‘Useful Idiot for Russia’: DNC Decides to Go Off on Jill Stein
The committee has largely kept quiet about the Green party nominee. But that’s now changing.
AFTER TEN MONTHS OF ALMOST COMPLETELY ignoring Jill Stein’s impossibly long-shot presidential bill, the Democratic party is now actively trying to bury her.
On Monday, the DNC labeled the Green party presidential nominee a “useful idiot for Russia,” citing Stein’s upcoming event in Tampa in which she’s expected to lend her support to three members of a black leftist group federally charged for allegedly acting as malign foreign agents of Vladimir Putin’s government.
It is the first time that the party has name-checked Stein since she launched her White House bid in November 2023—part of an effort to disqualify her in hopes of limiting the votes third party candidates siphon away from Kamala Harris.
Stein’s candidacy in 2016, along with Russian meddling, helped Donald Trump win the presidency that year. And the Democratic National Committee has adopted a far more aggressive posture this time around in order to prevent a repeat of that race.
“Jill Stein is a useful idiot for Russia. After parroting Kremlin talking points and being propped up by bad actors in 2016 she’s at it again,” DNC spokesman Matt Corridoni said in a statement to The Bulwark. “Jill Stein won’t become president, but her spoiler candidacy—that both the GOP and Putin have previously shown interest in—can help decide who wins. A vote for Stein is a vote for Trump.”
The decision to go aggressively at Stein is not risk-free, as it elevates her candidacy rather than treating it as so insignificant that it (and she) should be ignored. But the DNC this cycle has decided to target third-party challengers. And with the most notable of those candidates, Robert Kennedy Jr., having dropped his independent run, the committee is now turning its fire on those remaining in the race.
Stein’s campaign manager, Jason Call, said via email that “the Democratic Party has no respect for actual democracy or the voting public,” calling the attack a “tired and sad commentary on a party that refuses to serve the American people with good public policy.”
Call added:
Every American should have the opportunity to vote for candidates that represent their values. The Green Party forwards popular policy on universal healthcare and climate action, things the Democrats cynically claim to stand for, though failing in action to bring meaningful change. All Democrats do is hamper our efforts to get on ballots so we can speak to the policy Democrats consistently avoid.
According to her website, Stein plans to attend a fundraiser and panel discussion in Tampa after the opening day of the federal trial of three members of the African People’s Socialist Party, also known as the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement. Three of its members, nicknamed the “Uhuru 3,” were indicted in April along with another U.S. citizen and three Russian nationals for allegedly working in a “malign influence campaign” on behalf of the foreign power.
The defendants say they’re innocent and were engaging in free speech when criticizing the U.S. government.
Shortly after the indictment was issued, Stein rallied for the Uhuru 3 along with its leader, Omali Yeshitela, and drew a parallel between the struggle for black liberation and the people of Gaza. Stein was later arrested at a pro-Palestinian rally.
“We’re seeing a desperate empire now. We are seeing a desperate colonialist settler empire whose ways of the world and whose control over the world has been lost,” Stein said as she inveighed against U.S. healthcare, housing, and military policy.
Stein’s critics have long accused her of having affinity for, if not ties to, Russia. They note that she echoed talking points from Russia when it invaded Ukraine in 2021. The Senate Intelligence Committee investigated Stein after she was photographed in 2015 sitting at a table with Putin at a tenth anniversary celebration for Russia Today, the state-run propaganda network (since renamed just “RT”). Call noted that Stein “was cleared by the Senate Intelligence Committee after their investigation of multiple individuals’ supposed ties to Russia.”
Still, the DNC has largely kept its distance from Stein. The closest it came to a criticism was earlier this summer, when the committee’s chair, Jaime Harrison, responded to a Stein tweet, by encouraging her to google “Putin’s Puppet.” The committee, working at the direction of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, was far more focused on Kennedy and fellow independent candidate Cornel West, seeing both as more of a threat to the Democratic ticket.
At the same time, however, Democrats have been working to keep all three (Kennedy, West, and Stein) off the ballot in various states, while Republican allies of Trump were trying to make sure they qualified.
The DNC isn’t the only Democratic entity now going after Stein. On Sunday, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez fired off an Instagram post criticizing both the candidate and her party for only running in presidential elections, where the Green party is more of a spoiler for Democrats.
“If you run for years in a row, and your party has not grown, has not added city council seats, down ballot seats and state electives, that’s bad leadership. And that to me is what’s upsetting,” Ocasio Cortez said, according to Newsweek.