The exchange:
Mehdi Hasan: We looked at your social media, and you haven’t done that many posts specifically calling out Russian attacks on civilian areas. You haven’t called Vladimir Putin a war criminal, but you have called Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal.
Jill Stein: No, actually, we did. Yeah. In my very first remarks about the Ukraine war, we condemned —
Mehdi Hasan: Vladimir Putin is a war criminal?
Jill Stein: Yes, we did condemn —
Mehdi Hasan: And Bashar al-Assad is a war criminal?
Jill Stein: Yes, in so many words, yes, we have said as much.
Mehdi Hasan: So you called Netanyahu one, which I think he is.
Jill Stein: Oh, absolutely.
Mehdi Hasan: Is Putin a war criminal?
Jill Stein: So what we said about Putin was that his invasion of Ukraine is a criminal and murderous war.
Mehdi Hasan: And he’s a war criminal who should be on trial?
Jill Stein: Well, by implication.
Mehdi Hasan: You’re struggling here to say something very simple. This is why people have their doubts about you with Russia. Why is Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal but not Vladimir Putin?
Jill Stein: Well, as John F. Kennedy said, “We must not negotiate out of fear and we must not fear to negotiate.” So if you want to be an effective world leader, you don’t start by name calling and hurling out that.
Mehdi Hasan: So how will President Stein negotiate with Israel then, if you’ve called Netanyahu a war criminal?
Jill Stein: Well, because he very clearly is a war criminal.
Mehdi Hasan: Oh, so Putin clearly isn’t a war criminal?
Jill Stein: Well, we don’t have a decision, put it this way, by the International Criminal Court.
Mehdi Hasan: Yes, we do. Yes, actually, actually, you’re wrong. There’s an arrest warrant for Putin and there isn’t an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, so why is Putin not a war criminal, but Netanyahu is?
Jill Stein: Yeah. Well, let me say this. We are sponsoring that war. We are sponsoring Netanyahu. He is our dog in this fight. That is why we have a responsibility to pull him back.
Mehdi Hasan: No disagreement from me at all. It still doesn’t answer my question. Whether we sponsor them or not is irrelevant.
Jill Stein: With Russia it’s far more complicated.
Mehdi Hasan: Either you’re a war criminal or you’re not. Is Vladimir Putin a war criminal?
Jill Stein: In so many words, yes he is.
Mehdi Hasan: I don’t know “what so many words” — Butch [Ware, Stein’s running mate], is Vladimir Putin a war criminal?
Jill Stein: Let me say that whatever you think he is —
Mehdi Hasan: It’s not about what I think. I’m asking you. You’re running for President.
Jill Stein: If you want to pull him back, if you are a world leader, you don’t begin your conversation by calling someone a war criminal unless you have a…
Mehdi Hasan: So why have you called Biden and Netanyahu war criminals?
Jill Stein: Because we have a clear strategy and we have very strong support across the world.
How is it more complicated, Jill? The lady doth protest too much
Jill Stein: So what we said about Putin was that his invasion of Ukraine is a criminal and murderous war.
Mehdi Hasan: And he’s a war criminal who should be on trial?
Jill Stein: Well, by implication.
Mehdi Hasan: You’re struggling here to say something very simple. This is why people have their doubts about you with Russia. Why is Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal but not Vladimir Putin?
???
What does “by implication” mean to Hasan?
Jill Stein: Yeah. Well, let me say this. We are sponsoring that war. We are sponsoring Netanyahu. He is our dog in this fight. That is why we have a responsibility to pull him back.
Mehdi Hasan: No disagreement from me at all. It still doesn’t answer my question. Whether we sponsor them or not is irrelevant.
Jill Stein: With Russia it’s far more complicated.
Mehdi Hasan: Either you’re a war criminal or you’re not. Is Vladimir Putin a war criminal?
Jill Stein: In so many words, yes he is.
So they’re in agreement. Right?
Mehdi Hasan: I don’t know “what so many words” — Butch [Ware, Stein’s running mate], is Vladimir Putin a war criminal?
Jill Stein: Let me say that whatever you think he is —
Mehdi Hasan: It’s not about what I think. I’m asking you. You’re running for President.
Jill Stein: If you want to pull him back, if you are a world leader, you don’t begin your conversation by calling someone a war criminal unless you have a…
Mehdi Hasan: So why have you called Biden and Netanyahu war criminals?
Jill Stein: Because we have a clear strategy and we have very strong support across the world.
Is Hasan trying to defend Biden and Netanyahu?
Because Jill Stein repeatedly agreed with Hasan on Putin being a war criminal. But Hasan keeps doubling back and trying to defend the American President and his Israeli ally from the accusation.
The problem is this: regarding Netanyahu she says “Well he is very clearly a war criminal.” Regarding Putin she says “With Russia it’s far more complicated” and “In so many words, yes.” She’s hedging out of calling Putin a war criminal directly so she can plausibly deny it. She will agree with general statements saying he could be a war criminal under those circumstances but she won’t say it directly so she can go “Oh no, Hasan called him a war criminal, I didn’t, I just agreed that if all of those things were true then he could be considered a war criminal!”
She’s hedging out of calling Putin a war criminal
“In so many words, yes.”
Hasan won’t take “yes” for an answer. Which is a weird thing to do, given that he keeps looping back around to attack her for her condemnation of Biden and Netanyahu.
She will agree with general statements saying he could be a war criminal under those circumstances
Under what circumstances is Hasan conceding that Netanyahu is a war criminal? All he does is deflect blame for war crimes away from Netanyahu, which is a really weird thing to do across multiple interview questions.
she won’t say it directly
She will and she did. Of course, Hasan keeps cutting her responses off to interject with new defenses of Netanyahu. Which is, again, a very weird way to establish Jill as a Putin-defender. It seems more like Hasan is hedging on Netanyahu and trying to back Jill into recanting her views on Israel.
Say weird some more. We aren’t going to be desensitized to it. The right will still be fucking weird
Say weird some more.
It looks like you’re being forced to notice the contradictions at last.
I think it’d be easier to take yes for an answer if she said the word yes. And frankly I question why someone can’t use the word yes if it’s such a clear yes
I think it’d be easier to take yes for an answer if she said the word yes.
She said the word yes.
How come she can give a clear yes for Biden but Putis it has to be surrounded by a million qualifiers? Multiple times.
We all watched the interview. What are you trying to prove.
Eh, the OP asking the question is operating in bad faith. They are most likely some disinformation shill or useful idiot who just espouses 3rd party or bust vibes every time I see them. You’re going to have as much luck getting through to them as Hasan had of getting Stein to say “yes.” with no qualifiers attached.
I don’t like Jill Stein but she clearly did say yes up there
Yes she never said yes.
In so many words, yes she did. Wait, why does a clear yes have so many words?
Is Hasan trying to defend Biden and Netanyahu?
Almost the very beginning of the interview:
Mehdi Hasan: So you called Netanyahu one, which I think he is.
Unlike Jill Stein, he has no problem calling a war criminal a war criminal. But I am sure that, unlike Putin, Jill Stein would have no problem calling Joe Biden a war criminal immediately.
I’m no fan of Stein. I was years ago, but not anymore. But she seems very clear in the beginning, then equivocates in the middle then clarifies (kinda) towards the end— but the way the interviewer goes after her seems like she’s being evasive in a way that doesn’t come across in the textual reading.
Is there an audio and/or video clip of this interview?
Yeah she explicitly said “yes” multiple times. I don’t like her, but this is garbage.
Unless she can say the words ‘Putin is a war criminal’ she is avoiding the question. “In so many words” is not a yes. I understand she follows with yes he is, but why can’t she just say yes, Putin is a war criminal?
If you don’t mind Twitter, yes.
Thanks for the link, but I deleted my account years ago. No worky for me.
If anyone could link something else, I’d be quite grateful. 👍
Edit: here’s a link:
https://xcancel.com/mehdirhasan/status/1835761859838038350
Also— I don’t read her as being so much pro-putin as she is trying to be “stateswoman” and also being terribly unprepared. Just a total flop. She seemed like she was trying to be very reasonable, and she was just destroyed by the interviewer who was unrelenting on a single question that she was not prepared to answer.
I’m not apologizing for her. It was probably the one and only question she should have been prepared to answer right off the bat. And how she fumbled it was extremely damaging to her.
She did answer, but her answer got lost in the mess of it all. And that interviewer was being a very aggressive.
She had no problem with Biden and Netanyahu, but avoids a direct answer over Putin. It is painfully obvious
I agree that she’s being evasive
Thank you for being reasonable
i really need more people to be aware this is who jill stein has always been. she focuses on the liberatory language of green politics but in practice is a fascist. there are two ways to view this. either she’s an idiot who thinks she can deal with putin, or she knows exactly what she’s doing and is in favor giving a genocidal maniac more power because it benefits her personally
She’s a grifter so it really would not surprise me to learn that she’s taken daddy putin’s propoganda dollars.
Remember how she raised a bunch of money in 2016 to do a recount and then never did? Yeah. That’s what grifting looks like. She had no legal way to actually accomplish the task she was fundraising for which is every bit as bad a selling someone snake oil.
She and the green party exist solely to extract money out of credulous idiots who buy the lie that voting for her does anything.
It’s always amusing seeing her fans try to explain this photo without suggesting she’s pro-Putin.
Oh wow, that’s a terrible photo. I didn’t know about it, but given the recent tenat media lawsuit I figured russia pumping money into the green party wasn’t crazy. They were more than willing to dump $5 mil on idiots like tim pool and dave rubin so why wouldn’t they also pump a bunch of money in long shot candidates like Stein.
Heck, they’ve done it in the past via the NRA.
It’s not just the green party, they are trying to buy influencers for hundreds of thousands of dollars as well. Tana Monogeau just came out that she was offered substantial amount of money to endorse the Trump campaign and declined, and she suspects a lot of influencers have done this.
It’s literally always projection. Remember them saying George Soros bought protestors?
It’s not just Jill Stein, it’s a lot of people you see talking about Gaza as some blood curdling atrocity, but they don’t have the same level of empathy or consideration for Ukrainians. The anti-Israel propaganda is just being used to drive the Muslim and progressive vote away from Dems. I think it’s turning out to be successful.
And other lies you tell yourself.
I’ve never met a Palestinian supporter that isn’t also a Ukrainian supporter.
The entirety of lemmy.ml would like a word.
I signed up to Lemmy without knowing much about instances, can’t remember exactly why I picked lemmy.ml but it wasn’t politics.
Is this really a generalisation people have? Should I move…?
your admins also run lemmygrad. only you can decide if you should leave. personally, i like beehaw, slrpnk, dbzero, and blahaj. one important aspect to understand about the fediverse is that your instance is part of the identity you present to others
Hey I’ve been looking for someone to ask, and you seem to know, is Lemmy.world cool?
No. Unless you’re a power-tripping mod or admin, they seem to be cool with that. Not so much toward average users. I’ve seen no drama here on lemm.ee.
