Green Party Candidate Jill Stein Rips John Oliver’s ‘Deceptive Attack’
The Jill Stein campaign responded to John Oliver after Sunday’s Last Week Tonight questioned the plausibility of the Green Party’s biggest campaign promise of canceling student debt.
“Coming from someone who made a stunt of buying and canceling medical debt on his show, and who claims to want alternatives to the failed two-party system, this disingenuous attack on the idea of canceling student debt is both puzzling and hypocritical,” Stein’s campaign said in a statement. “It was beyond disappointing to see that our responses were completely ignored. The same tired, misleading attack lines were trotted out, and Oliver chose to misrepresent our campaign on the lone substantive issue that he addressed: our plan to cancel student debt.”
In Sunday’s episode, Oliver said Stein’s plan to eliminate student debt relies on an economic method called quantitative easing, which is essentially the printing of new money. The problem, Oliver said, is that the Federal Reserve doesn’t have the jurisdiction of the president. “It’s basically akin to saying, ‘I’ll make us energy independent by ordering the Post Office to invade Canada,'” Oliver said. “No, Jill. That’s impractical, it’s a terrible idea, and you don’t seem to understand anything about it.”
Stein’s statement countered: “Oliver singled out canceling student debt via the Federal Reserve, implying both that this was our only option and that it would be technically impossible. In reality, experts say that it is technically possible, even if politically difficult, for the Fed to play a role in student debt forgiveness. And Oliver simply ignored the fact that we had other proposals to cancel student debt on the table.”
Stein’s statement concluded: “In Iceland, the bankers who destroyed their economy are in jail. In the USA, they are laughing at us from country clubs and yachts” and that the Green Party would “clean house” if elected. “Don’t waste your vote on this failed two-party system, invest your vote in building a movement for deep systemic change,” Stein’s campaign wrote.
Voters of all political persuasions will find something objectionable in Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson’s positions. Watch here.