Dr. Cornel West, an independent left-wing presidential candidate, has said that Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign offered him a job in her government and to pay off his campaign bills if he dropped out of the 2024 race.
West made the shocking claim to independent writer Jordan Chariton on the Status Coup News show after the Democratic National Convention.
They talked about offers to drop out because they thought Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would decide to stop running for office (in key states) and support former President Donald Trump.
West has taken strong views against Israel. At a march in October, he even carried an antisemitic sign.
Politicians on the left are afraid that West will make some people vote for Trump instead of Kamala, which could hurt Kamala in close states. They have been going to court to get West taken off the ticket in many places.
After beating two challenges to getting on the ballot in Wisconsin and Michigan, the West campaign said in a statement on Tuesday, “The West/Abdullah team has the signatures and minor party nominations it needs to get on the ballot in 18 states.”
This covers seven states that will be important in the election: North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, and the states of Minnesota and Florida.
The offer that Harris is said to have made to West reminds me of when the Obama White House tried to persuade Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) not to run for Senate in Pennsylvania, where Republican-turned-Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter was running for re-election and gave Democrats a temporary majority that couldn’t be stopped by a filibuster.
The White House first lied about the “quid pro quo,” but then they admitted that they used former President Bill Clinton to offer Sestak a job in exchange for dropping out.