Jill Stein on 'Surge' of Support After Biden's Debate Disaster

Jill Stein said her Green Party is enjoying a surge in support from disgruntled Democrats and a fourfold increase in donations following the "disastrous" performance by Joe Biden at the televised Presidential debate last Thursday.

In a wide-ranging interview with Newsweek, Stein said watching the President's performance made her feel uncomfortable, but that the emergence of his "cognitive issues" came as no surprise.

"It was really sad. It felt uncomfortable. And it felt like a terrible commentary on our political system—that this is the best that they could come up with," she said.

"A mafia predator versus a very feeble, struggling elder who was clearly having some cognitive issues, which are not new. For those of us who have been paying attention this has been evident—the state of affairs—for quite some time," said Stein, who worked as a physician for 25 years having graduated from Harvard Medical School.

She said the Democrats should replace Biden, but that his replacement would be a "younger Joe Biden." Rather, she said, it is the flawed system that is to blame for the choice facing Americans in November between two unpopular candidates.

"It's not just Joe Biden," she said. "But Joe Biden is a fitting symbol of the system. This system does not have a brain. It does not have rational thought. It does not have a memory. And it does not have a functioning heart or soul."

Biden lost his chain of thought and appeared confused several times during the debate, raising concerns about his mental acuity and leading some in his own Democratic Party to call for him to stand aside ahead of the Presidential election against Donald Trump. A Biden aide told Newsweek late Thursday night that the president was battling a cold during the debate. Biden later admitted he almost fell asleep during the event.

Both the Biden and Trump campaigns have been approached for comment by Newsweek in response to Stein's claims.

Third parties 'won the debate'

The Green Party's presidential candidate, 74, said the debate showed the race was between "two zombie candidates representing zombie parties that are completely out of touch."

"It's fair to say that third parties won the debate, without even being there," Stein added, saying she had seen polls to suggest an increase in third-party support. Stein said that donations to her party increased fourfold in the immediate aftermath of the debate, adding that she expects a jump in supporter sign-ups.

Urging Americans not to settle for a "lesser evil vote," she argued that third-party candidates are being excluded and voters' choices are being limited. Polling from FiveThirtyEight shows that Biden's disapproval rating went up .9 percent to 56.9 percent in the days since the debate, whereas Trump's disapproval rating only went up .1 percent to 53.6 percent at the time of publication.

Stein said "everything is wrong" with the country right now, citing health care, housing and education.

'War machine'

"We can't keep kids out of poverty in this country," she said, but added the U.S. is "sending hundreds of billions of dollars" to fund a "genocidal war against Gaza and also the war in Ukraine—both of which the American people want to stop right now."

Israel has rejected accusations made at the International Court of Justice that it is committing genocide in Gaza. Israel's campaign has killed more than 37,900 Palestinians, the majority women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't distinguish combatants among its count. Israel launched its campaign after Hamas' October 7 attack in which militants killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel and took around 250 others hostage, according to The Associated Press.

Stein said the world was verging on all-out nuclear war and argued the reason for Russian aggression in Ukraine was because the U.S. had rejected peace deals with Moscow.

"The U.S. has led the way in dismantling nuclear treaties," she said. "We've laid the groundwork for reestablishing missiles all over and particularly on Russia's border, which is why Russia went to the mat after trying to put forward peace deal after peace deal, which was essentially rejected by the United States. We are in wars very much of our own making."

'Turning White House into Green House'

Stein, who is making her third bid for the presidency, having also run in 2012 and 2016 and getting more than 1.4 million votes in the latter, then turned to the Green Party's core: the environment and her party's Green New Deal.

Pointing to the heat waves and wildfires the world has endured this year, Stein said that on day one she would declare a climate emergency to release half a trillion dollars to create jobs to tackle climate change.

"The climate crisis is an all-out crisis," she said. "If we turn the White House into a Green House, very good things are going to happen across the board."

'Democracy hijacked'

Politics has changed dramatically since Stein's first run for office 12 years ago, she says, attributing this to the Supreme Court decisions over the years on campaign finance rules, which have, she argues, allowed the two main parties to completely dominate.

Citing Teddy Roosevelt, she said the power of corporations and the wealthy to control our elections is only growing.

"The American people know this and it's been a major driver of the loss of confidence and faith in our democracy, because it's been completely hijacked," she said.

"Wealth is increasingly concentrated into fewer and fewer hands—and that wealth translates into political power... [It's] outrageous! There's nothing in our constitution that says we only have two parties and voters only have two choices."