Independent left-wing presidential candidate Dr. Cornel West told said Friday that Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign offered him a job in her potential administration, and to pay his campaign debts, if he dropped out of the 2024 race.
West made the stunning accusation after the close of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, in an interview with independent journalist Jordan Chariton on the Status Coup News podcast.
The two discussed offers to drop out in anticipation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anticipated decision to suspend his campaign (in battleground states) and to endorse former President Donald Trump.
Chariton and West had the following dialogue:
Chariton: What were, you know, the offers that they made and your response?
West: Well, I mean a number of them reached out just saying I need to get on the bandwagon — this is a historic moment, especially a black moment … I told them, I said you all just talking to the wrong brother. You can offer resources or position or what have you — that’s that’s not what I’m all about. That’s not the game I play…
Chariton: Can you specify, if you can, you mentioned offering positions, resources. Were you offered a position in the Harris administration? Any financial incentives to drop out?
West: Oh, I mean there was definitely various kind of offers. I won’t go into concrete details of it — I really won’t, because I don’t I — I don’t even want to make that the focus of the interview —
Chariton: Let’s let’s just say they did not offer you the janitor’s position they offered you something relatively high up.West: [Laughing] Well, I don’t think it was that high up …
Chariton: Did they — just one more on this — did they offer you did they offer you a cabinet position, a lower position ,and offer to pay off any of your campaign debt?West: Well, they offered serious, substantive conversation about all of those that could lead toward some real [unintelligible].
West has adopted staunch anti-Israel positions, even holding an antisemitic banner at a march in October.
Democrats are worried that West might pull some left-wing votes away from her, causing her to lose to Trump in swing states where margins are close. They have been filing legal challenges to push West off the ballot in many states.
The West campaign issued a statement on Tuesday, after defeating two challenges to ballot access in Wisconsin and Michigan: “The West/Abdullah campaign has the signatures and minor party nominations it needs to get on the ballot in 18 states. This includes 7 of the battleground states: Michigan, Georgia, Minnesota, Florida, Wisconsin, Virginia and North Carolina.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
