Cornel West Rails Against ‘Neo-Fascist’ Trump and ‘Neoliberal’ Biden on CNN
2024 presidential candidate Dr. Cornel West railed against former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden in an interview with CNN’s John Berman on Friday, accusing Trump of promoting “neo-fascist policies” and the Democrats of not having learned their lesson on how to appeal to the working class.
“We now have two political parties so tied to Wall Street, so tied to the Pentagon, so tied to the wealthy, so tied to militarism that the plight of poor and working people is being overlooked, my brother,” said West, who is seeking the Green Party nomination, before emphasizing, “By both parties. Both parties are in the way. We’ve got a corporate duopoly that needs to go.”
Asked what he would say to Democrats who have accused him and previous third party candidates like Ralph Nader and Jill Stein of taking votes away from the Democratic Party and giving Republicans an advantage, West said, “I say the Democratic Party didn’t learn their lesson. The lesson they should have learned was they need to speak to working people so that Gore would have been able to take Arkansas… take his own congressional seat.”
He added, “Similarly so with sister Hillary Clinton,” pointing out that Clinton “called so many working folk ‘deplorables’ and so forth,” before questioning, “Where are the high quality Democratic candidates that can speak to poor and working people? No, it’s a party dominated by its corporate wing.”
Criticizing Biden’s debt ceiling deal for expanding the military and for having “cut back on poor people again,” West said:
No, the legacy of Martin King can’t stand by. We’ve got to be focussed on poor and working people no matter what color, no matter what gender, no matter what sexual orientation, no matter what region. That’s why I’m going straight to Trump country and I’m gonna tell so many of my brothers and sisters who are disproportionately vanilla, don’t follow a neo-fascist pied piper!
West assured, however, that he did not hate Trump, saying, “When I called Trump that name, you know I’m not saying that out of hatred. I don’t hate brother Trump, I hate gangster activity. I hate neo-fascist policies.”
He also said the same about Biden: “I don’t hate Biden as a human being. I hate neoliberal policies that don’t focus on poor and working people.”
West has previously accused Trump of promoting neo-facism and he called the then-president a “neo-fascist gangster” at a campaign rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in 2020.
Watch above via CNN.
