The CNBC Conversation

Wouldn’t vote for Trump or ‘evil’ Clinton: Vivienne Westwood

Why I wouldn’t vote for 'evil' Hillary Clinton: Vivienne Westwood
VIDEO1:2301:23
Why I wouldn’t vote for 'evil' Hillary Clinton: Vivienne Westwood

If world-famous British fashion designer and punk priestess, Dame Vivienne Westwood had the opportunity to vote in the upcoming U.S. election, neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump would get her pick on the ballot.

"To me, Hillary's evil and I think she's a war-mongerer," Westwood told CNBC's Tania Bryer.

"I don't expect the world to change with Hillary Clinton. You know we're all going for climate change. I'm not Pro-Trump. If I would be American, I would not vote for either of them."

"I would not be able to vote for either of them, except if there's a Green (Party) person. I would vote for a Green person."

With less than a month to go until the U.S. presidential election, the tension is mounting over what the outcome will be.

In a recent NBC News / Wall Street Journal poll, Clinton had the support of 46 percent of likely voters, whereas Trump had 37 percent, Libertarian Party's Gary Johnson had 8 percent, and the Green Party's Jill Stein had 2 percent. In a head-to-head race, Clinton outperforms Trump by 10 points.

Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton (L) and Republican nominee Donald Trump walk to their seats during the second presidential debate
RICK WILKING | AFP | Getty Images

In CNBC Conversation's latest episode, when pressed over who she'd vote for, the designer said she wouldn't as politicians were applying a "terrible rotten financial system."

While many know Westwood for her fashion empire, and coming up with the original look for Punk rock in the 1970s, the designer is also an avid environmental activist, having teamed up with Greenpeace and its "Save The Arctic" campaign, along with working with the likes of PETA, renewable energy investment platform "Trillion Fund", and setting up website "Climate Revolution".

"I wouldn't even pick Barack Obama over them either, because the people are applying the terrible rotten financial system — there's no difference between them. If they apply that system which is about war and she's a very, very warmongering person, Hillary Clinton."

"So it's about war and about killing everything on the planet actually through climate change. They don't want their rotten financial system changed. You know so there's no choice between them. You cannot choose. They're all the same."

Expanding the conversation into broader politics, Westwood told CNBC she believed activists needed to try and tell people how the "new world" would look like if society "swapped this terrible financial system for a fair financial system."

"We've got to have a green economy and a green economy is a fair economy. We live in a myth. People believe that somehow the whole of evolution is done for one end result, which is us. And this could even be literally — we might be the very last creatures on the planet, we might have killed everything and ourselves — not straight away because we've still got this green bit left."

Fighting the "rotten financial system" in the UK

This "rotten financial system" is a topic Westwood would also like to bring up with her own Prime Minister, Theresa May.

If she had the opportunity, Westwood said she'd tell May that the leader "could be the most important person that ever trod on this planet" if she could stop applying the current "rotten financial system" and "employ a system that gives equality to people — it's designed to give equality, not to give siphoning off and austerity."

Vivienne Westwood wears a 'Theresa Talk Vivienne' t-shirt when arriving for a celebration of British fashion hosted by British Prime Minister Theresa May
Chris J Ratcliffe | Getty Images News | Getty Images

"She apparently wants to try to help people — she won't be able to unless she starts to attack the money system and you start first of all — you need to bring in a green economy."

"If (Theresa May) wants to be the same as everybody who came before (her, like) David Cameron, Tony Blair. (The politicians are) all the same as soon as one goes, another one comes in. What (the political leaders) all got in common is (they) are all applying this terrible system, which is not only making and everybody poor — even dying from the fumes in the air and all kinds of terrible — war, everything is caused by this system."

"If we can change the rotten financial system, we can change the world."

CNBC Conversation with Dame Vivienne Westwood will air on Thursday 13 October at 10.00 p.m. U.K. time (5.00 p.m. ET).

For more from the CNBC Conversation, click here.