Matt Connarton Unleashed: Marianne Williamson

Very good. I'm going to actually move this camera over a little bit too, because we're also online. Mary Anne Williamson is here and I've got your mic up. Welcome to the show. Thank you, thank you. It's wonderful to meet you. This is the first time we've met. Thank you. I've obviously I've been aware of you for for a long time, because you know you're running for president of course in twenty twenty. And you sound out of breath. Where were running again, that we're late? Yeah, we were sort of running.

I'm so smart. No, No, it's okay. No, it's like I was saying, Okay, that's okay. I know that you know when you're I mean, you're probably doing a lot of appearances. We are the first in the nation primary in theory. Well you know that DNC cannot strip you of your significance. Well that's one of the things I wanted to ask you about today. Actually, yeah, yeah, and also too before we really get going on that, and I want to talk to you about issues too, but I also want to talk to you about your experience with the DNC.

But if you have any questions or anything at all for Marianne, the studio line is open six zo three two five zero six z seven six three two five zero six zero seven, And of course you can always ask questions in the chat room as well. We have a very busy chat room. But yeah, I saw you on The Young Turks with Jak and Anna, and you were talking quite a bit about some of the ways that they I don't know how much you blame the DNC or the Biden campaign or both if it's all kind of the same, but it sounds like they've really kind of tried to sabotage you.

Yeah. Yes, I early on after I had announced, I heard some pundits say, well, we should just pretend she's not there, and I thought, well, they're not going to be able to do that, But that's exactly been the tactic, you know, So I'm not on you know, it's pretty astonishing actually, someone who is a declared candidate. You you know, you're not on CNN, you're not on MSNBC, So you really see that those stations, those networks just chop wood and carry water for the DNC, for the Democrats the way Fox does for the Republicans.

And it's uh, it's bad for our democracy. I'm sorry, it is it just is it's bad for democracy. No, I agree with you, has your I mean, obviously, in some ways your experience has been different than in twenty twenty, because in twenty twenty, for example, you know, you didn't have an incumbent democrat, so it was an open field and you got to be on that debate stage. You actually quite a few of the debates, right, and they couple of them, and they were they were satisfied to just mock me, you know, yeah, and treat me like I'm wacky, and we would say at this time, they are very serious about not wanting anyone in the field except Joe Biden, and they're overt about it.

I just think it's a bad idea. I think it's a bad idea, not only because it's bad for democracy, but because it's we're all supposed to just assume that because the president beat Trump in twenty twenty, that he's the best candidate for twenty twenty four. I think that's wrong. I don't believe that's true. I think that you know, when people say to me, Marian, why are you doing this the fascist store at the door, don't you realize that I'm doing this because the fascist store at the door. And I agree with Franklin Roosevelt who said that we wouldn't have to worry about a fascist takeover as long as democracy delivered on its promises.

In a country that, unlike every other advanced democracy, does not have universal healthcare, that does not have tuition free college, or free childcare, or paid family leave, or a guaranteed living wage or guaranteed housing, democracy is not delivering on its promises, and that should be the agenda of the Democrats. It is my agenda for twenty twenty four. It is an offering of fundamental economic reform, not just the alleviation of stress for what really amounts to less than the majority of the American people.

Bionomics is not a winning message for twenty four. It means that I've alleviated the stress of some people that is not the majority of people. That message that we've done so well and let's just finish the job is contradictory to the viscual experience of the majority of American people. It's not going to win, and most importantly, it's not going to repair the country over the next four years. And my agenda does How does your agenda differ from what Biden has has done or what he puts forth, because obviously, you know, Republicans talk about Biden like he's this far left guy, which which which is a joke, clearly is not.

And then of course, on the other hand, you have folks like I mentioned the young Turks. You know, they talk about Biden and other Democrats that are kind of in that lane as being sort of Republican light. Almost. Well, when you ask how my agenda differs, my agenda is universal healthcare. He has said that he would veto a Medicare for All bill. It is a complete cancelation of the college long dad. It is tuition free tech school. It is paid family leave, it is a guaranteed living wage. It is all those things that I had said before.

They are quite different than the president. The president is taking incremental approaches to maybe sort of kind of sometime getting there. But like all corporatist Democrats, he wants to help people, but he not so much that he is willing to get to the point challenging the bottom line of his corporate donors, for whom short term profits goes above and beyond and takes precedence over safety and well being and health of the American people. So that's very different. Mine's fundamental economic reform, where humanitarian principles and democratic principles come before corporate profits, as as simple as that.

And also another way in which I radically differ from the President is that, for all his talk about being a climate president, and even though there are indeed some healthy investments in green energy in the Inflation Reduction Act, he has given more oil drilling permits than even Trump there and he's approved the Willow Project, which was an eight billion dollar oil drilling project on the north slopes of Alaska, both of which completely nullify the benefits that otherwise are healthy in the Inflation Reduction Act regarding climate change, so I would declare a climate emergency, and I would be and us immediately on mass mobilization to move justly from a dirty economy to a clean economy.

Has your messaging or even the issues themselves that you're most concerned about, has that changed at all between twenty twenty and twenty twenty four, or is it no? Kind of the same? I look at the world the same way I did. Then I have moved all the way to medicare for all, in a way that in twenty twenty, so have we YEA In twenty twenty, I still thought we could, you know, we could get there for everybody, and I see differently now. Yeah. And also I think we ought to legalized drugs, and I wasn't there in twenty twenty.

I really get we should end the drug war. Yeah, I say that all the time, although I've always been there on that one, but it took me a while to get there on Medicare for all. You know, I consider myself a capitalist, and I think Jenny would say the same thing. I'm a recovering or Republican, right, yeah, Jenny, Jenny used to be a Republican state rep. I mean, you know, I'm anymore. I'm an independent. But I've always said, I mean, my position, Maryanne, has always been that, you know, we live in the most successful, most prosperous, wealthiest country in the history of the world.

So when somebody tries to tell me that we just can't figure out a way to make sure that everyone has access to adequate or better than adequate, preferably healthcare, I just I just don't believe it. So well, you shouldn't believe it, because of course they're ruse is to tell us that it's just complicated. It's not complicated. It's corrupt. Whether it's it's a it's a matrix of corporate dominance that has become corporate tyranny at this point. Universal healthcare because of insurance companies, rationing, insulent because of pharmaceutical companies, carcit egens, and our food because of big food companies, big agricultural companies, big chemical companies, lack of safety on our streets because of the manufacturers, dirty energy because of big oil, and obviously our foreign policy dominated by the military industrial complex because of defense contractors.

This will not end if we keep electing those people, because everything that I just said is now baked into the take the cake there that is quote will not just swept itself. This will only happen if there is an intervention by the people. A government of the people, by the people, and for the people who has become a government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations. Those people will not end that. Only we can. They absolutely will not. After just being a brief time in DC, the amount of money that goes into the lobbying there that absolutely destroys our healthcare system, and it makes access almost impossible.

I'm right there with you. I used to think that we can fix our healthcare system, and no we can't. Eighty five million people are underinsured or uninsured. And this business of underinsured. There are millions of people who have the insurance that will enable them to go to the doctor, but eighteen million of them can't afford because they don't have the coverage to pay for the prescriptions that the doctors give them. They can't afford the treatment. I've had doctor say to may, why do I even bother?

I tell people I understand what's wrong with you. This is the medicine you need, This is the treatment you need, and the person says, my insurance won't come. So what was the point of hearing the doctor tell you what was wrong with you? I have a provider that had to hire an employee just to deal with the Niles from Anthem, thank you, just to deal with that. Yeah, and we have one in four Americans living with medical debt. Yes, we have eighty eight billion dollar medical debt. Although I read the other day, no, it's actually two hundred millions.

So somewhere in there. How many people are poor in our society because that's the only way they can stay alive. That's me. I pay for my medications, my infusions. I could go on and on. Everybody knows my story, but it's it's that bad that every day people suffer and die in this country while the medications to make their lives better or to have a dignity locked behind a closed door in the hospital where they can't afford it. We have one point three million Americans who rush in their insulin. Yes, when I mentioned that in a speech I gave in England about three months ago, people looked at me in disbelief.

Because they have socialized medicine, they have universal healthcare. They can't even imagine. What do you mean? People right, Russian their insolent and this thirty five dollars limit, this isn't good enough. It's still for an average and that's who needs seven vials. That's over two hundred dollars in one month. Right, And that's, by the way, only if you're sixty five years or older. There are a lot of people under the age of sixty five who were Russian and Gres did not know it was only for people over sixty five.

I thought that was a universal limit. Wow, And what's your status in New Hampshire as far as are you on the ballot here for the primary? I certainly will be on the ballot. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, I've been very upset about and I mean, I guess I understand from a political standpoint the rationale behind it. Biden wanting to I think he basically told the DNC you have to move the first in the nation primary status in South Carolina. And I get it in a sense that you know, I always say, Joe Biden owes this presidency to Congressman Jim Clyburn.

Yes for that endorsement. That's that's what turned it all around. And you were were you still in the race at that point? Were you on the ballot in South Carolina? Out? No, I dropped out before New Hampshire last time, but I regretted it actually did you. Yeah, I'm not dropping out this time. I remember seeing you in seeing you in the debates, and you know, they kind of had you on the side. And obviously those debates where you've got a whole I don't know, eight or ten people on the stage, it's not really the best format to get to know new faces on the political scene.

Because that was that was the first time we were really learning about you. It was afterward I saw a couple of long form interviews. One was with a guy I'm not crazy about, but Dave Ruben. I watched your sit down with Dave Ruben and I said, Wow, she really she really knows her stuff. And it really that watching that conversation and the way you pushed back on a lot of well it's Dave Rubin, the way you pushed back on a lot of his nonsense. Frankly, I was impressed. I said, well, Mary Ann Williamson, she's really she brings a lot more to the table than what we got to see during the debates, because, as you know, during the debates, when you're on the end, you know you only get a couple of times to really really speak.

Well, it's even more than that too, because there's a cognitive dissonance between what you were just saying Davey Reuben interviews and others versus she's wacky, she's kooky, she's a crystal lady. You know. They

narratives are that's they are used as political weapons. Oh absolutely, I'm sorry, but to speak freely. They like to use that kind of language when a woman is involved, Thank you very much. Off Corey Booker says that it's profound if I say it's woo woo or emotional exactly, and that's that's part of what's wrong with our society. Unfortunately, unfortunately, but fortunately, there are a lot of women in this country or are coming back and fighting to end that. Yeah. And at the same time, when I think of some of the weaponization of false information and so forth, certainly regarding me, it's been women as much as men.

Really, jeez, see, I feel bad now. We internalize a lot of misogyny. I think,

what are you making? What do you mean? I'm curious, can you expect I think some You know, when you talk about feminist thinking, I know men who are more feminist than their thinking in terms of really standing up for women. When I was growing up and the sort of feminism of the era of that, say, the nineteen seventies, it was very understood that sisterhood was part of this. None of us would get there unless all of us get there. It seemed to be given equal weight, not just the idea of equal rights for women, but also women being there for other women.

It was understood we needed that, and these days, I think a lot of so called feminists don't seem to have a problem trashing other women in order to get what they call their equal right. Point taken, absolutely, point taken. I'm thinking of somebody specific, I don't know. I don't know if you're familiar with or this might even be someone who had in mind that. I don't know her actual name, but she's she's on social media as just pearly things. I don't know her, okay, but well she kind of it does what you were talking about, where she kind of trashes other women and it's it's strange to uh, it's strange to watch her.

I had one question for you something that I know is on a lot of Manchester residence minds, is our unemployees, forgive me our homeless rate? How's it gone up fifty four percent in a year? And this is not it's not just here. This is going on everywhere. A lot to do with in avillaity, inaccessible homes and rents going out of control. What are you thinking in your administration you would do to help lessen the population that we have that are homeless and help get people homed. Homelessness is a symptom, and it is a symptom of an unfair economic system.

That's why my Economic Bill of Rights calls for many things that actually reduce the poverty rate. To begin with, we have an eviction rate with over three million people were evicted from their homes last year. That's as high as it was during the housing crisis. So the moratorium on evictions that was put in place during the COVID emergency, lifting that moratorium is absurd. We should realize how many people who are homeless actually work full time. That's a lot of and that goes back to things like what you were talking We were talking about with the insulin.

So somebody says what do I do. Do I try to stay alive and get my insulin or do I pay my rent? They miss one rent shack and then they and their family are thrown onto the streets. So this is this. You know, it's become a cliche to say poverty is a policy choice, but in very real ways it is. These are people who are at the effect of what is essentially an unjust economic system. So on one hand, you could say, well, there are six hundred thousand homeless people, and there are also five hundred thousand homes that could be Think of all the jobs you could create if we kind of had a marshal plan for housing.

Also, we've got to stop with the commodification of housing that's now going on,

the lack of adequate housing, affordable housing, all of those things that we know to be true. But I think we need more than anything to realize that it's all one problem. It's how many people in this country have been thrown away. That's what it is. Whether it's people who don't have healthcare, people who don't have a place to live, people who don't have an education, people who have to work two or three jobs. It's a huge swath of human suffering which is treated like an invisible throw away to official political Washington.

And until the American people recognize that and vote for a fundamental break with that system, then even if we had five hundred houses that were thrown into places for these people to live, they would still be more coming down the pike because the system does not address the fundamental needs of the American people. Like why you brought up about you know, there's homeless people who have jobs, who are employed, but they're just in a situation where they can't you know, can't pay rent, certainly, can't afford a mortgage.

I think that's an important thing to remind people about because a phrase that gets lost in a lot of dialogue that I think people need to learn is the phrase working poor. There are people, you know, because people, I think there's a stigma. People look at homeless people and assume they just, you know, they're too lazy to find a job or this and that. But like you said, a lot of homeless people have jobs, absolutely, but they're just underwater. Another terrible thing going on with a lot of that.

Let's say somebody misses there, they get evicted, they have children, they're living in their car, So then the couple is terrified that if they send their kids to school, some school official is going to realize the child is living in the car and it's going to call the child Protective Services. So the parents are terrified the child will be taken away. So the parents take the kids out of school in order to home school them. Well, where are they going to get WiFi? So then they're going into McDonald's to get on WiFi to be able to homeschool their kids.

This is the amount of beaten This is the layers of people being beaten down in this system. And like you said, it's working for it's good people, it's you know, we all know the cliches and the you know, every group has a shadow element, but that's not who the group is. And we need to realize that about about the homeless. And also all these laws all over the country where people are they're criminalizing feeding the homeless. People are There was recently a case in Texas. Unfortunately the woman was acquitted.

She was arrested for her organization feeding the homeless. There are arresting people for feeding the hungry. Yep. Yeah, that's that's been a strange. Yeah, we have a we have a call, Mary and I feel take a call from a listener. Our friend Shannon is online high Shannon. What I was going to say is you were talking about the homeless population. What never gets mentioned is a building fire that displaces five six families and you know they are now homeless unless they have some family or whatever, you know, right to remember.

Yeah, that's another direction to go in. But yeah, absolutely, I did you have a did you have a specific question for Marian No, I not a question, just that statement that that you know, the homeless people aren't just a working board and this, that and everything else. That there's human beings. Number one, Stop treating them like they're unsightly trash. Yes, agreed that homeless people pick up your trash, Yohn, Maddie say agreed. I'm Matt sorry and just you know, I went it doesn't matter. Uh, just treat human beings.

Nope, a great human beings. Absolutely. No, that's a cliche too. Well, you know how you want to be treated. Yeah, I think Mary Anne wants to respond to you know, we say homeless people and we tend to leave out the word people, right exactly. Yeah, there are people that don't have to have happened exactly, walls and halls and doors and windows. Yeah, you know, yep. No, well, well said all right, Shannon. Well we appreciate the call. All right, all right, thank you, bye bye.

All right, and we are taking calls. The studio line is open six zo three two five O six zero seven six zo three two five six zero seven. Mary Anne Williamson is here if you're just joining us, and she is a presidential candidate running on the for the Democrats to challenge President Biden. And Mary Yet can I ask you, it's an indelicate It's an indelicate question. But and I don't know if this is something you've addressed. I haven't heard you address this scifically. But I mean, in terms of President Biden, do you think he's too old?

You know, I'm running against the president on issues. Yeah, I hesitate to talk about his age because I for a couple of reasons. First of all, it just feels personal, and everybody can see how the president's age. Everybody can hear how he speaks. And also I don't want to be ages about it. I'm seventy one, So I just you know, the American people, the American voter, does not need me to tell them the president's age. They don't need me to point out his gaffs or point out any of that. You know, today he was in Hawaii and he was telling people in Lahinah that he understands about the fire because he and Jill almost lost their corvette and their cat when lightning struck struck their garage.

And even though he said I don't mean to be whatever, it was like cringe. You know, yeah, what is really cringey? But you don't you don't think that's somewhat a product of is like, I don't know, I don't know if Biden ten years ago would have said that. Well, that's kind of my point. But well even though it did, just point it out, you know, I mean, everybody hears and and and it is legitimate to ask ourselves what that would be in someone going on for another four years. Yeah, it is legitimate to consider his vice presidential candidate, and it's it's legitimate to consider whether whether or not he is a strong candidate.

The DNC would have us believe that because he beat Trump in twenty twenty that it follows that he would beat him or the Roma Swammy or the Santist or anyone else in twenty twenty four. And I think the biggest point here is that it's not supposed to be the DNC's decision. It should be the people in New Hampshire, in South Carolina, in Michigan, in Nevada, in these primary states that open up this Donard. The role of the political party has traditionally been to stay in the background until the people have spoken, and then the people will decide, and then the party's supposed to swoop in at this point and support the candidate today.

They don't even pretend they're very overt about it. They're not even covert. They're saying, we will support the president. And then they've concocted this narrative about how this never happens, what happens all the time. They say, yeah, but when Teddy Kennedy ran against Carter, I'm sorry, Teddy Kennedy did not defeat Carter. Ronald Reagan did so. And also, you know, in twenty sixteen there were a lot of Republican candidates and the Republicans still won. In twenty twenty there were a lot of Democratic candidates and the Democrats still wont.

So this suggestion that a lot of candidates will endanger us we all have to get you know, every time somebody says that to me, Mary, and we all have to just line up behind Biden. There is a fascist at the door. I always think to myself, Wow, I bet you have healthcare, don't you. I bet you can send you kids to college, don't you. I bet you live on more than fifteen dollars an hour, don't you. I bet you can afford to live on just one job, can't you? This is you know, there is in sociology, they talk about the difference between a screaming emergency and a silent emergency.

COVID was a screaming emergency. We all got that it was an emergency, but why was it given this official moniker of emergency because rich people got it too. So when the COVID emergency, when the President declared it over, sending millions of people off their snap benefits, millions of people off Medicaid, he said, the emergency is over. Go back to your lives. For millions of people, life was already an emergency. Homelessness is an emergency, Poverty is an emergency, Hunger is an emergency, lack of healthcare is an emergency.

Medical debt is an emergency. So there are the majority and remember we're talking here about the majority of Americans, the majority of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck. Right, And it's not only the poor and the neropoort it's the afraid of becoming poor. It's the living with the constant economic stress of what will happen if I lose my job? Right, it's uh, well, and healthcare is tied. You know, we have a system in the country where healthcare is directly tied to your job, and that's why so many people are working at jobs they hate people.

And then we talk about the mental health crisis as though that is separate from these things, as though economic anxiety and stress is not a primary, if not the primary source of the fact that people just can't take it. And then when we support you know, and you know, they talk about intersectionality, and then that it is related to the drug crisis and so forth. People are falling apart in front of our eyes, and we're supposed to go have another Biden Trump election where the fact that people are falling in front of apart in front of our eyes will will politely be left out of the conversation.

The rematch nobody wants. But well they're certainly give it to us. That's that's for sure. Yeah, when you were talking two about challenging incumbents, I was thinking about, you know, you mentioned like Teddy Kennedy challenging Jimmy Carter and so forth. I was thinking about nineteen ninety two when right here in New Hampshire, uh Pat Buchanan, damn near beat. In fact, I think it was a statistical tie. Uh damn near beat. George H. W. Bush in the New Hampshire primary. It's called democracy. There were actual elections and you didn't know who was going to win, and you didn't have a sense of a political party putting their finger on the scale.

And for Democrats, this has been going on twenty sixteen with Bernie, twenty and twenty with Bernie, and what I'm seeing, man, that's we've got to stand up to those. Yeah. I remember in in two thousand, in two thousand and sixteen, the way the DNC, you know, really kind of did put their thumb on the scale for Hillary. And in fact, in ways you know, we talked about debates. I remember they were Debbie Wasserman Schultz made sure this doesn't get pointed out very often, but she made sure that the debates were scheduled on Friday and Saturday nights when young people would not be well who but that's who Bernie appealed to, was young people.

Well. In the New York Times poll that came out a week before last in the tab that is people eighteen to twenty nine, Biden has thirty four percent, I have twenty seven percent, and Bobby Kennedy has thirteen percent. Now, it's also interesting, why is that. Well, on one hand, it's policies obviously, but there's something else. I can reach them because they're on TikTok and it doesn't cost me money to get on TikTok. So they know what they're doing by blocking me on CNN. They know what they're doing blocking me on MSNBC.

They know what they're doing calling me long shot, not a credible candidate, because they it's their way of saying, nothing to look at their folks, nothing nothing to see, their folks just walk on by, nothing to see there. We've already got our candidate, right, But it does give you more time to, you know, to go on I mean a lot of the shows you know, as you pointed out, you know they've got a younger audience, so it allows you to connect with those people. I mean, maybe you're better off, you know, going on podcasts and radio shows that a younger audience is paying attention to, then going on establishment media.

You know, well, you need both to reach I mean, all Americans of every age matter, and certainly the youth vote is extremely important, and it's important not only demographically in electoral sense, it's important morally. They're going to be here for another forty or fifty years, right, they deserve their they're talking about their lives. Why are old people who probably will not be here in twenty years, How do they think they have the right to make all these decisions that will affect the lives of people who have another fifty, forty, fifty sixty years ahead of them.

So a presidential candidate or any political candidate needs to try to reach all and every voter. I mean, there's no voter that doesn't count. Grateful to be on your show. You're grateful to be on independent media, and you need to have any opportunity you have to reach people. Have you been able to penetrate that at all with like Cable News has CNN. Fox wants to have me on because they don't have a problem messing with the president, right, Right, I get invited on Fox, and I've been on News Nation a little bit,

but CNN and MSNBC, even the people who have me last time quite a bit. And I just you know, I don't want to sound victimy or whiney or any of that, because you know that's not what this is about. It's just wrong. So do you go on when Fox invites you? Yes? Because it's the only way you can reach people. And I remind you that you were in New Hampshire where there's an open primary. Yeah, and a lot of people are watching Fox in New Hampshire. So yeah, so I go on. I mean, there's one show that I turned down this week that's not on Fox, it's another station.

But it was so obvious that it was only to screw the president, right, and I'm not I'm not I'm not doing that. That's not I'm not going to play that game. I'm not going to be used that way. But on Fox absolutely News Nation. Well, that's why, that's why they love to have rfkon. Like conservative media has really embraced him. I mean, part of it is some of the things he says, obviously, but also once again, when you look at him, you know, New Hampshire is a is a is an open primary. Of South Carolina is an open primary too, So this is a very things are Anybody who thinks that this is a predictable era and that what lies before us politically is predictable, I think is naive.

There is a lot of energy rumbling up from the bottom bottom of things. I think there's a profound political realignment going on in this country, and I don't think either major political party has any clue because they're in their own bubble of their own multi billion dollar corporate Really, that's what they are. And things will not remain the way they are. Things are going to break. They're either going to break in the direction of greater democracy and justice and people who say, wait, we're going back to the people, by the people, for the people, as opposed to of the corporations, by the corporations for the corporations, or it's going to break in the direction of dystopia and neo authoritarianism and some really horrifying prospects if we're not careful.

Is there an issue that you have been talking about that has been a kind of a one of your main issues in your campaign that you feel is not getting talked about enough, that's kind of being ignored by the mainstream. Is there anything that you've been the mainstream is ignoring me anyway? So you know, of course, everything I talk about ignored by the mainstream. And I think there are some things that I wish to emphasize. One thing, for since I want a Department of Children and Youth, we need to do a massive, a massive movement of resources in the direction of children ten years and younger.

I don't think that we are beginning to grapple with what it means that we are now raising a generation of young children praying every morning they will not get shot at school. So you think we have a mental health crisis now, you just wait ten or fifteen years. If we want a thriving economy in a thriving society fifteen twenty years from now, our job is to take much better care of our children ten years old and younger. Today. You know, everybody talks about trauma informed education. We need to ask us, says, why do we need something is very wrong in a society that needs so much quote unquote trauma informed education.

I have met elementary school principles who say they have elementary school students on suicide watch. We have children in this country who are traumatized for kindergarten. So I want to be the children's president, and I want to I want every public school in America to be a palace of culture and learning and the arts. So that is an emphasis. Also, I want a Department of Peace, and I want this profound economic u turn. And I think that leg ending the drug war is important as well. So yeah, I have some things to say that are quite different than both Biden and Bobby what about.

I want to ask you about immigration too, and obviously I know you're originally from Texas, yes, and sometimes people in border states have a little bit of a different perspective than we do, say here in the Northeast. So I'm curious to ask you about your immigration policy and what you know my position. We talk about it a lot on the show. I feel that we need a massive overhaul of the entire immigration So of course we do, and much of the problem is due to congressional inaction over the last few decades.

But also a lot of the problem has to do with American foreign policy in Latin America over the last few decades, and that includes not only supporting people who were the bad guys, to be quite honest, because we thought the good guys will communist or socialists, and in fact, in many cases the people that we did not support are the ones who would have promoted a more stable economy. Secondly, and this goes back to what we were talking about the drug war, the horror that most of the people from Latin America are seeking to escape.

Has to do with the drug cartels. Ending the drug war will not solve the problem completely, but it will help in the meantime. When you talk about the crisis, the crisis that the border a lot of it. When certain voices in our society talk about the crisis that the border, they're talking about a different crisis than the one that matters to me. And the one they're talking about is not even a crisis actually, given how many jobs are open and available that native born Americans are not looking to fill, thank you very much, that many of these immigrants are.

That's number one. And number two, we need to own on an emotional level, the humanitarian crisis. If people, if the average American had any idea with some of these people, most of these people actually are seeking to escape. Now, are there people trying to gain the asylum system, Yeah, they're actually, and they should not allow that to happen. But for the most part, if we're gonna if we're gonna just shut not just our borders, but our hearts, then let's take down that m Lazarus poem. Let's just not pretend.

Let's just not be these hypogrites. Give me or huddled mouses. You don't need to breatheree because we don't even mean it anymore. So we've got to decide are we are compassionate society or not the idea that we don't have quote unquote won't have room for these people. Actually we do, and if you look at the at the statistics, the immigrant population does more to contribute to our economy, not just to our culture and to our society, which should be obvious to anyone, to our economy, and most of these undocumented people, they don't want to be undocumented.

We force people into the shadows. We have draconian immigration laws, and so absolutely this needs to be overhauled. But I'll tell you something. I think if there's any common thread to my candidacy and would be to my administration, is do right by people and everything's going to repair itself. Just do right by people, and gradually things are going to right. The ship is listening so far to one side. And what those voices of the political class would say is that these ideas are so far left or so radical.

I remind you they're considered moderate positions in every other advanced democracy. But more than that, what's radical is what the neoliberal vulture capitalist system has done. That is what's radical. What's radicals that over the last fifty years there has been a fifty trillion dollar transfer of wealth into the hands of one percent of Americans. That's what's radical. What's radical is that one in four Americans live with medical debt in richest country in the world, that sixty eight thousand people a year die of lack of healthcare.

The one third of Americans live on less than fifteen dollars an hour, and a half of them cannot find a place to live. That half of our seniors live on less than twenty five thousand dollars a year. That is what's radical. So what I'm saying is just bring the ship back to a semblance of a situation in which everyone has a chance. That's the American dream, that people have a chance, that if they work hard enough, they can manifest and make their dreams come true. It used to be that the American dream was to buy a house.

Today the American dream for millions of people is to get out of debt before they die. Debt is crippling, and these loans, these loans that these kids are caring. I can't even imagine being in my twenties. I don't know if I've been in my twenties with tens of thousands of dollars of college loan day, which they only took out because they're trying to better their lives. Right, right, This is so wrong, and that's why these should be forgiven, because they should never have existed to begin with. Well, Biden did try to do that, and then again, you know, there are those who believe, there are those who believe if he had just come in and cauntled the whole thing, and he still has ways that he could he could do more.

Yeah, you know, he tries to have it both ways. He wants to help people, but he doesn't want to offend, you know, the bankers. He doesn't want to offend those corporate donors. And so far, it's well, the American people should have a chance to decide whether or not that is an adequate response to the challenges of our time. Well, he's been he's been a product of Washington going back fifty years and including including he was arguing he was the one who helped pushed the bill which said that you could not go bankrupt and get out of your college Loantown.

Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely, and the crime bill, Yeah yeah. I feel like on some of these issues, like immigration, to me is because as you said, it's that that's been a problem for decades and we can't seem to get you know, we'll get a a little bit of action on it here and there, but I feel like the ball, you know, it doesn't really get moved down the field much in either direction over the decades, and I feel like part of it is part of what I feel is broken about our politics is there's money in solving problems, but there's also money and not solving problems.

Meaning, for example, if immigration never gets solved in any meaningful way, both Democrats and Republicans can continue to raise money off of the issue. So even if you don't solve the problem, there's still money in it for you. I mean, our two party political system, it's like, you know, it's like failing up. You can fail at solving problems, but if you talk about solving them or look like you're trying to solve them, that's good enough and people will give you money. Well, look at what happens with rov Wode.

I mean, it should have been codified by the Democrats years ago. It should have been codified under Obama, who said he wanted to do that when he was a candidate, but then said he didn't want to spend his political capital on that. And it should have been codified the first two years of the at the beginning of the Biden presidency. But much too much, as you were saying, there was so much money raised on oh, vote for us, vote for us, so we could lose roe V. Wait, well guess what, we did vote for you and we did lose roby what.

Yeah. I said the same thing with the Deat ceiling when when we went through that last round where and Mary and I can tell you, I was very Jenny knows, I was very I was pessimistic, and I try to be an optimist on the show. I really thought we might go over the fiscal cliff. I really thought this might be it, and of course it wasn't, thank goodness. But I said the same thing you were saying about Roe v. Wade. When the Democrats had control, they should have finally done away with the Deat ceiling.

It's ridiculous. Yeah, it's totally ridiculous. Well, also, I think the president shouldn't have if I negotiated he should have just what is it the fourteenth Amendment? I can't remember. Not that couldn't be the fourteen No it is, Yeah, that's that's in the fourteenth Amendment. Well, that would have been See, I disagree with you there. I think that would have been too Uh. That would have been scary. We would have been an unchar did water there well, while though all would have taken as some judge to put an injunction on him.

I mean, we don't even know how exactly it would have been invoked, how it would have been implemented. You know, I think I think that's I think that would have been very dangerous. I think the Democrats blink too much. I think, well, I think there's I do somewhat agree with you on that point because I think, oh, I hear Jak Huger say it all the time. You know, Uh, Republicans can be ruthless, but Democrats tend to want to just play nice. And that's right, and I agree with you know, the Republicans consider the fact that they won the election their mandate, and as we're well aware, they have no problem overreaching and abusing power.

But Democrats won't even use the power that they're given. Right, Well, we didn't get a mandate. We'll have to wait till the second term and then things don't change in the second term. Well, it's really important that we win again so that maybe we can you know, the milk tooth. And I think the people. Yeah, people don't like that. People like to see spine in their leaders. We need a mother in the White House. You can take that however you want to. I remember after Rovie Wade was overturned and seeing Kamala Harris I think it was Dana Bash on CNN interviewing her, and yeah, she kind of had that that thing that that you were just doing, where she's like, yeah, well you know, what can you do?

Uh, you gotta vote for more Democrats. Yeah, and I listen, I'm earning as a Democrat. I do want you to vote for more Democrats. But they're different. They're Democrats and then there are Democrats and the much as you were saying earlier, the corporates. Democrats today are what Republicans were when I was growing up. Mh. Well, it's like I remember Paul Wellstone. He said, I'm from the democratic wing of the Democratic Party exactly exactly my point that I would I would see myself as a Paul will Stone.

I'm curious, too, have you been courted by any third parties who have said years ago I was years ago the Green Party had asked me to, but not no. I feel I'm nostalgic for the Democratic Party of my youth. I'm nostalgic historically for the Democratic Party of uh Franklin Roosevelt. I don't you know, I'm aware that third party voices have been very important in the United States. Abolition came from the Abolitionist Party, Women's suffrage came from the Women's Party, social Security came from the Socialist Party.

And I'm not pleased, nor should any American be pleased, with the way Democratic and Republican parties have formed this unholy alliance, making it very difficult for third parties to have the significant voice. Having said that, I also think that the soul of the Democratic and the Republican Party need to be retrieved for the sake of this country. I think a lot of people understandably criticizing the corporate duopoly, which I certainly agree with, but let's not be naive about third parties too, because the problem is with political parties period.

Do you know what I'm saying, and any system can be corrupted. Yeah, no, labels seems uh well, there's a lot of suspicions about what they're really if they approached you or probably not. No, No, I don't think any I don't think they would want me in there. You know, they want a Democrat and a Republican. But from the corporate duopolis, right, yeah, yes, the worldview, yeah, they certain that world where it seems like they're different, but they're really not so much or certainly not when it comes to big oil or defense contractors.

They all, you know, fall in line for the same for the same guys. We have just a quick question in the in the chatwoman, then we know, we know you gotta go. But Tom Blanchard is asking what do you think about taxing business? One president raised taxes on business and a lot of them left the country. That's just nonsense, because when you look back at the nineteen fifties and sixties and even seventies, when we have these very high tax rates for these companies, they were here. Yeah, they were here.

So I think that that's the threat, Oh they'll leave, they'll leave. Well, look how many are leaving now. You know, the ones who are going to leave. They're leaving now. So I do not what is it was supposed to be afraid of if they if we tax them more and we have more money to take care of people than in that point, let them leave if they want to leave. But the evidence is not that they would, and the evidence is that we should be afraid of how many of them are leaving right now because we are. We are actually making it easier for them in many cases because of these trade deals, to leave.

Well, on that note, it is it is almost the top of the hour. Mary Anne Williamson, thank you so much. It's wonderful to meet you. Thank you. I hope we can do this again in the future. I assume you're spending a lot of time in our states. I am, and I hope that people will go to Maryanne twenty twenty four dot com and sign up so that I can let you know when I'm back. I would I would be very grateful for that. Excellent, excellent, thank you. All Right, we're gonna I'm gonna play a song here and for the for the crossover, and then uh oh, here we go, and then we'll let you scoot all right, Maryanne, thank you so much, Thank you so much.

Matt Connarton Unleashed: Marianne Williamson

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