Jill Stein, a physician and former Lexington Town Meeting member who ran twice for Massachusetts governor and once for secretary of state, is currently running for president as a candidate for the Green Party. also nominated her in 2012 and 2016.
Stein recently spoke with GBH News reporter Adam Riley about how her experience in Massachusetts politics has shaped her worldview, her thoughts on claims that she is a “spoiler” candidate, and Kamala Harris. He talked about whether he wants to deny his inauguration as president and why he believes the United States is responsible. Ukraine’s participation in the war and whether to run again in 2028. A compiled transcript follows below.
Before competing in national competitions, you had extensive running experience in Massachusetts. Were there any lessons learned from these campaigns that inform the way we practice politics today?
absolutely. I entered politics in 2002 as a very distraught organizer and health care advocate. We had just passed campaign finance reform with Clean Elections. We saw it repealed by a voice vote of progressive Democratic Congressmen. We tried to pass “Medicare for All” through a single-payer referendum in the late 1990s, only to have it blocked by a huge injection of money from Big Pharma and the health insurance industry. I saw it. While there is significant support for fundamental political reform, the system has enormous power to silence political opposition and thwart the will of voters. So I started this.
The speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives at the time the clean election was blocked was Tom Finneran, a Democrat who most people would call more conservative than progressive. It’s interesting because it sounds like your experience with the Massachusetts Democratic Party in particular has shaped how you think about the Democratic Party in general.
That’s right. Clean Elections wasn’t just rejected by the Speaker. Efforts have been made year after year to pass this bill through Congress, but these efforts have failed. That this happened in progressive Massachusetts was a really bad sign for the Democratic Party as a whole. For me, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
As a physician and former lecturer at Harvard Medical School, what did you think of Roe v. Wade’s Ace Attorney?
That’s scary. We have seen perinatal mortality rates rise significantly. The last numbers I looked at were around 25%, and for women of color it was around 40%. But at the same time, there was an opportunity to codify Roe at the Congressional level, not only when Democrats had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, but also when Democrats had the majority and the option to change the rules. has existed for decades. Just like Republicans have done in the past. Both Barack Obama and Joe Biden came to power saying this was the first thing they would do, but they never got around to it. Moreover, this problem can be solved now by simply opening reproductive health care clinics on federal land. I in no way accept that this is the result of a challenge to the Democratic Party. This is a dereliction of duty on their part.
Doesn’t the fact that Roe’s reversal occurred because of judges appointed by former President Trump suggest that there are actually significant and meaningful differences between Democrats and Republicans?
Now, we see that it is the Democrats who are now pushing forward with genocide (in Gaza) and the very real possibility of World War III. This is not to say that Trump and the Republican Party will get any better going forward. Instead of arguing about which is the greater evil at a time when Israel is attacking Iran and possibly bringing in Russia, which is networked with Iran, we need another option.
You seem to be more critical of Harris than Trump on Middle East policy.
The focus is on who is currently in power and speculation that Harris is your friend. He has learned the dangers of Trump, and Democrats have been pretty good at criticizing him. But what are we hearing from Republicans? I’ve heard that the Democratic Party is fundamentally too left-leaning, but this is a completely ridiculous criticism and needs to be widely debunked.
If Trump is re-elected, will he take even more hawkish positions on Israel and Palestine than Biden?
Trump is completely unpredictable and no one knows. That also applies to Harris. At this point, she can’t draw a line between herself and Biden or say what’s different. My very overarching view is that our current bipartisan foreign policy is putting our people at risk and exposing us to poverty. And the problem is that we don’t have the resources we need to get (single-payer) health care, to deal with the housing emergency, the climate emergency, the education crisis.
Do you want your candidacy to deny Mr. Harris the presidency?
I actually hope my candidacy will negate the presidency of Harris and Trump. You can say, “So what are the chances of that happening?” I don’t know. What are the chances of an all-out war with Iran within the next two weeks? Young people, men between the ages of 18 and 29, you are in the database and the draft knows how to find you. This could be very large and very rapid, basically in a nuclear way. This is one of the absolutely important reasons why we need to be in this race.
You dispute the idea that you were a spoiler in 2016. Many people who voted for you say they had no intention of voting for Hillary Clinton, and there’s research to back that up. But if your candidate refuses to put one of the two major party nominees in the White House, who do you want to put in the White House?
Let me reject that framework. In the last presidential election, one in three voters declined to vote. Who are those people? They tend to be younger, have lower incomes, and are people of color. These are the people who have been marginalized, and who our policies would best serve with human rights in health care, the right to work, a $25 hourly minimum wage, and rent control. Those are the people we primarily appeal to.
But you were recently endorsed by a group actually named Abandon Harris, right?
First he abandoned Biden, then he abandoned Harris. That means there is a huge segment of the population that has already left the Harris base (because of Israel’s war in Gaza). The question is: Are they going to vote for Trump or are they going to vote for me? And what the polls seem to be showing is that the more attention I get, the more that vote moves away from Trump and towards our campaign.
You called the Democratic Party fascists. But President Trump has said that if re-elected, he would lead a mass deportation of about 11 million immigrants. He has also hinted at the possibility of using the military against leftist forces in the country. Aren’t these measures far more fascistic than anything Democrats have ever taken or are considering taking?
Just as Barack Obama outperformed George Bush in deportations, Joe Biden outperformed Trump in deportations. (Editor’s note: This claim is disputed.) So there’s the question of what people say, and then there’s the question of what people do. And what I want to point out is the fact that under Democratic city government, we’re seeing a proliferation of police cities where police are being trained in the most brutal and abusive methods possible, and we’re already seeing leaks. It also includes military equipment. There is a very fine line here as to what is militarized police and what is military. None of them are OK.
When it comes to climate change, an environmental priority, many believe Democratic policies are far better than Republican ones.
The Inflation Control Act is used as a great example of something done for climate change, but it’s actually a bill that prioritizes fossil fuels. Before large-scale renewable projects can be built, 60 million acres of offshore waters and 2 million acres of onshore public land must be auctioned off for fossil fuel extraction. That happens every year. This would have an absolutely devastating impact on the climate. Moreover, fossil fuel production actually increased more rapidly under Joe Biden than under Donald Trump, and the same was true under his predecessor, Barack Obama vs. George Bush. Yes, Democrats are building more renewable energy, which is great, but renewable energy doesn’t actually solve the climate. And Kamala Harris herself is saying, look, run away now.
On X, some people who I call sympathetic to the Green Party’s goals asked me to tell you what you’ve been doing to build the party between presidential elections. What is the answer?
My answer is that it is the media that will disappear. That’s not me, and it’s not the Green Party. We selected candidates for local government positions, including school committees, small town mayors, and elected board members. The city of Portland, Maine has a city council member elected by us. He helped Maine pass a divestment bill that took a very principled stand and opposed investment in destructive industries that enabled Israel’s genocide. Trust me, I’m immersed 24/7.
(Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) has put forward the idea that I’m a predatory candidate because I only run for president once every four years. However, this is completely wrong. I stepped up here at the last minute to fill the hole left when Dr. (Cornell) West decided he wanted to run as an independent.
There is a famous photo of her sitting at the same table with President Vladimir Putin at a Russia Today event in 2015. You said people don’t know the full background of the photo. What do you want them to know?
Russia Today has been removed and is no longer online in the United States. But basically, I was there to promote a global Green New Deal. Because we are facing a large-scale climate crisis, and Russia in particular needs to work on its programs. I was there to promote peace strikes in the Middle East. Russia had just started bombing Syria, so I was there to task them with that bombing campaign. It was to say it was as productive as America’s wars in the Middle East. It was productive. We also need global support for the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The United States is in violation, as is Russia. That photo was completely exposed as a lie.
If you had the opportunity to sit at the same table with President Putin again, or give a speech while he was listening, what would you say to him about the war in Ukraine?
War is illegal, criminal, brutal, murderous, all of that. But this is a war waged by NATO and the United States for decades, and Russia has repeatedly appealed for dialogue and compromise. What Russia wanted, what Russia absolutely pursued, was neutrality toward Ukraine, just as Austria was neutral after World War II. I want to urgently and desperately appeal to President Vladimir Putin to sit down in good faith with the United States now. Because the US doesn’t actually allow these negotiations to take place.
So you see the war as being caused by the United States, not by Russian expansionism.
Basically, yes, this is like the Cuban Missile Crisis in reverse. We need to know why Russia doesn’t want to put nuclear missiles on its borders. We didn’t want that either.
The Washington Post recently reported that a Republican-linked super PAC is backing your candidacy in Wisconsin, where Vice President Harris and former President Trump are in a close race. Do you need help from groups aligned with the Republican Party?
Absolutely not. Whenever we have been alerted to Republican wrongdoing, we have always rejected and condemned it. And we will not tolerate super PACs, neither for ourselves nor for others. But I say dirty tricks are routinely played by Democrats. In 2022, they were caught red-handed pretending to be the Green Party and doing something I don’t understand why they couldn’t label it as fraud or election interference. They were convicted in court. The problem is how the whole system is run. It’s very corrupt and the Democrats are in on it.
If he fails to win the presidency this election cycle, will he return to office in the next election?
I don’t know what my role will be. I would not have become a candidate in this election without great pressure and necessity. So my impression is that he probably won’t be running again in four years, at least not at that level. But I’m not denying anything. I’m committed. I describe myself as a mother on fire because my children are in danger. They don’t have a livable future now, and once they see it, they can’t ignore it. So until the day I die, I will try to change the trajectory.
