According to Janet Malcolm's contested account in Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice, Stein was a vocal critic of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal.[118][119][120]
Some stress Stein's queer, feminist, pro-immigration, and democratic politics,[121][122] although her statements on immigration need to be seen in context of the time and world events. a 1934 interview published in The New York Times she stated:
That is the reason why I do not approve of the stringent immigration laws in America today. We need the stimulation of new blood. It is best to favor healthy competition. There is no reason why we should not select our immigrants with greater care, nor why we should not bar certain peoples and preserve the color line for instance. But if we shut down on immigration completely we shall become stagnant. The French may not like the competition of foreigners, but they let them in. They accept the challenge and derive the stimulus. I am surprised that there is not more discussion of immigration in the United States than there is. We have got rid of prohibition restrictions, and it seems to me the next thing we should do is to relax the severity of immigration restrictions.[123]
She publicly endorsed General Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War and admired Vichy leader Marshal Philippe Pétain.[118] Some have argued for a more nuanced view of Stein's collaborationist activity, arguing that it was rooted in her wartime predicament and status as a Jew in Nazi-occupied France.[124][125][126][127] Similarly, Stein commented in 1938 on Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky: "There is too much fathering going on just now and there is no doubt about it fathers are depressing."[115]
