Likely Green Party presidential candidate Cornel West ripped President Biden’s record on race issues, calling the Democrat’s history with black Americans nothing short of a “crime against humanity,” in an exclusive interview with The Post.
West, 70, accused Biden of spurring mass incarceration among minorities because of the tough-on-crime federal Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act Biden sponsored as a senator in 1994. The bill authorized the hiring of 100,000 new police officers and allocated $9.7 billion for prisons.
“Well, I think you’ll think Joe Biden contributed to a crime against humanity when he became the architect of the mass incarceration regime in the 1990s,” said West, 70, referring to the tough-on-crime Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act Biden sponsored as a senator in 1994. The bill authorized the hiring of 100,000 new police officers and allocated $9.7 billion for prisons.
“I’ve taught in prison for 41 years. And the the level of barbarity in our prisons has something to do with that crime bill that he put forward,” said West, now a professor at Union Theological Seminary, an affiliate of Columbia University.
“Black folks are low priority” to Biden, West continued, adding the president was much better at window dressing — “black faces in high places” — than substantive change. West gave Biden’s performance on race a dismal grade of “C-.”
He also slammed the 80-year-old president as “slowing down.”
“It’s very clear that his cognitive powers are in decline,” claimed West, who insisted he is fit as a fiddle, with no notable health issues.
Though West is an unabashed man of the left, he echoed Republican concerns about the weaponization and lack of oversight of federal intelligence agencies. The GOP has long accused the agencies of being politicized.
“I would just increase the scope of accountability and transparency. I think that’s enough right there,” West said. “The whole institution, alright, to make sure it is not politicized, make sure it’s not weaponized and make sure that it actually lets us know what they are doing, especially the executive branch.”
And he called it “kind of strange” that The Secret Service could not identity how a dime bag of cocaine made its way into the White House during a period when Hunter Biden — a known former drug addict — has been staying there.
He called the younger Biden’s deal with the Department of Justice to plead guilty to two counts of tax evasion “a little tap on the wrist.”
Robert Kennedy Jr. has made a splash in media and political circles for his primary challenge to President Biden, but political experts watching the 2024 race say it is West who poses a far more dangerous threat.
West previously had planned to run with the People’s Party before switching to Green, which could mean the outspoken academic could siphon critical votes from Biden in swing states, potentially throwing the election to GOP frontrunner Donald Trump, some Dems said.
“In 2016, the Green Party played an outsized role in tipping the election to Donald Trump. Now, with Cornel West as their likely nominee, they could easily do it again. Risky business,” former Obama campaign guru David Axelrod tweeted earlier this week.
West supported Biden over Trump in 2020, but now claimed both are equally dangerous.
“Trump is leading us toward a second civil war, Biden is leading us toward a third world war. So I am not excited about either choice,” West said. “I don’t want to just support a caretaker government against fascism every four years because sooner or later the fascists will still win.”
“But the problem with the Democrats is that they’d rather lose than change.”
