Hello and welcome to the political orphanage, a home for wanderers,

eccentric's, oddballs, and friendly neighbors.

I'm your host, Andrew Heaton.

Before we go any further, I need to say Cornell West is a great hugger like world class if you

have the opportunity to go to a Cornell West speech, just go. Go and try to get a hug. You will feel 10 pounds lighter. I cannot stress that enough. He is a great hugger. He gave me a big, he was walking down the hall at the

DNC, this was recorded at the Democratic National Convention a few weeks back, he was

walking down the hall and I saw him and I reached out to fist bump him and he grabbed me by the fist and then gave me a big old bear hug.

It was, it was so nice, it was just lovely. Okay, next. I am still not sure if in today's interview, Cornell West revealed himself to be a profoundly deep thinker or an unfocused genial

blowhard. Either way I liked him, but I'm not sure we ever got a clear policy answer on anything.

I'll let you assess today's conversation.

It's an interesting conversation. I will you will come to your own

conclusion about where the conversation goes. But before we do, before we jump into that,

who's this Cornell West fellow you're about to hear from?

Well, Cornell West is a philosopher, academic, and civil rights activist known for his commitment to social justice and marginalized communities.

He's a former professor at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale and the author of numerous works on race, class, and democracy.

Also, fun fact, he appears in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, that's a second and third film, as a member of the Zion Council.

So at long last I have interviewed someone who appeared in the Matrix.

He's also been in a John Mellencamp album and had a cameo on 30 rock because he was kind of a like a pop culture icon of sorts back in the early aughts, but he's also been and primarily been a political

activist and commentator which is how we find him on the show today.

Back in the aots, he was initially very supportive of Barack Obama when Obama first

ran for president and then West soured on him, saying he was a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs

and a black muppet of corporate plutocrats, and now he's become the head of the American

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