Conservative economist Ben Stein revealed on Wednesday that he was considering voting for Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders because Donald Trump was going to "sink" the Republican Party.
"I went to law school with Ms. Clinton so I've always had a kind of fondness for her, she was always a very nice young woman," Stein told CNN's Carol Costello. "I admire the fact that Bernie Sanders has a single-payer national health plan."
"When I worked for [President Richard Nixon] as a speechwriter, I wrote the message that sent up Mr. Nixon's proposal for single-payer health plan," he recalled. "But I would like to see it be a Republican, I've never voted for a Democrat. But Mr. Trump, I think, is dangerously misinformed. I like him, but he's dangerously misinformed."
Stein said that he also "loved" GOP hopeful Marco Rubio, but thought that the Florida senator was "hanging an albatross around Mr. Trump's neck that doesn't deserve to be there" by insisting that the billionaire had not disavowed the Ku Klux Klan or former Grand Wizard David Duke.
"Mr. Trump definitely did disavow the Ku Klux Klan and to say otherwise is simply not true," Stein insisted. "I like Ted Cruz very much. I don't think he knows very much about economics either."
In 2014, Stein called President Barack Obama "the most racist president there has ever been in America."
He later suggested that the president hated America because he was "part black."
"I don't think there's much question that he does not wish America well. He has a real, strong, hatred of America," Stein said at the time. "Is it because he's part black? I don't know. Is it because his father was mistreated by the British in Kenya? I don't know. We don't know. We just know that in terms of being a forthright, bold leader who takes on our enemies, he's not there, he's missing in action."
