In an interview with Politico, academic and independent presidential candidate Cornel West forecasted that US President Joe Biden will "have an LBJ moment" and opt out of running for re-election next year.

"I’m not even sure whether I’ll be running against Biden," West said, adding, "Biden – I think he’s going to have an LBJ moment [and] pull back."

The 'LBJ moment' refers to when Lyndon B Johnson, who took office after the assassination of John F Kennedy in November 1963, announced on March 31 1968 that he would not run for re-election. His reasons were the war in Vietnam and internal divisions, while his former secretary, George Christian, claimed health was a factor.

Biden is already the oldest president ever sworn in at 78 and would be 86 at the end of a second term.

According to West, Biden may end up competing against a "B team" of younger Democrats such as California governor Gavin Newsom and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer because Biden was "running out of gas".

West also sees that former President Donald Trump was a "bona fide gangster, neo-fascist Pied Piper leading the country for a second civil war", and called Biden "a milquetoast neoliberal with military adventurism, possibly leading the world toward world war three".

"I’m more concerned about Trump domestically," West expressed. "I’m more concerned about Biden in terms of foreign policy."

Voting for a 'gangster'

A Trump spokesperson responded to West by saying that he should "go back to liberal academia instead of playing pretend politics. He still hasn’t graduated from the kids table."

West told Politico, "I don’t accept the spoiler category. A vote for Biden, a vote for Trump is a vote for Biden and a vote for Trump... There might be slices of people [who say], ‘If I didn’t vote for West, I would have voted for Biden.’ 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 admitted to campaigning for Biden back in 2020 but did not vote for him because "I don’t know if it was the Holy Ghost [but] something hit me: I said, ‘Naw, I can’t vote for this gangster.’"

The academic, previously linked to the People’s Party and the Green Party before becoming independent, said he was "trying to touch that 38% who don’t vote at all and young people more and more wrestling with cynicism of various sorts".

From New York to California, through Nebraska and back to Utah, my campaign is on the move! In our flawed electoral system, ballot access is the name of the game, and we've got a plan to secure it. But this movement requires the lifeblood of financial support to keep up with our… pic.twitter.com/erTrD6IsKn

— Cornel West (@CornelWest) November 30, 2023

"If you are concerned, primarily and solely, with your president being married only one time, I’m not the one for you. And I’m certainly not the Black man for you."

Support among Black voters for Biden, who represents a key demographic for the Democrats, has seen a decline since October. Additionally, young voters aged between 18 to 34 years, another vital group for the party, have expressed displeasure with Biden's approach to student loan forgiveness. This group is also likely to be critical of his handling of the Israeli war on Gaza.

He continued, "But if you’re looking at somebody who has a record that encompasses a whole host of things, politically, intellectually, over time and space, alongside my personal life, then I might in fact, be somebody you consider very seriously."