Former President Donald Trump has revealed that Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein may be one of his “favorite politicians.”
Trump, the Republican nominee, lavished unlikely praise on Stein, who is far to the left of him politically, during one of his final campaign rallies of the year in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on Monday.
The former president mentioned his supposed fondness for Stein while implausibly claiming that 107,000 supporters attended a recent Trump rally in California and that an unspecified poll shows him with a large lead among Hispanic voters.
Trump then claimed, perhaps jokingly, that Stein’s Green Party was also favored by Hispanics over Democratic nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris, who he referred to as “this woman.”
“I went to went to California, we had a rally, we had 107,000 people show up,” Trump said. “I said, ‘There’s no way we would lose.’ And I do well with Hispanics. A poll just came out, I’m at 56 percent with Hispanics, compared to this woman who is at 36 percent.”
“I think the Green Party got more than she did,” he added. “I love the Green Party. Jill Stein just may be one of my… I’ve never met her but she may be one of my favorite politicians.”
Newsweek reached out for comment to the Trump, Harris and Stein campaigns via email on Monday night.
While it was unclear what poll Trump was referring to on Monday, publicly released polling has shown Harris with a clear lead over Trump among Hispanic voters leading up to Election Day, while Stein has barely registered in any poll.
Stein has often been accused of being a “spoiler” candidate who could help Trump get elected by siphoning votes away from Harris.
In 2016, Stein was also the Green Party nominee and received enough votes in each of the so-called “blue wall” states—Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin—that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would have defeated Trump if Stein voters had voted for her instead.
“Donald Trump knows that Jill Stein is his key to the White House—that’s why he praises her spoiler candidacy and why his MAGA allies are working to prop up her campaign,” Democratic National Committee (DNC) Senior Adviser Adrienne Watson said in a statement emailed to Newsweek.
“The stakes of this election are too high to allow Stein to spoil it,” Watson added. “The DNC will make sure voters know that a vote for anyone other than Vice President Harris is a vote for Trump.”
Trump has also offered praise for independent candidate Cornel West, who is also considered a potential “spoiler,” calling West one of his “favorite candidates” during a Pennsylvania rally in June.
A poll released last month by Noble Predictive Insights surprisingly suggested that Stein’s candidacy could hurt Trump more than Harris this year, with the Green Party candidate seemingly taking away 1 percent of support from Trump in a three-way race.
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