Cornel West predicts Biden will drop out before 2024 election: 'LBJ moment'
Independent presidential candidate Dr. Cornel West believes that President Biden won't "make it to the general election," according to a Politico article from Friday.
"Instead, the independent presidential candidate suggested the sitting president could suddenly end his reelection bid the way President Lyndon B. Johnson did when he shocked the nation in 1968," the outlet reported.
"I’m not even sure whether I’ll be running against Biden," West said an interview with Politico. "Biden — I think he’s going to have an LBJ moment [and] pull back."
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Instead, West said that he might end up running against "B Team" Democrats like California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
"I’m just saying that I’m open to those possibilities, given the fluidity of the situation," West said of the possibility of Biden ending his 2024 re-election campaign. "He’s running out of gas."
West also had harsh words for former President Donald Trump, calling him a "bona fide gangsta, Neo-fascist, Pied Piper leading the country for the second civil war."
As for Biden, West said that the 81-year-old president is a "milquetoast neoliberal with military adventurism, possibly leading the world toward World War III."
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Trump and Biden's respective campaigns did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
"I’m more concerned about Trump domestically," West told Politico. "I’m more concerned about Biden in terms of foreign policy."
"Cornell [sic] West should go back to liberal academia instead of playing pretend politics," Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in an email to Politico. "He still hasn’t graduated from the kids table."
West denied that his run for president would make him a "spoiler" for Democrats and potentially help elect Trump.
"I don’t accept the spoiler category," West said. "A vote for Biden, a vote for Trump is a vote for Biden and a vote for Trump."
"There might be slices of people ‘if I didn’t vote for West, I would have voted for Biden,’" he continued. "But that’s not to me, a spoiler. If you’re in a race, and you make a case, and they vote for you, how do you become the spoiler?"
West also argued that the 2024 presidential campaign is about trying to reach Americans who don't regularly vote in elections and young people.
"So much of this campaign really is about trying to touch that 38 percent who don’t vote at all and young people more and more wrestling with cynicism of various sorts," West said.