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From LeverNews.com — Lever Time is the flagship podcast from the investigative news outlet The Lever. Hosted by award-winning journalist, Oscar-nominated writer, and Bernie Sanders' 2020 speechwriter David Sirota, Lever Time features exclusive reporting from The Lever’s newsroom, high-profile guest interviews, and expert analysis from the sharpest minds in media and politics.
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00:00:09:18 - 00:00:39:00
David Sirota
Hey there. And welcome to Lever Time, the flagship podcast from The Lever, an independent investigative news outlet. As always, I'm your host, David Sirota. On today's show, a very special guest, Marianne Williamson, the bestselling author, the political activist, the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, and now the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate. We discuss her jump in the polls against incumbent President Joe Biden, a jump that seems fueled by young people.
00:00:39:00 - 00:01:04:00
David Sirota
We also talk about the Democratic Party's general hostility towards primary challenges. We talk about her critique of the Biden administration's climate policies, and we discuss the persistence of science denialism in everything from environmental policy to health policy. It was a really wide ranging discussion. This week. Our paid subscribers also get some special bonus segments. Right now on our premium feed.
00:01:04:00 - 00:01:31:07
David Sirota
You can hear the extended portion of last week's interview with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the portion of the discussion where I asked her to describe in detail the influence of money in Congress and how it really works on a day to day level. Also coming up on the premium feed, a discussion with the acclaimed economist Richard Wolff about how progressives should think about the escalating economic tensions between the United States and China.
00:01:31:22 - 00:01:52:09
David Sirota
If you're not already a paying subscriber and you want access to the premium feed, head on over to Lever News.com and become a supporting subscriber that gives you access to the premium podcast feed with extended interviews and those bonus episodes. Plus, as a paid subscriber, you have access to all of the in-depth reporting and investigative journalism that we do here at The Lever.
00:01:52:16 - 00:02:17:11
David Sirota
Just hit the subscribe button at Lever News.com to support the work we do. Also, if you like this podcast, we'd really appreciate your help. Tell your friends and family about lever time. Leave a rating and review on your podcast player. Right now. Independent media will only grow and thrive because of passionate people and word of mouth, and we really need all the help we can get to combat the inane bullshit that is corporate media.
00:02:17:15 - 00:02:21:02
David Sirota
As always, I'm here today with Lever Times producer Jared. What's up? Producer Jared.
00:02:21:17 - 00:02:22:21
Jared Jacang Maher
Hey, David. How you doing?
00:02:23:05 - 00:02:29:18
David Sirota
I'm good. I'm good. We've seen a pretty big jump in our listenership here at Lever time, so I'm pretty psyched about that.
00:02:29:18 - 00:03:04:04
Jared Jacang Maher
The big AOC interview last weekend. And I want to ask you something about that, because it's funny, after we did this interview with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and we first just cut some interesting clips that she had said about statements about Clarence Thomas, and we post that online. And immediately when you saw it on Instagram or Twitter, the comments that were just flooding this short little video clip showed me just how.
00:03:04:17 - 00:03:30:07
Jared Jacang Maher
I don't know if I think that she's polarized, but she just creates a lot of passionate responses out of people. And they were saying just responses all over the place about AOC, about how she was, you know, a sellout or how you were doing softball questions and all of these different responses. And this was for like a one minute clip before we even posted the full interview.
00:03:30:07 - 00:03:39:11
Jared Jacang Maher
People were already making up their minds about what they thought about the interview. And I really hadn't seen something like that from the inside. What did you make of it?
00:03:39:16 - 00:03:58:06
David Sirota
I mean, she's a lightning rod, so people have have strong opinions. And I saw some of the allegations. Oh, you guys did a softball interview. You know, I mean, here's the thing. And I and I tweeted this, and it's something that I learned when I was a radio host here in Denver for five years every day, drivetime radio host.
00:03:59:00 - 00:04:26:21
David Sirota
And it's like, listen, you can ask really tough questions, but you don't have to be an asshole about it just because you're not yelling at somebody. Screaming at them doesn't mean your questions aren't tough. And by the way, it doesn't mean that the listeners have to like the answers from the politician. And part of my job here is to ask tough questions and let the politician respond to them so that the audience can make their own conclusions.
00:04:26:21 - 00:04:49:22
David Sirota
I'm not here to force conclusions down people's throats, so some people love the responses from AOC. Other people didn't like the responses from AOC. We tried to ask the toughest possible questions that our audience gave us when we asked our audience what they wanted to hear. AOC be asked. And so I, I just reject the idea that it was a it was a softball interview.
00:04:49:22 - 00:04:51:11
David Sirota
I mean, that's just a lot of nonsense.
00:04:51:19 - 00:05:10:23
Jared Jacang Maher
What do you think people expect expected out of you with this interview? Because I, I don't think you approached it that much differently than you approach any of your other interviews. Do you think that they that they wanted you to, you know, throw out a bunch of gotcha questions or sort of change you change how you approach these interviews just because it was AOC?
00:05:11:03 - 00:05:30:00
David Sirota
I mean, I think I think people have been taught to believe that a tough interview is when the host becomes a WWE host, like a pro wrestling, a pro wrestling character, just screaming and berating somebody. I just that's just not that's not the way I work. I and I frankly think that's a lot of sound and fury and not a lot of substance.
00:05:30:00 - 00:06:11:08
David Sirota
And I'm more interested in substance. I'm more interested in asking people's tough, substantive questions. And it doesn't mean that they're not tough and substantive. If you're if you're not a total asshole about it or you're not yelling at the person. And so I would encourage people who listen to these interviews to make a distinction between a a pundit or a hot taker screaming into a camera at a guess and not get necessarily confused about how tough something is by the decibel level of the host's voice or how mean they are, how impolite they are.
00:06:11:18 - 00:06:45:05
David Sirota
The toughest questions, in my view, are the questions that are asked in a civil way, but that are unrelenting in their prioritization of facts of in convenient facts. And we asked a lot of those questions. And I think I actually think the interview turned out really great. And again, I want to say to be very clear about when I say what I what I mean by that, what I mean is, is that it turned out great and that I think if people hated her answers, loved her answers, liked them, didn't like them, that's up to the individual listener.
00:06:45:15 - 00:07:12:10
David Sirota
Our job is to ask the questions and elicit responses from a politician that illuminate how they think about things and what they're promising to do about big problems. I'm not here to tell you to like or not like a given politician. I'm not here to tell you to vote one way or the other. That's why I think we got responses all over the spectrum there.
00:07:12:10 - 00:07:31:01
David Sirota
That's why I think a lot of people some people loved it, some people hated it, some people were mad. Some people like that's to my in my view, that's the sign of a mission accomplished on behalf of the media organization, the news organization that held that forum. So I'm thrilled with it. I'm thrilled that it got as much attention.
00:07:31:05 - 00:07:48:11
David Sirota
And I will say one of the things I did agree with her on was, to me, it was the most newsworthy part of it, and it wasn't the part where she said Clarence Thomas should be impeached, although I obviously agree with that. It was the part where she said that Joe Biden's lurch to the right is very dangerous, both politically and on policy.
00:07:48:15 - 00:08:09:03
David Sirota
And I think we need to have more people in government, in politics say that. Now you can you can say, well, she hasn't taken enough serious steps to stop that rightward lurch. You can you can you can make all of those arguments, but and all those arguments if you want to substantiate them. I don't begrudge people for making those arguments at all.
00:08:09:03 - 00:08:30:19
David Sirota
I'm not here to defend one or another politician, but I am here to say I think it was good that she used the opportunity to be very clear about that. And I agree with her. I think Joe Biden's lurch to the right is a significant problem, which of course, is a good segue way to our big interview of this episode of Leave or time.
00:08:30:19 - 00:08:57:20
David Sirota
Our interview this week is with a Democratic candidate for president who was planning to challenge Joe Biden in the 2024 Democratic primary. Up next, our interview with Marianne Williamson. Welcome back to Leisure Time. My guest today is Marianne Williamson. Many people first became aware of Marianne Williamson in 2019 and 2020 when she ran for president in the Democratic primary.
00:08:58:10 - 00:09:27:08
David Sirota
Marianne is known as a spiritual thought leader, a political activist and a bestselling author. The Democratic Party has become notoriously hostile to any primary challengers to incumbents up and down the ticket, and especially the idea of a primary challenge to an incumbent president. So I was really interested in hearing from Marianne about what she expects to face in a primary challenge against a sitting president.
00:09:27:21 - 00:09:53:06
David Sirota
In this interview, we discuss her biggest criticisms of the Biden administration. We discuss a new poll that suggests she has something of a base of support, at least right now, among young people. And we discussed why she believes Democratic voters may break precedent and support an outsider candidate for president who has never held elected office. That's something that Democratic voters have never done.
00:09:53:21 - 00:09:58:00
David Sirota
Here's our interview with Marianne Williamson. Hey, Marianne, how are you doing?
00:09:58:14 - 00:10:00:19
Marianne Williamson
I'm well, thank you. David. Nice to see you.
00:10:01:08 - 00:10:32:09
David Sirota
It's great to see you, too. So you are running for president. You're running in the Democratic primary in 2024. You ran in 2020, in the in the primary. So let's let's start there. What did you learn from the 2020 Democratic primary? What are the two, three, four big takeaways that you learned from that experience that most informs your campaign in 2024?
00:10:32:20 - 00:11:14:02
Marianne Williamson
I learned that the political media industrial complex is even more corrupt and in a way more vicious than I would have feared. And I learned that the voters are even more wonderful than I would have hoped. I learned the real gap that exists between the what I have experienced is the dignity, the decency, the open mindedness, and the basic goodwill that people want to at least aspire to among the voters and a political system that does more to obstruct the expression of that high mindedness than to inspire it.
00:11:14:19 - 00:11:45:03
David Sirota
The Democratic Party seems incredibly hostile to the idea of primaries in general and in particular primaries against incumbents. I've said this before, I'll say it again The hardest thing to do in all of American politics, really at any level, from all the way from city council, all the way up to the presidency, is to successfully challenge an incumbent in a Democratic primary that almost never, ever happens.
00:11:45:07 - 00:12:13:22
David Sirota
It is so incredibly rare, and I've worked on a bunch of primaries, Democratic primaries. I worked for Ned Lamont against Joe Lieberman. I worked for my wife's Democratic primary against an incumbent that was actually successful. One of the very rare ones I've worked for, obviously, for Bernie Sanders in 2020. Now, granted, that wasn't against necessarily a sitting incumbent, but a kind of quasi incumbent in a former vice president.
00:12:14:07 - 00:12:40:14
David Sirota
So knowing that, I would ask you your opinion on why you think that not only is the Democratic Party leadership seems to be so hostile to the idea of a primary, but clearly there's a voting base that looks skeptically upon primary candidates against incumbents. I wonder if you agree with that and why you think that is.
00:12:41:05 - 00:13:06:14
Marianne Williamson
First of all, I do agree with it, although I make a distinction, as you sort of just did, between the Democratic Party and the Democratic establishment leadership, that the latter is clearly hostile and all the ways that you said the Democratic electorate has become deeply codependent in its relationship to the DNC and the Democratic leadership in a way that, number one, you don't see on the Republican side.
00:13:06:19 - 00:13:33:23
Marianne Williamson
And number two, wasn't true when I was growing up, when Eugene McCarthy and Bobby Kennedy said they were going to primary Johnson, nobody said they shouldn't or couldn't or even thought it was odd. Even when Teddy Kennedy said he was going to primary Carter. Nobody thought, Oh, how dare he? So that narrative hadn't been created yet. It's really a reversion to a time 100 years ago when a bunch of men sat around a table smoking their cigars, thinking that they had the right.
00:13:33:23 - 00:13:55:06
Marianne Williamson
They were entitled to determine who the candidate should be, which to me is particularly outrageous because the presumption there is they got this. And if anything has been proven over the last few decades, they don't got this. So the idea that they know better, you know, the idea that we should go, oh, they know better is particularly absurd in today's world, I think.
00:13:55:19 - 00:14:23:05
David Sirota
I mean, right after Bernie Sanders won New Hampshire in 2020. Jeff Bezos, his newspaper, The Washington Post, published a piece with the headline. This is the headline. I'm going to read it to you. It's time to give the elites a bigger say in choosing the president. So and I picked that out because I think it does illustrate that it has been normalized.
00:14:23:21 - 00:14:54:17
David Sirota
This idea that primaries are bad challenges to incumbents or bad the party bosses, if you will, the elites, the political class should choose party nominees. Now, last week we had Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on our show, and I asked her about this hostility to primaries hurt her as somebody who is one of the rare few who has won a Democratic primary against the Democratic incumbent.
00:14:55:01 - 00:15:27:10
David Sirota
She said, as somebody who had won a primary, that she would never speak ill of primaries and essentially thinks the primary process is a healthy one. But I would I would ask you to address the trope that you hear so often, which is to say the trope that says primaries are bad for potential nominees. Primaries weaken a party that the more the party fights with each other in primaries, the more it imperils the party's ability to win a general election.
00:15:27:17 - 00:15:36:13
David Sirota
I'm sure that has been thrown at you. I'm sure it will be thrown at you. What do you say to that argument when a voter or or somebody in the media brings that up?
00:15:37:12 - 00:16:02:12
Marianne Williamson
It's not an argument. It's a narrative created by the DNC and the Biden administration in order to gaslight people. Look, in in 2016, there was certainly a big fight among the Republicans. Right. But Trump won. So this idea that if a lot of people are arguing in the primary that somehow that's going to to make us less capable in winning the general election is ridiculous.
00:16:02:13 - 00:16:30:06
Marianne Williamson
As a matter of fact, I would argue that if the DNC had kept their hands off the scale in 2016, let it just be Hillary or Bernie. Whichever one the voters chose, the Trump would never have become president. So if anything, they the evidence would imply that a primary is a good thing. Among other things, it's democracy. The the the traditional role of the party is to stay out of this until the voters have spoken.
00:16:30:12 - 00:16:54:00
Marianne Williamson
Then once the nominee is chosen, the DNC is supposed to come in there and do everything they can to support the nominee in the general election. So this is a recently formulated power grab on the part of the Democratic establishment elite and the DNC. And now, of course, they're their decision. They have decided they. It's so interesting because these people would would have us believe that they're the great protectors of democracy.
00:16:54:00 - 00:17:17:21
Marianne Williamson
And yet in this particular situation, how worried they are of the actual democratic process. So they would have us clear the field so that Biden is just the one we all go with because they say so as though we're not even supposed to have an intelligible conversation among ourselves about whether or not he's the best person to win in 2024.
00:17:18:01 - 00:17:29:03
Marianne Williamson
We're not even supposed to have the conversation. So as much as someone like AOC might say, I would never put down a primary. They're passive. All those people are passively putting down a primary by keeping their mouth shut.
00:17:29:11 - 00:17:58:12
David Sirota
Well, I also think the argument that primaries weaken general election nominees. I mean, you mentioned some past examples about on the other side on Don Donald, on the Republican side, Donald Trump. But the 2008 primary was one of the most vicious Democratic primaries in the party's modern history between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. And Barack Obama emerged, in my view, as a stronger nominee because he was battle tested.
00:17:58:14 - 00:18:16:07
Marianne Williamson
And he said that himself. That's exactly right. Number one, he he admitted that. And number two, the whole country got to see who he was because of that experience. Absolutely. So the narrative is, is it's nothing but PR. That's all that that narrative is. It's not it's not an in good faith argument.
00:18:16:21 - 00:18:44:08
David Sirota
I agree. I am somebody who thinks that primaries make candidates stronger. I have been dismayed by again, I'm not surprised by the party establishment and the party elites hostility to primaries. They are invested in the current power structure as it stands right now, a power structure that doesn't want to be challenged in intraparty primaries. I'm not surprised by that.
00:18:44:15 - 00:19:13:19
David Sirota
I'm more dismayed, maybe not surprised, but dismayed by how that thinking has become more pervasive among rank and file Democratic activists and Democratic voters. It's it's troubling because to me, in my view, it's the voters and the activists job in part to demand more of of these parties, both of the of the major parties, all of the parties that exist.
00:19:13:23 - 00:19:34:22
David Sirota
And I think there's kind of a subservient role now or at least a a subservient psychology among a lot of liberals that says our job is to serve the party. It's not the party's job to serve us. Now, I do want to turn to Joe Biden specifically. There's a new poll out and we're going to go through a couple of pieces of polling data.
00:19:35:11 - 00:19:58:22
David Sirota
There's a new poll out this week that says just a third of American voters say that President Biden deserves to be reelected and a majority in his own party say they would like to see somebody else as the Democratic presidential nominee in 2024. Why do you think that is?
00:20:00:15 - 00:20:25:01
Marianne Williamson
For obvious reasons. I think a lot of people and that that poll also shows us are grateful to the president for many things. He defeated Trump in 2020. He's done some things better than some people would have thought. But many people feel thank you. Thank you for your service and what you've done. But in moving forward, we can do better and we must do better because the 24 election is going to be very different than the 2020 election.
00:20:25:06 - 00:20:45:15
Marianne Williamson
They're going to be coming at us with some very big losses. And the only way we're going to defeat those big lies is with some very big truths. Those big truths have to do with a deeper analysis of what's going on in this country where we are as a country. Then the Democratic establishment wants to have because it has to do with the undue influence of corporate money on our system.
00:20:45:20 - 00:21:12:00
Marianne Williamson
It has to do with the kind of corporate tyranny that not only holds our government in its grip, but definitely the people of the United States and its grip. The only way we're going to beat the Republicans in 2024 is with a genuine economic alternative, a genuine fundamental course correction, and a U-turn that actually admits the citizens of the of the political system across the board and commits to a season of change and repair.
00:21:12:15 - 00:21:45:02
David Sirota
So you mentioned corporate influence over the government writ large. I presume that includes, in your analysis, the Biden administration. I want to ask you to be specific about that, and I want to offer some some context for why I'm asking that. When I was working for Bernie Sanders in 2020, Zephyr Teachout, one of Bernie Sanders supporters, published an op ed in the middle of the campaign.
00:21:45:02 - 00:22:25:19
David Sirota
She was a supporter of Bernie, saying that Joe Biden has a corruption problem, and she listed out a number of places in which he had served. His donors, including one of the most prominent ones, was the credit card industry, the financial industry, in pushing, for instance, the horrible bankruptcy bill that crushed a lot of working class people. And I bring this up because when she published this and said he has a corruption problem, it became an enormous controversy in a kind of how dare you sort of way that that that that the allegation was portrayed as so outrageous and out of bounds as and ultimately Bernie Sanders apologized for it.
00:22:25:20 - 00:22:52:04
David Sirota
Now, I was horrified and dismayed at the entire apology. I thought this is the kind of discussion that should be had in Democratic primary money, went into Joe Biden and policy came out. And I don't even understand why that's controversial to say. So I want to ask you to be specific about where you think corporate influence has been most most pervasive and intense in the policies of the Biden administration.
00:22:52:09 - 00:22:59:21
David Sirota
And what you might say to folks who who who would say that making such allegations is out of line.
00:23:00:17 - 00:23:32:00
Marianne Williamson
Out of line. I love that I'm an American. It's a Democratic partisan. I'll be telling a Democratic voter what's, quote unquote, out of line. That's really there's that codependent relationship right there. First of all, the obvious the most obvious one is the Willow Project. The president had said that there would be no further drilling on public lands. The president had said that he recognizes that climate change is the existential threat to the human race, and yet he has provided more permits for oil drilling than even Trump did.
00:23:32:00 - 00:23:54:23
Marianne Williamson
And of course, the Willow Project, $8 billion to ConocoPhillips so that they can extract fossil fuels on the North Slope of Alaska. That's the most obvious one at the moment. When it came time for a labor Joe, to show that he really meant it when it came to the railroad workers and their struggle with their bosses, when really at that time all they were asking was for sick pay.
00:23:55:13 - 00:24:26:02
Marianne Williamson
He came down on the side of the bosses. He had said that there would be a $15,000,015 an hour minimum wage, which is should be the minimum that we're even considering. Once the parliamentarian said that it couldn't make it into the bill, he's certainly found it convenient to hide behind her skirts. And even though they cut in half the child poverty rate with their child tax credit, when that expired six months later, they didn't get around to permanently raising it.
00:24:26:03 - 00:24:54:05
Marianne Williamson
In other words, they in the final analysis, more often than not, come down on the side of business. Now, this is how I see Biden. The way I see Biden related to these things is how I see all the corporate Democrats. They try their best to have it both ways. They do see the pain and they are interested in and will make efforts to ameliorate the stress that people are experiencing as long as it doesn't challenge that underlying corporate profit.
00:24:54:10 - 00:25:05:20
Marianne Williamson
Bottom line, that always inevitably makes the return of that pain inevitable. They'll alleviate stress, but they will not stand for genuine, fundamental economic reform. And I do.
00:25:06:20 - 00:25:35:16
David Sirota
So let's go a little bit deeper on that, because it's a topic that I have been reporting on for a very long time, and I think you articulated it there quite explicitly and quite articulately. There is an underlying theory in the corporate wing of the Democratic Party. Let's be very precise about this. Their ideology, I mean, you could look at it and say their ideology is just corruption.
00:25:35:16 - 00:26:12:20
David Sirota
Everything is just a is just a patina for corruption. But taking them at their at their word on some of the policies, for instance, that you mentioned, if you take that as an ideology, there does seem to be a theory that we can solve major problems, major economic problems, and also preserve the economic status quo, that we can help millions and millions of people and the rising tide can lift all boats and there can also be yachts as well.
00:26:13:12 - 00:26:50:08
David Sirota
I don't believe that that's true. I believe there is a which side are you on question that in order for millions of people to, for instance, have decent health care, you cannot have health care billionaires. Those two things cannot exist together. I wonder if you agree. And I would also ask you whether you think that really is their theory, whether that really is their principled ideology or whether you do think it is just essentially a cover for corruption.
00:26:51:02 - 00:27:17:13
Marianne Williamson
I think that many of those people are so buffered emotionally from the ravages of human suffering that is on the other side of the gates that they live behind, that they don't honestly recognize what it means that 18 million Americans cannot afford to fulfill the prescriptions that their doctors give them. They they clearly don't recognize what it means that 68,000 people die in this country every year from lack of health care.
00:27:17:17 - 00:27:38:08
Marianne Williamson
They don't understand what it means, really on an emotional, visceral level that 80, 65% of 85% of Americans are underinsured or uninsured. That one in 4 million that one in four Americans live with medical debt, that Americans are out there rationing their insulin because they're not hungry and they have decent health care.
00:27:38:08 - 00:28:08:23
David Sirota
Let's flip this around a little bit. There are some folks who say, look, compared to the past two Democratic presidents, Joe Biden represents a significant policy step forward. They look at as an example, they look at Bill Clinton deregulating Wall Street, Bill Clinton's welfare cuts, by the way, FII things that Joe Biden himself supported. So let's just put that as a not too small asterisk.
00:28:10:01 - 00:28:41:14
David Sirota
They look at Barack Obama essentially using the health care reform debate to prop up the health insurance industry, using the Wall Street crisis to bail out and prop up Wall Street. They look at all of that and then see Joe Biden and they see somebody who has appointed people who are more affiliated with organized labor. They look at, for instance, the American rescue plan as something so much better than the bank bailouts.
00:28:41:14 - 00:29:03:00
David Sirota
And I just want to be clear on my position here. I mean, I think the American rescue plan was a terrific thing. I think it actually was the best thing that's happened as a as a piece of legislation that I can remember in my entire lifetime. And they say they look at that and they say, well, Joe Biden is the best president that we've the Democratic president in a long time, and so we should reelect him.
00:29:03:01 - 00:29:03:19
David Sirota
What do you say to that?
00:29:04:04 - 00:29:23:07
Marianne Williamson
So the American rescue plan was good, but its effects are no longer here. Build back. Better plan would have been good. But basically what you're saying is that they have given cookies as opposed to crumbs. And what I'm saying is that you can't live on cookies either. We shouldn't be comparing this to what a Democratic president did ten or 20 years ago.
00:29:23:11 - 00:29:49:07
Marianne Williamson
We should be comparing it to every other advanced democracy in the world. Every other advanced democracy in the world has universal health care. Every other advanced democracy in the world has tuition free college, which we had until the 1960s. And when I was growing up, Blue Cross Blue Shield was a was a nonprofit. Every other advanced democracy in the world has free childcare and has paid family leave and sick pay and a guaranteed living wage.
00:29:49:12 - 00:30:13:01
Marianne Williamson
That inside the Beltway conversation you're having. Doesn't mean anything to the to the average American voter. And even that staying within the confines of that conversation is staying within this bubble with which Democrats lose. And out of which Americans are always so shocked when they lost because they don't realize that none of it has anything to do with the visceral experience of the majority of Americans.
00:30:13:06 - 00:30:33:10
Marianne Williamson
If you're among the 20% of Americans for whom the economy is doing fine, then a lot of those things that you just said matter. The point is 20% is like an enchanted economic island surrounded by a vast sea of economic despair. That is what Bernie spoke to. That is what Trump spoke to, although in Bernie's case, he actually meant it.
00:30:33:17 - 00:31:00:11
Marianne Williamson
But this other stuff of the conversation that you're mentioning that the corporate Democrats are having, it's losing. It doesn't mean anything. In fact, it infuriates for good reason on some level. The the average American who is struggling and who is really resentful that those kind of a seat arguments are made to keep them from being able to simply survive and to feed their children and to have a decent wage and to get health care.
00:31:01:09 - 00:31:21:22
David Sirota
I guess I was going to ask you a question about some of the current polls. But but before I do, just to put a put a final point on this on this part of the conversation. The other argument that you hear all the time is, well, listen, okay, Maryann, you're right. Joe Biden hasn't done X, hasn't done Y, hasn't done Z and has done.
00:31:22:06 - 00:31:54:18
David Sirota
ABC, The BFG, all this bad stuff over here. But he really wants to do all of this good stuff. The problem is, is that they only have 5051 senators and there's always Joe Manchin and and cinema and whoever the rotating villain is. And that Joe Biden's really trying to do the right thing and that that people who say that he hasn't done what needs to be done are unsophisticated in their understanding of what the politically possible is.
00:31:54:20 - 00:31:55:19
David Sirota
How do you respond to that?
00:31:56:10 - 00:32:19:11
Marianne Williamson
I respond as a woman. And when a man is cheating on you and keeps cheating on you and kids cheating on you, but then every two or four years comes back and says, all baby, come on, give me one more chance. At a certain point, the woman says, No, no, no. There's always an excuse with those people. Can you imagine the Republicans hiding behind the skirts of the parliamentarian when they really wanted to get something done?
00:32:19:17 - 00:32:36:06
Marianne Williamson
It's true that they will abuse their power, but the Democrats won't even use it. They're mealy mouthed and they'll always come up with an excuse. There are plenty of executive orders that the president could have, could have effectuated. And more than anything, the president could have used the bully pulpit in ways that he has refused to do. So you're right.
00:32:36:06 - 00:32:48:16
Marianne Williamson
He has made some appointments, like with the NLRB, with labor. But still, when it comes to that bottom line, he stays on this side of fundamental economic reform. That's all we need to know and that's what we should be discussing.
00:32:50:05 - 00:33:14:08
David Sirota
Do you think that he has recently tacked to the right or do you think I mean, it's kind of a philosophical question, but there have been a series of things that he's done. I mean, the breaking the rail strike, the Willow Project, there was an immigration issue. There's an argument. There's some folks saying out there that this this represents a a deliberate decision to move to the right in advance of the election.
00:33:14:08 - 00:33:35:02
David Sirota
Actually, to go back to our AOC interview, she said, this is extremely dangerous. It's not only bad on policy, it's politically dangerous. But there are other folks who said this is this isn't a tack to the right. This is who Joe Biden has been and always has been. And this is not any kind of change. I'm just I'm just curious, do you think he's trying to move to the right deliberately or is this just an expression of what the administration is?
00:33:36:06 - 00:33:54:23
Marianne Williamson
I don't care. You know, it appears that since Ron Klain left there is this move to the right. Some of them have actually said not as an interpretation, but as an actual statement of the will of the campaign. They're going to move towards this mythical center where they think they're going to get more independence. It seems that the establishment Democrats are intent on shrinking their base.
00:33:55:05 - 00:34:13:06
Marianne Williamson
They treat progressives like we're unruly children who should sit down and just let the the the adults who clearly know what they're doing run this thing. So what the psychology is, you know, he's a nice man. George Bush was a nice man. Talk to the people in Iraq, Generation and lost generations, murdered souls. Ask them how nice he is.
00:34:13:12 - 00:34:35:00
Marianne Williamson
So this conversation of who's nice really has the best of intentions. You know, the Democrats do Republicans. The Democrats do this all the time. If a Republican does it, we scream bloody murder. If an Obama does it or Biden does it, Oh, poor baby. He really wanted to get it done. Even in situations and cases where there's no evidence whatsoever that he even tried.
00:34:35:08 - 00:34:38:01
Marianne Williamson
We have got to stop making excuses for these guys.
00:34:38:17 - 00:35:02:06
David Sirota
I want to get to this to the horse race polls. So there have been some polls about the 2024 race, but a lot of these polls don't even mention you. So let's turn a little bit to the to the media here for a second, because that's not necessarily a Joe Biden thing. That's a kind of how the media treats different kinds of candidates.
00:35:02:06 - 00:35:17:16
David Sirota
And, you know, in these polls, it's Bernie Sanders. It's a michelle Obama. Pete Boodhoo, Judge Elizabeth Warren, all these people are listed in these polls. But you are in a lot of these polls noticeably absent. Why do you think that is?
00:35:18:06 - 00:35:37:17
Marianne Williamson
Oh, gee, I can't figure it out. Come on, let's be real. Somebody is wrinkled now. The FiveThirtyEight, there's a FiveThirtyEight A-rated poll that came out last week that put me at 10% in some of these polls. You're right. I'm not even mentioned. What do you think that says? Hello? One of the things I mentioned earlier is a political media industrial complex.
00:35:37:22 - 00:35:58:06
Marianne Williamson
I saw how this works. I saw how it worked in 2020. These guys are married. There's an unholy alliance there. And there's one side of the mainstream media that takes its directions from the RNC, and there's another side of the political media that the mainstream media that clearly takes its directions from the DNC. This is no, this should not be a surprise to anyone at this point.
00:35:58:13 - 00:36:02:18
Marianne Williamson
What does surprise me sometimes is some of the people who fall for that.
00:36:03:19 - 00:36:32:03
David Sirota
I want to go a little bit deeper into the into the numbers about your candidacy. Just to go back to the poll that you mentioned, 10% overall of likely Democratic voters saying they'd probably or definitely back you. This is a poll by Echelon Insights, and I believe this poll showed that a stronger contingent of support when you dig down into the numbers is among people below the age of 30.
00:36:32:03 - 00:36:47:03
David Sirota
So let's talk about that for a little bit. I want to hear you explain why you think younger people may be more interested in your in a candidacy like yours than necessarily older people.
00:36:47:15 - 00:37:11:11
Marianne Williamson
Well, because they're not even 20th century creatures. A Gen Z person wasn't even born in the 20th century, or if they were born there, they just hung out for a few years while they were babies. They see no reason why they should live with the effect of bad ideas left over from the 20th century. They also have no nostalgia for a time as I do, as I think you do for a time when you have what the Democratic Party really did show up.
00:37:11:16 - 00:37:31:11
Marianne Williamson
In their experience, the Democratic Party hasn't really shown up for them any more than the Republicans have. So they don't they're they're open. I've noticed this. And part of my making the decision whether or not to even run entailed a college tour. I went to eight colleges and universities. I wanted to check it out. I wanted to hear from these people.
00:37:31:11 - 00:37:59:05
Marianne Williamson
And I saw, oh, they're not tied to any of that neoliberal bias. They're not tied to any of that manipulated narrative of how we really should support the Democratic Party, because the Democratic Party has supported them. But they're not stupid. They hear, you know, when I when you talk about FDR, when you talk about the New Deal, when you talk about the very idea that the party has been at times and still could be a real advocate for the working people of the United States, they're not stupid.
00:37:59:06 - 00:38:23:20
Marianne Williamson
They hear that. So, yeah, I mean, people tell me every day you're blowing up on tick tock. My teenager, my 20 year old called me and says, you know her. I mean, it's pretty funny. And yeah, on that poll, it says 21%. That's why my numbers are with people under 30. So I do understand why, because in many ways they represent a similar mentality to what I and my generation had when I was there.
00:38:23:20 - 00:38:39:02
Marianne Williamson
Right. So know some generations are like a perfect third on the piano. I always say, old people hear me, young people hear me, the people in the middle, which I look at a lot of guys, which I go away, but the young ones and the old ones, I they hear me. They get it.
00:38:39:11 - 00:39:25:13
David Sirota
Let's talk about experience here for a second. Donald Trump, the first president, the person to become the president after not holding elected office, I think in history, although I'm I think it goes I'm not sure that's true back in the 18th and 19th century, but in the modern history. And I want to I want to take seriously the notion that especially on the Democratic side, there's a lot of evidence that Democratic voters, even more than Republican voters, like to or are more willing to support candidates for higher and higher office who have held office before now.
00:39:25:21 - 00:39:55:15
David Sirota
Maybe some of that is credential ism. Maybe some of that is people want to elect people to Democratic voters want to elect people to higher office who they feel have experience in government. So with all of that as context, you have not held an elected office. What is your response to those who would say, listen, we should be interested in people who have experience in running pieces of the government if we're electing a president.
00:39:55:16 - 00:39:56:15
David Sirota
How do you respond to that?
00:39:57:03 - 00:40:14:08
Marianne Williamson
First of all, it displays a great naivete about what you think those people do all day, including how much time they spend on the phone raising money. That's number one. Number two, I think it's very interesting what the Constitution says related to this. The Constitution says that in order to be president, you have to have lived here for 14 years.
00:40:14:13 - 00:40:35:02
Marianne Williamson
You have to be 35 years or older and you have to have been born here. Now, if the founders had wanted to say you had to have had elected office, then they would have. But they didn't. And I think they did didn't for a reason. They were leaving it to every generation to determine for itself. What do you think are the skill sets required to lead us through the challenges of a particular moment?
00:40:35:11 - 00:41:02:13
Marianne Williamson
I don't think the problem with Donald Trump was his lack of governmental experience. It was his lack of ethics, his lack of character. He was a very effective president in all the terrible and some very, very terrible ways. But if he had been a different person and he had wanted to bring people around him or instead of someone like a Stephen Miller or Sebastian Gorka or whatever, he had brought a different kind of person around him, then it would have been a completely different story.
00:41:02:21 - 00:41:30:10
Marianne Williamson
The idea that you're that you're repeating here is the idea that only people whose careers have been entrenched for years within the system, that is the car that drove us into the ditch should possibly be considered qualified to lead us out of the ditch. So I don't think that we need somebody qualified to perpetuate that system. We need somebody qualified to disrupt that system.
00:41:30:13 - 00:41:49:06
Marianne Williamson
And that is one of the things that I feel that I do bring. Washington, D.C. as you well know, David, is filled with political car mechanics. And there are some very good political car mechanics in Washington, D.C. And I would bring them into my administration. But the problem is not that we don't have good political car mechanics. The problem is we're on the wrong road.
00:41:49:22 - 00:42:15:00
Marianne Williamson
We're six inches from the cliff in terms of the state of, our democracy, in terms of the state of our economy, in terms of the state of our environment. What are those people so self-satisfied over? What are they so self-congratulatory about? On what basis do they say it has to be one of us? Have we not given them enough, enough, enough experience and enough enough of our nation's history that at some point we to say, you know what, guys, we need to intervene.
00:42:15:05 - 00:42:31:08
Marianne Williamson
You are the status quo. The status quo is not going to disrupt itself. You have us on a self-defeating, self-destructive trajectory to the point where we could actually destroy the habitability of this of this planet within 100 years. We, the people will take it from here. That's what needs to be said now.
00:42:31:10 - 00:42:45:08
David Sirota
But I would I would ask you this question about the system itself. Are you arguing that everything everybody in the system, by virtue of being in it, is part of the problem?
00:42:46:03 - 00:43:09:12
Marianne Williamson
No, I don't believe that. I don't believe that about Bernie. I don't believe that about quite a few of the progressives. You know, Rashida Tlaib was talking the other day about Julian Assange. It took a long time for one of them to mention him, but she did. I know there are progressives that. And sometimes, hey, listen, sometimes I agree with something that a corporate Democrat might do.
00:43:09:12 - 00:43:31:22
Marianne Williamson
It's not black and white, but what is black and white is where we find ourselves as a democracy, where we find ourselves in terms of the habitability of the planet. You know, everywhere I go and this was true in 2020, and it's even more startling results now, I will go into a room full of voters and I will say we're going to something.
00:43:31:22 - 00:43:56:04
Marianne Williamson
I'm going to ask you to raise your hand if something applies to you, and then I'm going to ask you, please, of your raise your hand, keep it up, because I want everybody to be able to look around the room. Now, I have done this all around the country, and this is my question. Have you heard a young person say or are you a young person who has ever said these words, Under normal circumstances, I would be considering having children.
00:43:57:07 - 00:44:26:01
Marianne Williamson
But given the state of the world, particularly the environment today, I'm thinking that's not a responsible thing to do. And I am shocked everywhere I go by the number of hands that are listed. And I ask everybody to just look around the room and I point out what we all know. This is not normal. We're like frogs in the in the in the boiling water at this point.
00:44:26:10 - 00:44:44:06
Marianne Williamson
So I don't I don't really let historians 100 years from now do all this deep diving into the weeds analysis about who got it kind of right and how it really happened. It really did it just start with Reagan or, I don't know, maybe it started with some of the austerity of Carter. I don't care. I don't know.
00:44:44:06 - 00:44:58:09
Marianne Williamson
All I know is the house is burning and it is not negative to yell fire if in fact the house is burning down. Who did the arson? How the fire started is not as important, is that we save the house of our democracy because right now it is on fire.
00:44:58:15 - 00:45:31:17
David Sirota
I want to ask a question about science. You've mentioned climate a bunch. The obviously, I feel very strongly about climate. I feel like the discourse over science, especially in COVID, has become extremely scrambled and at times very, very toxic. You've talked in the past about vaccines. I think there's some skepticism, obviously, in various quarters of the country across the political spectrum by the way, skepticism of big pharma.
00:45:31:22 - 00:46:07:09
David Sirota
But I also worry that skepticism of whether it's a government agency or the pharmaceutical industry as an example, that that healthy skepticism can tip over into science denialism. Where do you come down on the entire, I guess, debate over vaccines and their efficacy specifically? And and how do you think about the the balance between trust but verify that kind of skepticism and tipping over into science denialism?
00:46:07:23 - 00:46:28:11
Marianne Williamson
First of all, healthy skepticism, as you said, is, I think, a part of right citizenship. But you're right, it can't just be blanket skepticism. It should be healthy skepticism. Now, contrary to popular belief, no, I have not said a word about vaccines. What I said and this was before COVID, I said something about mandates and having a problem with mandates.
00:46:28:21 - 00:46:49:20
Marianne Williamson
I have spoken at various times, and I think it's naive not to suggest that there are some places when it comes to the behavior of big Pharma where clearly there is predatory behavior. I haven't spoken about that specifically in terms of vaccines. I have spoken about it in general. And after the opioid crisis, Purdue Pharmacy, the Sackler Family 500,000 opioid overdoses.
00:46:50:00 - 00:47:14:17
Marianne Williamson
What are we talking about? Pretending that there's not something to look at there? So I think that it is very dangerous. And we are at that point where people are not trusting the institutions that we should be able to rely upon. I heard a doctor, my own doctor, who said at one point he was talking about something and he said, well, normally I would just look to see what the CDC has to say, but at this point, I don't even bother.
00:47:15:02 - 00:47:53:20
Marianne Williamson
That's dangerous. But that's not just people's fault. That's that there are too many situations from our government to our health organizations to to to such things as big pharma, which is the problem, of course, with the health with a profit based health care system, right. Where people you can't blame people who ask legitimate questions. And then later, you know, it's like too many times the government and some of these institutions have cried wolf so many times have said they have have have suppressed legitimate questioning, that when the time came that we really needed to listen to some of these people, people didn't even want to hear them.
00:47:54:03 - 00:48:23:17
Marianne Williamson
So everybody has something to look out there, including the guardians of these huge institutions who at this point are going to have to get the trust of the people back. That's what something I'm talking about in this campaign. It's very, very dangerous when you have the guardians of the public trust. They come year after year after year, decade after decade for the for in order to keep power, in order to gain power, in order to keep money, in order to gain power, become so untrustworthy.
00:48:23:22 - 00:48:28:19
Marianne Williamson
And so much of the chaos that we're experiencing our society today is because of that.
00:48:29:03 - 00:49:10:22
David Sirota
Yeah, I mean, the vaccine discussion drives me crazy in this way, which is that I think I mean, I don't presume good faith in most instances, especially not with Big pharma, but when it comes to places, agencies like the CDC, rank and file people working there, I feel like there must be a thought process that says, listen, if we acknowledge any any questions, if we acknowledge that a vaccine isn't 100% perfect with zero side effects, if we acknowledged any of those truths, it will be seized upon by dishonest opportunists to sow doubt, which is bad for mass public health.
00:49:11:04 - 00:49:34:13
David Sirota
And I mean, I know from I have physicians in my family there are there are almost no medicines that have no side effects or no or no risks. So my point is in saying that I do think that rank and file folks who are trying to do the right thing in an agency like the CDC are probably calibrating well.
00:49:34:13 - 00:49:49:08
David Sirota
If we acknowledge any of the truths at the margins or the truths of the risks, we will open it up to a kind of a wave of confusing information which will harm the. And now I think that infantilize is the public.
00:49:49:11 - 00:50:12:03
Marianne Williamson
That's exactly what I was going to say. It doesn't centralize the public and it creates it does more to create skepticism and to sow doubt. And I think when you were talking about the rank and file people working at such institutions, I think across the board that's true. The rank and file person working in any of those institutions goes to work, wanting to do the right thing and wanting in their own way to serve the public good.
00:50:12:06 - 00:50:28:17
Marianne Williamson
There's no doubt to me about that. But I you know, my father used to always say, talk to the smartest person on the jury. And this dumbing down of the American public, acting like we're dumb and talking to us like we're seventh graders is what has created a lot of this infantile behavior on the part of people.
00:50:29:09 - 00:50:40:01
David Sirota
Marianne Williamson is a Democratic candidate for president in 2024. You can find her website at Marion. 2024 dot com. Marianne, it's really great to talk to you. Thank you so much for taking time with us today.
00:50:40:11 - 00:50:42:16
Marianne Williamson
Thank you. Thank you so much, David.
00:50:43:04 - 00:51:05:18
David Sirota
That's it for today's show. As a reminder, our paid subscribers who get leaver time premium, you get to hear our bonus segment coming up this week with economist Richard Wolff. It's a fascinating discussion on how he thinks progressives should think about the rising economic tensions between the United States and China. Listeners can subscribe to lever time premium by heading over to Lever News.com.
00:51:05:23 - 00:51:32:18
David Sirota
When you subscribe, you also get access to all of the Levers website, our weekly newsletters and our live events. And that's all for the criminally low price of just eight bucks a month or 70 bucks for the year. One last favor. Please be sure to like, subscribe and write a review for lever time on the podcast app You are listening to this podcast on right now and make sure to head over to our News.com and check out all of the incredible reporting our team has been doing.
00:51:33:04 - 00:51:54:08
David Sirota
Until next time. I'm David Sirota. Rock the Boat. The Lever Time podcast is a production of the Lever and the Lever Podcast Network. It's hosted by me David Sirota. Our lead producer is Jared Jacang Maher, and our editor is Denis Golan. You can find all of our past episodes at the Lever Time podcast or on of the major podcast players.