Jill Stein is running for president again, and she's making no apologies for 2016—saying it's a "badge of honor" when Democrats blame her for former President Donald Trump's win.
If Stein succeeds in securing the Green Party's nomination, it will mark her third long-shot bid for the White House, as she first ran in 2012 prior to her 2016 campaign. In a moment when both of the likely major party candidates, incumbent President Joe Biden and Trump, are uniquely unpopular, her supporters would say that 2024 just might be the right moment for someone like her to break through.
The leftist physician turned political activist was widely criticized by Democrats in the wake of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's 2016 loss to Trump. Many alleged that those who cast votes for Stein would have backed Clinton if her name wasn't on the ballot. But some analysts dispute this claim, and Stein dismisses it outright.
In an exclusive interview with Newsweek on Thursday, Stein mocked the idea that she had the power to hand the presidency to anyone. "I take it as a great compliment that I am that powerful, that I singlehandedly decided the election," she quipped.
She went on to criticize the notion that "offering people more choices" could spoil an election. "It's anti-democratic," she said.
Already, pundits and some Democrats have begun to raise alarms about Stein's campaign, particularly as national and swing-state polls show Trump leading Biden in a still hypothetical 2024 rematch. Stein believes that Democrats have nobody to blame but themselves.
"The Biden administration is telling us that they've done a great job, but the American people know better. I mean, the American people rightly feel that they have been thrown under the bus," she said.
While most political analysts would predict that Stein is unlikely to become the 47th president, many would say she and other candidates could have a significant impact in the 2024 election. This could be particularly true in swing states, where Biden's 2020 victory margins were only in the thousands or low tens of thousands of votes. Stein garnered the support of nearly 1.5 million voters across the country in 2016.
In a Zoom interview, Stein hit Biden, Democrats and Republicans for their unabashed support for Israel, the response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, their handling of economic issues that impact everyday Americans and the dire risk of nuclear war. The presidential hopeful said she has a message that's not only for leftists who may hold their nose and vote Democrat, but one that can reach Trump's MAGA supporters as well.
The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Newsweek: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us. For
the average voter that may not be super politically engaged and generally puts politics into two boxes, Republican, Democrat—what is your message to voters like that? Why should they look at a third-party candidate like yourself?
Jill Stein: Fortunately, this is where most voters are actually. And this is what most voters are demanding. If you look at things like the Gallup poll, which is done every year and now shows practically a two-thirds majority of Americans are saying that the two parties have basically failed us, and that we need a new political party that serves the people.
We're speaking to a very receptive field right now, which has been growing over the past decade. So it's a great time to be offering a campaign which is truly of, by, and for the people, and which is outside of the failed two-party system.
Specifically what our campaign is about is putting a pro-worker, anti-war, climate
emergency front and center in this campaign and on the ballot across the country.
You mention climate. Biden and progressive Democrats in Congress would argue that they've passed significant legislation, and Biden's done some executive action regarding climate. Do you think Biden and Democrats have taken some positive steps to address climate change?
First of all, I think what's foremost on voters' minds is, are they going to keep a roof over their head? Are they going to have food on the table? Do they have health care? And are they locked in debt, whether it's student debt or medical debt?
On all of those issues, yes, the Biden administration is telling us that they've done a great job, but the American people know better. The American people rightly feel that they have been thrown under the bus. Over 60 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. One quarter of Americans actually have trouble putting food on the table, a staggering 40 to 50 percent of renters are severely economically stressed just keeping the roof over their heads, paying more than 30 percent of their income—in New York City I think it's like 68 percent of the median income just to keep a roof over their heads. Half of young people report that they're actually hopeless about the future. That's very much tied to the climate and the sense of betrayal.
The powers that be will tell us over and over that things are fine and just keep voting for those who've been throwing you under the bus. And I think things have reached really the breaking point.
The Biden administration will actually read below the headlines on what goes into, for example, the Inflation Reduction Act. It is a fossil fuels first bill. Yes, it does some great things on electric cars. But even before we get to electric cars, they are just opening the floodgates to more fossil fuels. The Inflation Reduction Act actually requires that 60 million acres of offshore waters be developed for fossil fuels before any renewables.
One thing that I've heard some leftist activists, folks that are not big fans of Joe Biden, say is that he's been pretty good in terms of labor and supporting unions. Biden has called himself the "most pro-union president in history." Do you think Biden and Democrats have taken positive steps on labor issues in the past few years?
One thing they did was make some good appointments to the National Labor Relations Review Board, and that's great. But if you still look at what's the bottom line here for working people, it's awful. And working people are rising up, are fighting. The fervent desire for a union has never been stronger, certainly not in my lifetime. But those needs are not being realized and again if you're looking at the economic condition of workers, it's really awful and it's declining.
Wages have not kept pace at all and are falling further and further behind, especially with the out of control inflation of the last couple of years. So whether you're looking at 87 million Americans now who do not have adequate health insurance, whether you are looking at a hundred million people, largely working people, who are locked into medical debt, if you're looking at 44 million Americans locked into student debt—the statistics one after the other really reflect the dire conditions of working people.
And that includes an almost unprecedented 76 percent of Americans who are now saying in no uncertain terms that we are on the wrong path and Americans want some new choices.
You previously were actually helping Cornel West with his presidential campaign. Now you're going to be running against him ostensibly. What changed for you?
For the last 20 years or so, I've been building a political party because it's hard to fight the Wall Street parties. If you don't actually have a coalition—you know, they fight with money. We fight with people. And if you're going to fight with people, you really have to build a framework for it.
It was in that context that I was one of several Greens who really encouraged Dr. West to run as a Green. It's always an exploratory condition when you're running with a new party. In a very high pressured race, it's very hard to build relationships with a party that you haven't previously worked with before.
For reasons that I completely understand, it wasn't working for Dr. West so it's entirely right and appropriate that he made the decision he did for himself, for his family. As he said he wanted to speak directly to the voters. When you're part of a party like in the Green Party, it comes with about 20 ballot lines and people have done a huge amount of work to give you that gift.
If you're going to take that gift, there's a certain kind of relationship that goes with it. You're not quite as free as an independent. But on the other hand, independently, you don't have 20 ballot lines, and that's worth about $4 million.
It's unfortunate that it didn't work out, but it's going to be pretty much prohibitive for Dr. West as a principled candidate to raise that kind of money to be on the ballot significantly. So, I jumped in so that our decades' worth of hard work and all those ballot lines, and the additional ballot lines which are in the works right now, would not be for naught.
I jumped in to ensure that, but also to ensure that the same agenda that Dr. West
represents is going to be there front and center throughout the election into the
general, in the dialogue and on the ballot in across the country.
Since you are potentially running against each other, are there areas where you think your political views differ from his?
Not significantly. And I think he makes an invaluable contribution to the race. But that said, where is he on the ballot? I don't know if he's on the ballot anywhere at this point.
It's one thing to say that in theory, we're running against each other. But from another point of view, we're kind of running together on the same agenda. And there may be very important possibilities for collaboration going forward. There are some people saying, "Hey, why don't you guys split the ticket?"
And that's something we could do if we are on the ballot, but it will happen because we get on the ballot. We've got to proceed with that, and we can't do that without a candidate.
This morning I saw two polls showing you and Cornel West both at 3 percent nationally. Should Cornel West drop out and maybe join your ticket or endorse you—so instead of having 3 percent each, you have maybe 6 percent together?
I think this is going to play itself out. I think his voice is extremely powerful and courageous, and he is a trailblazer, and it's my hope that he will be in the race as long as he possibly can. We'll see how the ballot status thing plays out.
Your standing in the polls a year before the election, whether it's 3 or 6 percent I don't think that matters. What matters is that we have a couple of really powerful voices right now that are mobilizing our communities and that we have a collaborative approach going forward.
Speaking of ballot access, it's my understanding that right now the
Green Party line is in 17 states, and in 2016 it was over 40. Do
you anticipate getting to that level or even potentially to all 50 states?
Yes, we are definitely targeting 50 states. In 2016, we were on the ballot for 47 states, and it was about 95 percent of voters. We're now building on that experience, and the party as a whole has had more experience also defending its ballot status. And we have a lot of people who know how to watchdog the process in their states.
We are confident that we are going to be on a ballot in 50 states. We're very
close to it, so that basically voters are going to have a people powered choice.
Now, fortunately, we have about 20, which are locked down. So it may be official in 17 or 18 states, but there are several others that have effectively achieved their numbers and have submitted their petitions. And we have several petition battles that are in active pursuit right now. We're going full steam ahead and very much expecting to be on the ballot for all voters.
I don't know if you've mapped this out yet, but since the election is state by state, are there specific states that you're zeroing in on? For instance, right now there are a lot of Muslim voters that are very upset at President Biden because of the Israel situation. Are you thinking to target states like Michigan or other places? Not just Muslim voters, but some specific group that you think you might perform better with or offer an alternative to?
Unfortunately, those voters are everywhere because it's youth. Fifty percent of youth are hopeless, describe themselves as virtually depressed at their future—including their climate future on which they feel betrayed by both parties.
Young people have very specifically been betrayed on student debt. Biden made big promises that have not been fulfilled, and these young people are all over the place. The same goes for a working people. Biden dropped his $15 minimum wage, did not push it or promote it, and that was a huge hit to millions and millions of working people.
You mentioned the student debt issue. In 2016, you called for student debt cancellation, which at that time was seen as a very fringe issue. Now, Biden has attempted to take action on that, with the $10,000 to $20,000 of forgiveness. But the Supreme Court overturned that. If you were to become president, how would you do it considering the Supreme Court already overturned what Biden tried to do?
Biden was warned not to propose that mechanism. He was warned, and did
he do it, on purpose so that it would get shut down? People have speculated, but it was a very misguided approach, and there are other ways that could be used. We've just entered the race on a rather short notice, so we don't have all the details fleshed out, but I would love to talk to you about that in the future.
I want to shift a bit and talk a bit more about foreign policy. In terms of Ukraine, I know you've been very critical of sort of the U. S. policy towards that situation, but you've also criticized Russia for invading Ukraine. If you were president, what would be your approach to this situation right now?
It would be what my approach has been all along, which is that we need an immediate ceasefire and we need to negotiate. Negotiations were actually well underway shortly after the war began in March with the efforts of Turkey at that point, and there was actually a deal in the making that involved compromises on both parts and, you know, underscoring that this is not an impossible situation.
This is not rocket science, you know, people are ready to do this. And there was
active interference from the U.S. and the U.K. that that blocked that. I think we're very likely to wind up somewhere very close to the Minsk Accords, which were agreed to, at least in theory. Now it's questioned whether the U.S. and the European countries were actually sincere. But, in theory, this could be done and we can revisit that.
Barack Obama did not want to go to war with Russia over the borders of Ukraine and thought it was really a fool's errand from the start. I think he's been proven right and not only him, but really virtually every foreign policy expert going back to the 1990s who said that if you keep expanding NATO with its nuclear-capable missiles to the border of Russia, you're going to see Russia respond in the way that the U. S. responded when Russia put its missiles in Cuba. It was only because President [John F.] Kennedy and [Soviet leader Nikita] Khrushchev had the common sense to say, "OK, we're going to pull back and we're going to negotiate."
It's just mind boggling to me that our leaders don't do that. And the rapidity with which we've now suddenly abandoned Ukraine and are telling Ukraine, they need to cut a deal. And we have another shiny new war to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on, and more, to further impoverish, Americans, ordinary Americans, who don't have the food, the housing and the healthcare that they need. We're now pouring that into a powder keg in the Middle East.
It's like some somebody just switched the channel. Who switched the channel? Who's making these decisions that they are undertaken so flippantly that we can just move from one devastating war to a new devastating war? To me, this is an indictment of the whole endless war machine.
In this case, now with Israel, AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee], which has enormous influence in both parties, and this does not serve the American people. This is one of the reasons why I'm very committed to putting a pro-worker, anti-war option on the ballot. We already know the American public had shifted on Ukraine against the enormous burden of propaganda that we were getting 24-7. American public opinion shifted to oppose this war and to deem it futile and really unjust.
It's already true now, with regard to the Israeli invasion Gaza. So many lives are on the line right now. There are over 2 million people [in Gaza] who've been denied food and water, let alone electricity, the people in the hospital system, which is collapsing and is so tragic to witness now.
Where exactly is the bounty from this raid? It has yet to be demonstrated other than a few ludicrous propaganda videos. It's just, it's shameful. And shame on our misleaders for conducting these war crimes, this genocide that's going on in Gaza right now and in Palestine.
It's not rocket science how to fix this. I think we need to be complying with international law and human rights, and just put diplomacy first, not our weapons and the profits of the weapons profiteers.
Regarding Israel and Gaza, nobody knows how this situation is going to end. But do you think a two-state solution, which has been the U.S. policy for a long time. Do you think that's a viable solution moving forward?
My vision is basically to comply with international law and human rights and to address the underlying crisis of an apartheid state that resulted from ethnic cleansing where 750,000 people were basically driven out of their homes. Thousands upon thousands were killed at that time and continue to live very devastated and violent lives at the hands of an occupation.
It's not just for Palestinians. This is also for Israel, because Israel doesn't have a future if this violence is allowed to continue. I don't mean just violence from Hamas. There will be violent resistance to apartheid and occupation so you can wipe out Hamas, and then you'll have the next generation of Hamas, which is going to be even more vicious and brutal.
Not to mention that Israel is losing the support of its neighbors and its global allies and the whole global community, what the world is witnessing right now. People and countries are recoiling in horror, as they should. This whole process needs to be stopped. We need to go back to the drawing boards and establish a solution for Israel and for Palestine that is based on human rights, human decency and respect.
Whether that is a one-state or a two-state solution, I don't know. I don't pretend to have the knowledge to come down in one camp or the other at this point. I think it's going to take a huge amount of negotiation and discussion and really rethinking where we've been because what we're seeing right now is kind of the unveiling of a monster—an absolutely unsustainable monster of a situation. By that I'm referring to fundamentally unpredictable apartheid and occupation, which is just not livable.
It's not livable for the occupiers, and it's not livable for the occupied. And the world is saying no right now. I think it's shameful that our president, and practically all of Congress, is in the pocket of AIPAC right now—acting on behalf of their big-money sponsors, not the interests of either the Jewish community or Palestinians or peace in the Middle East, or even for the world.
I would just note that the U.S. has sent a nuclear submarine there now, aside from two battleship or two missiles groups and in a nuclear submarine. You have enormous firepower as a rule that's equivalent to about four or 5,000 Hiroshima bombs packed into one nuclear submarine. The world won't survive this. And yes, we're not at nuclear war now, but could a nuclear war be triggered? Absolutely. And we're seeing this become more dangerous every day.
One of the biggest attacks that you get from Democrats is that you are the reason that Donald Trump became president in 2016. Now that you're throwing your hat in the ring for 2024, people are already saying that you're going to do the same thing to Joe Biden in 2024. How do you respond to that?
First, I take it as a great compliment that I am that powerful, that I singlehandedly decided the election and could decide this one. You know, thank you, I wear that as a badge of honor. Are Democrats scared? Yeah, I think they're scared.
I think they're scared because they don't want an outsider, someone who's not part of the mess that has infected our government institutions that the American people have completely lost faith in. I think they are very threatened by someone who is not of the political class, someone who is a medical doctor who's been very dedicated to our health and the many things that impact our health— from our environment, to our food system, to our economies and our jobs.I think that is extremely threatening to the Democrats. Maybe that's why they're whining.
Fundamentally, this notion that you spoil an election by offering people more choices when they are screaming for more choices, where do you get off doing that? It's anti-democratic from the get go. People are clamoring for more choices. Choices are essential for voters. What good is your vote if it's not a vote for someone you support? We must bring our values into our democracy. If we're just voting against who we hate the most, that's not a democracy and that's not a vision forward.
This notion that I took votes from Hillary Clinton is not supported. It's not supported by the data. It's not supported by polling. We know that well over 60 percent of people who voted Green would not have come out to vote. And if you actually run the numbers, they do not change the outcome in any state. This was basically a smear campaign and an effort to try to take down a threat that the Democrats are worried about.
The conventional thinking is that a candidate like you would be more likely to attract voters that align more closely with the Democrats. But do you think a campaign like yours can actually reach Trump's MAGA voters? And do you interact with and have conversations with them?
I always have as an independent, third-party candidate. First, what should we say? I was tricked into running for office as an advocate for health, for jobs, for getting big money out of politics? I was really at the end of my rope because whatever we did would get shut down by the parties of war and Wall Street.
I've had conversations, this goes back now to the year 2002, when I was first kind of reluctantly dragged into this process. And then I discovered, "Oh my God, outside of the two-party system, there are real conversations that are happening here."
At the time it was the Tea Party, that was sort of like the MAGA equivalent, back in the early 2000s. These were wonderful conversations of discovery. You know, it's long been known that most Trump voters, at least this was the case at the start, most Trump voters were basically anti-Democrat voters. That's a lot of what motivates people. It's not that they love the agenda or the personalities on the other side. They really kind of revile at it all.
I'm finding it extremely exciting, interesting and a process of discovery to have just really honest conversations outside of the framing of the kind of mainstream media system that would like to say there's a red box over here and there's a blue box over here.
It's like 25 percent of voters right now who identify as Democrats, 25 who identify as Republicans, and 50 percent in between. And even those who identify are mostly identifying because they hate the other side. To my mind, we are divided and conquered by a big-money system that doesn't want everyday working people to get together. And that's the conversation I'm really interested in.
