Former Cleveland mayoral candidate Basheer Jones has jumped back into politics.
Jones, the first Muslim elected to Cleveland City Council, now serves as the Muslim outreach advisor to Cornel West’s presidential campaign. He showed West around Cleveland last week.
A former professor at Harvard and an emeritus professor at Princeton, West wrote the 1993 book “Race Matters” and co-hosted a public radio show with commentator Tavis Smiley. Now, he is making a long-shot independent presidential bid that is well to President Joe Biden’s left on the political spectrum.
West’s visit culminated with a town hall meeting at First Cleveland Mosque. There, he said he was running for president to “dismantle the American empire” – to end the U.S. military’s presence overseas.
He also took a few swings at the 2024 race’s main contenders. He called former president and likely GOP nominee Donald Trump “out of control” and said, “there’s a good chance Trump’s on the way to jail.”
Of Biden, the 71-year-old West said: “He’s got the charisma of a dead fish in many ways, and I’m not talking about his age. I’m getting old, too.”
Jones wasn’t just there to make an introduction for West. He played the role of financial closer, too, asking attendees to chip in to West’s presidential campaign. Jones told his audience not to listen to Democratic or Republican criticism of West.
“There’s nobody who has been speaking up more for issues of what’s happening in Palestine, issues of what Muslims have been dealing with across this country,” he said. “No person has been speaking up on behalf of our community – who isn’t Muslim – like Dr. Cornel West.”
The town hall ended with an appearance by another Cleveland political figure, former congressional candidate Nina Turner, whose father attends First Cleveland Mosque. She closed out the event with a trademark stemwinder in support of West.
Jones encouraged attendees at the mosque to sign petitions to get West on the ballot in Ohio. So far, West has made the ballot in just a handful of states.