except the republican presidential nomination in 2000 and addresses leadership in america. >> the opportunities are two great. our lives too short to waste this moment. tonight we vow to our nation we will seize this moment of american promise. we will use these good times for >> watch hior convention speeches sat at 7:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span 2. >> the house will be in order. >> c-span celebrates 45 years of covering congress like no other. since 1979, we have been your primary source for capitol hill, providing balanced unfiltered coverage of government, taking you to where the politics are debated and decided with the support of the american cable companies. c-span.

45 years and counting, powered by cable. host: welcome back. we are joined now from boston, massachusetts by joel stein, the green party presidential nominee. welcome to the program. can you delineate for us the major differences between your party and the other option facing voters this november? >> our party is different from the other options. we are a people powered party. we do not take money from corporations and billionaires. we do not use the big loophole that biden, harris, trump, rfk, all the candidates use them at the big loopholes. a single donor can write a check for $1 million. it gets laundered into the campaign, which means that powerful people can exert a lot influence from the inside.

we are the one party which is not taking legalized bribes so we can stand up for what it is people want, for health care for everyone as a human right which is through a system that is more efficient and cuts out the red tape and saves a ton of money while it covers everybody. we can bring down the cost of housing and billed to the housing we actually need, so called social housing. we can make public higher education free and cut the military, the bloated military that is eating up half of our congressional dollars and spending money overseas like in a genocide in palestine. likewise in ukraine, we keep pouring billions and billions into ukraine as well. we are creating these incredible

and explosive situations around the world which are impoverishing us as they gobble up our budget and endangering the whole world. you're the one party that can do the right thing for everyday people because we do not have strings being pulled from inside by bankers and billionaires and all that. host: i am showing a map of the united states with your ballot access. the green is where you will be on the ballot. the lavender caller is awaiting certification, actively petitioning in kentucky and not on the ballot in just a few states. can you review what is going on with your ballot access and what is happening with wisconsin? guest: good news first is we won in wisconsin, so we will be on the ballot. the democrats do not like competition.

it should be called the anti-democratic party because what they try to do is throw their competitors off the ballot because they do not want to face us in the court of public opinion. they are scared because we are offering what their base once. working people are tired of being thrown under the bus, so since we have the agenda that answers the needs of everyday families and communities they try to get us off the ballot and they announced back in the spring they had hired an army of lawyers to throw us off the ballot. that is what they try to do in state after state. so far, we have been winning to be on the ballot because we are the one antiwar, anti-genocide, pro-worker campaign that is on the ballot pretty much across the country with a pathway to the white house. where we stand right now, we are on the ballot for about 80% of

voters and we hope that will be 90% at the end of the day. we are complete in the process. they make it as complicated as possible. they have a system that basically grandfathers in democrats and republicans. if people are hungry for other choices, the democrats especially try to make those other choices impossible. that is the battle going on, but we are fighting because voters want choices, so we are fighting to give a critical choice for the people to every voter across the country. host: an article says third parties were having a moment and then kamala harris showed up. here's a portion of what the article says. the biggest factor was both

caides opened the door to elevated third-party voting, even at aime of record polarization. too harris -- kamala harris's ascension seems to have change this dynamic. can you tell us about the impact of vice president kamala harris during the race on your popularity and your strategy for november? guest: our strategy remains the same. kamala harris, it is like obama mania. obama promised a lot of hope and change and that is the pr campaign that surrounds harris right now. there is a full-court press going on, a propaganda campaign that she is going to meet everybody's needs, but what is there? who knows? she is not putting her foot down to give away what her policies are.

she has more billionaire donors than ever on record. she raised money faster than any candidate on record. if you saw the convention, that ring of corporate suites at the top of the convention tells you where the money is behind the campaign and behind the party. there is money pouring in in bigger quantities than ever so there is every reason to expect that harris will continue in the tradition of joe biden and barack obama, which is they talk the talk like they are going to be for the people but they have a lot of policies similar to republicans when it comes to wall street and the war machine and we are going to see our dollars consumed in endless wars, in profits for health insurance, in big real estate. there is every reason to expect barack obama talks the talk but when he got into office he throughout homeowners.

8 million people lost their homes while he bailed out wall street with public dollars. so there is every indicator that it is going to be the same. she has not done a single interview, has not been in a single debate, has not won a single vote. she did poorly when she ran as a candidate over many years. we really encourage people do not drink the kool-aid here. do not listen to the talk. you have to look at what the walk has been. they walk by the democratic party has shipped millions of jobs overseas. 30 million american workers have lost jobs over the last several decades. some of that is republican policy, but a lot of it is the democrats. the wall street bailouts and the disaster around the mortgage failing of the banks and

throwing out homeowners. host: if you would like to join the conversation with joel stein, you can do so. our lines are republicans (202) 748-8001. democrats, (202) 748-8000. independents, (202) 748-8002. we have a line for green party members. call us on (202) 748-8003. that is the same line you can use for texting us as well. what was your reaction to the news that rfk junior has suspended his campaign and endorsed former president trump? guest: i think it is a shame that democrats basically drove him out, using the same legal tactics against him that they have used against us. i think it is a sad commentary on the anti-democratic party, that they have thrown candidates off the ballot.

i do not see myself in the same camp at all as rfk. he was new and independent politics. i do not think he knew what he was getting into. he is new to politics altogether. he comes from a family of political aristocracy. he has no idea what it means to get in and fight the system for deep change. my problem was while he talked about change and peace he was actually as rabid and violent a pro-war candidate as any, especially in the area of israel and palestine and he supported the genocide and explosive war growing in the middle east now. i saw him as not honest and forthcoming. likewise, he talked about reforming the swamp but he was gobbling up big money.

he had a super pac supported by millionaires and billionaires, so the money was coming from the swamp and you cannot fix the swamp when you are part of it. host: we have a question for you from north carolina aboutns adults and children. i will vote de as they do not seem to take away rights, but i want a party that will actually fight to expand rights and freedoms, not just pander to us for votes. >> the green party and my campaign have always supported trans rights as basic human rights and we stand for ensuring those rights are protected in schools and jobs and housing, that whatever one's sexual

preference or identity people deserve full opportunities, economic, housing, education, and so on. it should have nothing to do with race, religion, gender identity, or sexual preference. host: let's go to en -- ian in maryland, green party. caller: i wanted to say at the outset thank you for making sure that voters have an option beyond the parties of war and wall street in this election. i was proud to vote for you in 2016 and i feel even prouder to support you this year because of the way you have centered palestinian humanity in -- and opposition to genocide in your

campaign and i think the contrast with the democratic party when you look at the convention and their refusal to allow even a palestinian-american democrat to speak at their convention could not be more stark and i wanted to say in closing come out to voters who might be listening, who feel they are sympathetic to what you are supportive from a policy standpoint but worry about so-called throwing their vote away or having their vote be spoiled, i think i would say you will never spoil your vote by voting your values. the only way you will throw your vote away is by making it unconditional in terms of supporting those who reject what you stand for. so thank you, jill. i am with you. host: your response, dr. stein? guest: i really want to thank ian.

i agree completely. i think the democratic convention was shocking, in many ways, to be declaring joy in a genocide and to be holding their ears when the palestinian or anti-genocide members of the democratic delegation were not allowed to speak and they were simply reading the names of some of those who had been murdered. they were reading those names outside. the other delegates were walking around with her hands over their ears. i think it is just shameful and it gets to the core of what is wrong with the democratic party, that it is a party of the war machine and wall street, squandering our dollars and basically knocking out human rights and international law in this genocide. and the fact that they would not allow people to be heard from, let alone agree to a weapons

embargo -- the u.s. has complete autonomy here and can shut down the genocide in a moment because it is u.s. dollars and u.s. military support enabling the whole thing, so it was outrageous for the democrats to just circle their wagons around that, same as republicans. i do not hold him innocent to this process, but democrats used to be an antiwar party. they are not now. you do not want to be talked into voting for genocide and against your own interests. if we do not stand our ground, no one else will. it is not only to stop the genocide but also to ensure those resources from this genocidal war machine are used at home instead for what we need for health care and housing and education and the climate emergency. host: this is on x. i would like to know why dr.

cornell west left the green party and you have to replace him. guest: sometimes in a campaign you take a leap of faith and hope things will work out. it is a very difficult thing, to run with a new party when you have never run with a party before, when you have never run before. to do that, gets to know the party but work with the party at the same time you're running a presidential election and to learn how to do that. it does not always work out and i know the number of debates that dr. west was going to need to do he was not comfortable with. when you are a party, people make demands of you. it is always complicated being on a team. he was more comfortable doing it on his own, but do not take my word for it. it is important to hear dr. west out on this, but we are on good

terms, running on basically the same agenda. i wish we were running on the same ticket and i try to offer that to him. he was not interested. he has a strong and compelling voice and it is important that he be heard in this election. but i knew, having done this before, it is not easy to get on the ballot. the green party had ballot status already and continues to have ballot status across most of the country for the majority of voters so i did not want our issues, namely our opposition to genocide endless war and our support for health care as a human right, i did not want to see that go by the wayside. i wanted every voter to have that choice so we could use the green party to lift up this antiwar agenda. host: let's go to ann, a

democrat in new york. caller: i love your cameo. i am a lifelong cat lady and democrat. while i really resonate with some of your points, i think we have to be realistic. our first priority has to be from -- to keep trump from getting back in. i cannot help but thinking we were a spoiler in 2016 in part brought us trump, which place people on the supreme court that took by the overturn of roe. this could happen again because every vote counts. what do you say to that? guest: first, about the spoiler, that is part of democrat propaganda. polls showed completely as well as talking to people that people who voted green would otherwise not have voted.

what my campaign does is allow people to vote who otherwise do not have a voice in the election. don't they deserve a voice as well? one out of every three voters in 2020 did not vote because they did not like the two parties being rammed down their throat. that is a third of the american electorate. don't they deserve a voice? i think they do. candidates have to earn your vote. they do not own your vote. democrats act like they own votes and every vote for me was taken from them. they did not own those votes. those were largely people who otherwise would not have voted and studies showed if i was not on the ballot the outcome would not have been any different because largely my voters would not have been there at all in the election. they were not taken from hillary. that is the myth of the democrats. the most spoiled election ever for the democrats was 2010.

what happened in 2010? democrats lost a thousand seats in state legislatures, 12 in the senate 12 governorships. were third artist to blame? no. what happened was this was following the wall street bailout where homeowners got thrown out and wall street got trillions. people were angry and what happened was democrats got payback. because people are tired of being thrown under the bus. that is the fundamental problem with the democratic party. it got sold to big donors and has been abandoning working people ever sense. on the question of roe, democrats had decades to codify roe and refused to do that that

should not be blamed on green. that was the democrats' own doing. barack obama and joe biden said that will be the first thing they would do in office and they never did it. basically, democrats -- voters deserve a right to vote. one last point is that if you do not have a right to vote we will never be able to drive the system in the direction we want. if you vote for a lesser people, you're are basically disappearing everything you stand for. support becomes invisible. that is why democrats and republicans keep marching to the right and democrats -- they lifted trump up. that was part of the hillary clinton dnc strategy, the so-called pied piper strategy to lift up the most extremist republican candidate in the hopes that it would be easier to beat him in the general and

turned out it was not but they had elevated him largely through their media connections and continue to do that. democrats continue to fund the most extremist republicans, $50 million in the 2020 election funding candidates for congress and senate who were the most extremist republicans so they win primaries but the democrats are launching the careers of extremist republicans and moving the whole culture to the right. the system is screwed up. democrats do not fix it. their neoliberal agenda of austerity, privatization, endless war, and big tax breaks for the wealthy, that is part of what is driving the rise of the right across the world. in france, we saw what the real solution is. it was the small parties that got together and offered a true

left agenda. that is how they beat right wing extremism. the democratic party will not do that because they are in the hands of their big donors, of billionaires and bankers and big pharma and all that. host: christine in michigan, good morning. caller: i did not hear you except once before, so i did not hear where you stood on vaccines. and the public school. guest: on the question about vaccines is a requirement for school, is that what you are saying? ok. so as a medical doctor i have followed these issues for a while and my feeling is they

change. it depends on what vaccine you are talking about. and what illness you are talking about. i think we have seen where kids can be at risk and schools can be a mode of transition -- of transmission. where schools can be a major mode of transmission, so i think it is legitimate. for there to be a vaccine requirement in schools to prevent spread of diseases that are truly harmful. then again, it is a question of which vaccines. all vaccines are not the same. all of them need to be scrutinized. let me say what i think the biggest issue is, having regulatory agencies which are not owned by big pharma, which do not have the revolving door between industry, between monsanto between big pharma and

the regulatory industries. that applies not only to the fda , it also applies to the faa, the aeronautics administration, the way that boeing bought influence so you have all these unsafe airplanes now related to boeing. the sackler family bought influence around the licensing of opioid drugs, which led to this horrific epidemic now so my solution -- it is hard if you are going to try to follow the science and stay up-to-date on the science. even as a medical doctor, you have to put everything else aside. you have to be a specialist on this one issue and do nothing but follow the science. we want our policies to be consistent with science but we need to get influence peddling

and the culture of influence out from our regulatory agencies and that means we need to shut the revolving door between industry and the fda and so on. and it means we need to get money out of politics because we all pay a huge price now when it is big pharma and health insurance companies calling the shots on policy. so i think we can have an overarching solution that allows us to use the best science and puts it to work for our community's and everyday people. right now, people do not trust government because it has been sold out and because our agencies and politicians have all been sold out. they are basically owned by the highest bidder. that does not make a society that works were a society that we can trust. that is why we have to get big

money out and close the revolving door. those are policies the american people support. host: independent in new jersey. caller: i was listening to dr. stein and i can see she is completely convinced about the third-party dilemma. i will tell you as a citizen that third parties do siphon from one side or the other and that you did help to elect trump, who now overturned roe v. wade and now women all over the country are suffering. how do you feel about that? to say that you are not an asset of the republicans as a third party is crazy because trump just -- rfk junior just conceded from the campaign and endorsed trump.

people should follow the money. he was bought and sold by the republicans. that is why he endorsed trump. from the beginning, he was there to help trump and it turned out he was hurting trump. so this is why he is with trump now. i want you to answer that question about how you feel -- how you can sleep at night knowing that you helped elect donald trump. i hear you talk about gaza and i think i counted about 50 times that you said the word genocide but not one time have you said the word hostage. as a jewish-american, i understand the views, but the jewish people are peaceful people. they withdrew from gaza and that should be an example of what the palestinians would do with their own land.

just like my father said, they are going to make it a launch to attack israel, which they did. guest: maybe you were not on a few minutes ago when we already addressed the issues about spoiling because actually data, if you look at the data and the studies and exit polls show clearly people who voted green in 2016 otherwise would not have voted at all. they would have stayed home and studies show that, had greene's not been in the race, the outcome would have been the same . as i mentioned, the biggest loss for the democrats was in 2010 after barack obama and the democratic house and senate bailed out wall street to the tune of trillions and throughout millions of homeowners.

that, following nafta, made the democratic base angry and that is when you saw people move over to the republican party. to blame this on greene's and third parties is a propaganda campaign because democrats have been sold out and are serving wall street and the war machine. on rfk, he was really not an independent. he was a newcomer to the political process running on a different set of values than our campaign. he had nothing to do with us. i do not know where his money comes from but the money is where it is at and that is why the democratic and republican parties have both been so corrupt. they both run billion-dollar campaigns. if you saw the d&c on tv, you could see this ring of corporate suites at the top who were paying millions of dollars each to sponsor that convention.

this is who the sponsors of the democratic party are. there are more billionaires behind kamala harris' campaign than ever before and they have been raising money hand over fist. that is why we have to get big money out of our political system and get people back in. on gaza, it is not my idea that this is a genocide. this is the opinion of actually just about all countries around the world except the u.s. and israel. this is a genocide and the hostages are a terrible shame. the hostages must be returned. they were returned with there was a cease-fire appearing who is blocking the cease-fire? netanyahu. netanyahu is blocking the cease-fire. netanyahu just assassinated the moderate negotiator on the side of hamas to undermine the possibility of a cease-fire.

he is in the process of try to drag us into a water war now which -- a much wider war now which threatens all of us. not only does israel have nuclear weapons in violation of the nonproliferation treaty but iran is tied to russia, who has nuclear weapons. this could be an explosive situation and nuclear war never stays over there. nuclear war is always global because the explosions, when you see that mushroom cloud, that is basically a conveyor belt for debris going into the upper atmosphere. whenever you have significant nuclear detonations, you get debris in the upper atmosphere, which reduces agricultural production. that is what is called nuclear winter and it can kill us all. our leaders are sponsoring this. it is not just the fault of israel. the u.s. is providing the

weapons and money. i am of jewish background myself. i grew up right after the holocaust, very mindful that genocide should never happen again and responsibility for genocide is not just the perpetrator. it is also the bystander. we cannot allow ourselves to be bystanders. if we want to save israel, which is at risk -- people are leaving israel now. its economy is in tatters. israel is at risk of alienating all his neighbors. all israel and the u.s. have to do is stop the genocide. gaza is fully occupied. it is an open air prison. you do not have to have soldiers to be in control. they allow no water and no food, no medication. they have destroyed hospitals and housing.

it is a disaster zone. it is a nightmare. listen to the health care providers coming back from there. it is hell on earth. it makes any genocide pale by comparison. it needs to be stopped if we want peace in that area of the world and if we want to present -- prevent an explosive war that could consume us all. host: jill from columbus, ohio, democrat. caller: i am not jewish. gaza is a mess. i do not understand why hamas is not surrendering. if hamas would surrender, we would have a cease-fire and get hostages returned. just like in germany, we do not sit there and say, look at the germans being killed. we kept fighting until the nazis surrendered. do you believe in israel's right

to exist? guest: all countries have a right to exist, but not to murder and massacre women and children. hamas has agreed to the cease-fire. joe biden basically had the plan hamas agreed to. the problem is netanyahu and israel has been on a campaign of ethnic cleansing from the get go. that is the problem. if you actually look at the national archive of israel, they are clear there has been a plan for ethnic cleansing and for a zionist take over of the land of palestine, so this is the problem that has to be addressed. hamas has effectively said we are on for the cease-fire and israel has undermined that, so you may want to actually check

out the actual news developments asked one has been happening. democracy now is one good source of information about day by day developments that clarify what is going on in cease-fire negotiations. every time they move forward, israel basically blows them up. netanyahu is a r criminal. host: frederick and colorado asks you this untaxed. what would day one of a stein administration look like? guest: there is a lot of executive authority that could be implement and -- implemented on day one. i would pick up the phone like ronald reagan did when israel had gone into lebanon and was massacring thousands of people in lebanon. ronald reagan picked up the phone and told israel that is over, that the u.s. was not

going to supply weapons if that continued. and it stopped immediately. dwight eisenhower did the same thing in the 1950's. that is what the commander-in-chief needs to do for the u.s.. so the genocidal war is over and the very dangerous war in the middle east is over in the blink of an eye on day one. also on day one, i would declare a climate emergency because we do have a climate emergency, as we see from the growing heat waves and drought. the colorado river is close to shutting down and that supplies half the fruits and vegetables for the country. by declaring a climate emergency , it unleashes over half $1 trillion a year to create jobs.

it should not be jobs versus the environment. we need to make sure every worker involved in fossil fuels has job training and job security while they are transitioning to renewable energy, building public transit, a sustainable agriculture system, and building housing stock that we need, which is environmentally sound. that revives our economy because it will create an actually productive economy. also on day one, we will undertake an antitrust lawsuit against the big corporate media to break it up so we have actually independent media again that is answering to the american people, not to big corporations. and we begin to work for a

medicare for all system that provides health care to everyone . your dental care, mental health care, reproductive health care, which is between you and your physician. we began to do that on day one. that saves us half $1 trillion every year just from eliminating all the bureaucracy and red tape and paper pushing. those are some of the urgent things we would begin. one other thing, we would bring back town hall meetings. your elected officials used to have to meet with you. they do not do that anymore. they are too busy meeting with big donors. they need to be meeting with you so they are representing you, so that is another thing. we will bring back town hall meetings.

basically by shaming any congresspeople not meeting with their elected -- with their communities. we will also bring back congressional hearings as a way to clarify the issues that are critical for the american people that are not covered by the press. host: alex in new york, republican. caller: just a real quick sentence about israel. israel was granted nationhood in 1948. if you are talking peaceful, let's look at 1967. there is a reason they called it the occupied territories. let's get back to dr. stein. i am a third party voter here and i vote for ross perot. i voted for ron paul. while i do not align with dr. stein's views, i will be voting

for jesus christ for president because there are no candidates now that align with my views. the viability of third parties is crazy because the rnc and dnc control everything. we have to get back to a thing where -- how many interviews has mainstream media given to her? rfk was given two tightly controlled -- tightly controlled interviews while running for president and the viability of a third-party is just not profitable because of the control the rnc and dnc have on the process, including primaries. host: you have one minute. guest: we have a tightly controlled media. that is why i will undertake an

antitrust lawsuit to break up the media and to basically adopt a policy. we need a policy whereby candidates who are candidates in good standing are on the ballot in enough states that they could win it, they need to be covered by media. we need to hold debates which are inclusive so the public not only has a right to vote, they have a right to know who they can vote for and where those candidates stand. the public airways need to serve the public, like c-span does, but c-span should not be the only exception. we need to have many venues where people hear about the critical issues and the candidates and their views. host: jill stein, green presidential nominee. she is on the web. >> "washington journal"