Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Cornel West told Fox News on Monday that his third-party bid is as "serious as a heart attack" and doubled down on comments he made drawing into question President Biden's compassion for the Black community.
West also claimed former President Donald Trump also has not been as much of a champion of minorities, but strongly criticized Biden's past relationships with segregationist Democratic senators.
He invoked Biden's praise for former Mississippi Sen. John Stennis – namesake of the NASA Space Center near Kiln, Miss. – as in 2008, Biden reportedly called his fellow Democrat "a hell of a guy."
More recently, Biden regaled supporters at a 2019 fundraiser of his time working with Stennis' fellow Mississippian James Eastland and then-Sen. Herman Talmadge, D-Ga, who supported segregation.
"I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland. He never called me ‘boy’ he always called me ‘son’," Biden quipped of the senator who once warned against "mongrelization."
Biden was rebuked at the time by fellow Democrat Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, who said in a statement obtained by the Daily Mail "you don't joke about calling Black men ‘boys’."
On "Hannity," West confirmed he is accusing Biden of "crimes against humanity" against African-Americans, as reported by the New York Post.
When Hannity asked West about minority voters continuing to largely support the Democratic Party – which West said is as broken as the GOP – the professor responded that both Trump and Biden are flawed in terms of racial issues, and that both parties are tied to "big money" and corruption.
"This is true for Republicans, is true for Democrats. [I'm] talking about Brother Trump himself – and Biden's connection to Stennis, Biden's connection to [ex-South Carolina Democrat-turned-Republican Sen. Strom] Thurmond. We know Brother Trump's own father's been tied to the Klan and of Trump's language about Black people," said West.
According to a 1927 report in the New York Times, "Fred Trump of Devonshire Road, Jamaica [Queens], was discharged" on the same day the Washington Post reported 1,000 Klansmen clashed with police in Queens after "two Italian men were killed by anti-fascists" in the Bronx.
"But we're not talking about [Trump's] father, God bless his soul," West went on. "We're talking about Trump himself."
West went on to criticize the handling of the White House cocaine incident, which Hannity noted was closed quickly.
West agreed that a West administration would not see the same purported deferential treatment in the form of such an accelerated conclusion if drugs were found there.
"For my White House – and I've told my people, I'm not even going to the White House until every American citizen has a house – I want to abolish poverty, abolish homelessness. I want jobs with a living wage."
"Every father does have a right to love their precious son. It's just that your son cannot have unequal protection. He's got to have equal protection across the board," he said, appearing to reference Hunter Biden. "So I understand the brother's predicament, but we have to be able to bring our criticism to bear."
