Jill Stein refuses to call Putin a war criminal

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein has stumbled over a new roadblock in her long-shot bid for the White House. Stein repeatedly declined to call Russian President Vladimir Putin a war criminal during an interview with journalist Mehdi Hasan, citing the need for diplomacy in the hope of future negotiations, but then proceeded to call Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal.

She explained the discrepancy between her treatment of Israel’s and Russia’s leaders by inaccurately claiming the International Criminal Court had only declared the former a war criminal — which Hasan quickly corrected.

Me: “Vladimir Putin is a war criminal in your view? And Assad is a war criminal?”
Jill Stein: “Uh, yes. In so many words.”
Me: “What does that mean, ‘in so many words’?”

My exchange with the Green Party candidate on war crimes.

Full interview: https://t.co/czLGXpz2tu pic.twitter.com/cedmDpbWbH

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) September 16, 2024

The car-crash interview is likely to be more damaging than her recent spat with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez which, if anything, actually raised her public profile. With a projected vote share of less than 2%, Stein has little to lose.