’Connell. The film tells the story of a blowhard financial pundit Lee Gates (Clooney), who, along with his director (Roberts) is held hostage live on air by a man (O’Connell) who risked his life savings on one of Gates’s tips.

Clooney also used the press conference to attack cable news networks for allowing their output to slide further into infotainment, a move that he says helped Trump become a viable candidate for the presidency.

“There’s a great disaster in the way we inform ourselves now,” Clooney said. “Trump is actually a result in many ways of many of the news programmes that didn’t follow up and ask tough questions. Their ratings go up because they can just show an empty podium [and a caption] saying ‘Donald Trump is about to speak’.”