The field
is growing in the 2024
presidential race with former Vice
President Mike Pence and North
Dakota Governor Doug Burgum
entering the race.
The total number of Republican candidates
now stands at 12.
This comes as two
Democrats are challenging
President Biden for the White House
in the Democratic primary.
That's RFK Jr and Marianne Williamson.
And just this week
a third party candidate
jumped into the race. Dr.
Cornel West,
who launched his bid
as a member of the People's Party and Dr.
West joins us now.
So Dr.
West
let me start with the obvious question.
How are you running to win?
Are you running
to get your issues of importance
that you think Joe Biden
is not paying enough attention to
to the forefront?
Well, I
mean, one, my dear brother,
and you always have a calling to win.
You want to bear witness
at the highest level
of quality, integrity and honesty
that you can.
So, yes, I'm
trying to push toward the finish line.
Why?
Because I want to reintroduce
America to the best of itself.
And it's fairly clear
that by the Trump neofascist gangster,
not the best, the Biden
neo-Liberal hypocrite.
Not the best.
I want the legacy of Martin Luther
King Jr, Dorothy Day,
Abraham Joshua
Heschel and at Woodside and Chief
Joseph and Grace Lee Boggs and Lewis
Lewis Martin.
All these are those fighting for poor
and working people.
Both parties
stand in the way of the empowerment
of poor and working peoples.
Both parties tired.
Wall Street
militarism, Pentagon
tied to Silicon Valley.
What about the 60%
oppresses Americans of all colors
who are struggling every day and month
to put food on the table
and are hardly doing it.
While the 1% is simply
tied to their
quest for the luxurious life,
American democracy just is at stake.
The whole planet. Brother Jake.
You know that man with fossil fuels.
And look,
look at the debt ceiling agreement.
We can make a deal with Brother
Manchin in terms of his pipe line
that will do it.
Not just working class people's faces,
but ecological collapse.
Given what's going on on the East Coast.
But we can't make a deal with him
in terms of voting
rights to go to the filibuster.
That's Brother Biden.
We need something better.
Where's the best of the country?
Yeah, just the working
people here,
but around the world,
because the militarism abroad is
something that
I'm deeply concerned about,
being in Latin America,
being in Africa,
being in the Middle East.
So I hear you.
But these elections often do
come down to a binary choice
between the Democrat and the Republican.
Dr.
Laurence Tribe, a Harvard
University professor, as you
you were tweeted WITF.
You know what that stands for?
Does Cornell
West really want to help the GOP
nominee win the way
Ralph Nader helped
George W Bush defeat Al Gore in 2000?
Please stop this foolishness
before you really hurt
the things you care to help, unquote.
His fear obviously,
that you would sap away enough
votes of progressives
who otherwise would vote for Joe Biden
and thus deliver the White House
to the Republican
making things worse
than they would be under Biden
in Lawrence Tribe's view. Your response?
Well, one,
I mean,
brother tribe,
he's looking at the world again.
Through these Manichean views.
You get either this or that,
Tweedledee, Tweedledum, Frick
or frack,
neo fascist
catastrophe, neo
liberal disaster
or disasters, better catastrophes.
Absolutely. But a disaster is disastrous.
Absolutely. Still.
So the day I did it, Brother
Trump would reduce,
I think,
the tribe would reduce
what I'm trying to do in focus on this
unbelievable suffering
and social misery of poor
and working people around the world.
There's some ego vanity as a good God
almighty. What are you doing?
Do you actually think
that the rich legacy
that the figure that I talked about
can be reduced
to their ego, vanity
when they moved
in the electrical political context?
Part of the problem
is, is people who believe it's
either the Democrats
or the Republicans have left out
serious discussion of mass incarceration,
left out of what's been going on
around the world.
800 military bases around the world
from the vantage
point of the West Bank,
precious Palestinian
brothers and sisters.
What does it look like
in terms of the bombs
dropped by the US government
by either party?
Same is true with working people
in other parts of the world.
This is a moral
and a spiritual issue
is not simply narrow
strategic thinking of neo liberals
who view the world
in terms of either Republicans
or Democrats. Brother Jake.
We will never defeat fascism,
which is owned the march by milquetoast
neo liberalism.
Neo liberalism
will only be a caretaking post
foment of the fascism.
We got to get at the source of it.
That's why I'm
going straight into Trump country
by brother.
I'm talk to some of my white
brothers and sisters
who are following the neo fascist
Pied Piper.
I'm concerned about Joe suffering.
Look another way.
The words of Martin King.
Let us embrace one another by accepting
our best
that includes
acknowledging those who right now
on the other side. We want realignment.
We want what
my dear brother
Clifton West calls a paradigm
shift in American politics.
That's in part
what this is about, my brother.
Let me ask you just a practical question.
Where do the People's Party,
where will you be on the ballot?
Will you be on the ballot in Michigan?
Will you be on the ballot in Wisconsin?
I don't think the People's Party
was on the ballot
in all 50 states last time.
Are you
are you hoping to get on the ballot
in every state or even
just the battleground states?
We're trying to get on the
ballot in every state,
which means we've got to get
the requisite signatures in eight states.
We are in process of ensuring
to make sure we get on that ballot.
As you know,
people's parties
broke away from Brother Bernie's
attempt in 2006.
So we're very new at this in that regard.
But most importantly,
we just want to make sure
that our fellow citizens get a chance
to see what the best of America is about.
The best of America
and the best of any nation
is about fighting for poor
and working people,
no matter what color,
gender or sexual orientation.
And not just confining it to the states.
I'm talking about solidarity
with Iranians, dealing with fascists,
Iran and Iranian elite.
I'm talking about solidarity
with workers in Brazil.
I'm talking about solidarity
with workers in Guatemala.
This is a international project.
My brother, that's
what Martin Luther
King was concerned when he said
the bombs dropped
in Vietnam fall and ghettos
and hoods in barrios
and poor white sections.
We have got
a professional managerial class
that has turned his back
too often
for the plight of the most vulnerable.
That's my tradition.
That's what
that's what this campaign is all about.
My brother.
So, Dr.
West, I have a ton more questions,
but we're out of time.
You can see we're on the clock.
Come back.
I'm going to just cut and paste
and we're going to ask these questions
about your policies.
And your platforms next time you're here.
Open invitation.
We love we love having you on
now.
Indeed. Salute your brother.
You stay strong.
God bless your loved ones.
My you, too, as well.
Dr.
West, thank you so much for joining us.