Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein blasted Hillary Clinton’s emails, saying Tuesday that the former secretary of state risked the lives of CIA secret agents and crossed the line in mixing her family’s personal business with her duties as chief diplomat.
Ms. Stein appears intent on not repeating the mistakes of Sen. Bernard Sanders, who refused to question Mrs. Clinton’s “damn emails” and lost to her in the Democratic primary.
Claiming to be the heir to the policy issues raised by Mr. Sanders, Ms. Stein begged for people not to vote for the “lesser evil” in Mrs. Clinton, and said she could build a plurality of voters if the 43 million young and middle-aged Americans still carrying student loan debt would join with her.
“To those who think our campaign is too, uh, too, sort of uninteresting to the American public, try us, let us have that exposure out there, bring us into a debate and let us see what happens,” Ms. Stein said in a press conference just blocks from the White House.
The retired doctor and frequent political candidate also disputed President Obama’s claims that his administration is handling the flooding in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, saying her own visit to neighborhoods found black residents’ needs were being ignored.
Ms. Stein’s visit came a couple days after GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump and two days ahead of Mr. Obama, who is visiting Tuesday. Mrs. Clinton, meanwhile, has said she won’t visit, saying she didn’t want to be a distraction to the recovery efforts.
Ms. Stein has declared global warming an existential crisis and is hoping to win over voters who believe likewise. And she said the American political system has reached a crisis point as well, and said it’s time to expand the presidential debates to include candidates beyond the Democratic and GOP nominees.
“We’re at a kind of a Hail Mary moment here, where we very critically need to change course. we need to have an open and honest discussion about what we’re actually facing,” she said. “We have never had such a majority support for truly transformative change. the American people are unhappy, dislike and distrust the two major party candidates.”
The Commission on Presidential Debates, run by agreement between the Democrats and Republicans, has set a requirement that candidates must be at 15 percent in a series of polls to gain the stage.
Ms. Stein polls in the low- to mid-single digits in national polling. By contrast Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson has reached beyond 10 percent in national polling, and higher in some states with a libertarian bent.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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