 Hello, everyone. I am here with a presidential candidate, Marianne Williamson, running in the 2024 Democratic Party primary against Joe Biden. And she is here to talk about her campaign. Full disclosure, though, I do intend on voting for Marianne in the upcoming 2024 Oregon primary. So you know my biases. I'm laying it all out there that doesn't necessarily mean that I won't ask hard questions. But I think it's important for viewers that they know who the interviewer is, where they're coming from, because you never see that on mainstream media. But Marianne, thanks for coming on. Well, thank you. And thank you for the endorsement. Thank you for the vote of confidence. Thank you so much for what you just said. Yeah, absolutely. I think that most of my viewers already knew that. And I'm pretty sure I said it like once you announced. So it's not necessarily a secret. But I think it's just like, you know, it's better for transparency's sake. You know, I support you. You are so far. You have the best shot. I would say that you are, and this is according to polls, Biden's biggest competitor in the primary. So there's a big village poll that was just released that shows you at 14%. And I think that this headline from John Nichols and the nation puts everything into perspective. So he writes, Marianne Williamson is polling just as well against Biden as Nikki Haley is against Trump. And he adds, but the media is obsessed with Haley and paying almost no attention to Williamson. So I think that there's a number of reasons why this could be the case. Part of it could be that this is intentional. Part of it could be that they just don't care. Why do you think you're not getting as much attention as these GOP contenders? I think there's a big unspoken edit that fills the ethers of the political and the political media industrial complex. Whatever you do, don't let that woman have a viral moment. Whatever you do, don't let her into the conversation. You know, last time they were content to just ridicule and deride me. This time, oh, it's she's not getting, she's not even getting in the door to be in the conversation that we have decided it's Joe and we will book no dissent. And it's, it is, I think, that intentional, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I know that media can be make or break for a lot of campaigns. You know, we've seen the ways that they restricted Bernie in 2016, not as much in 2020, because, you know, you can't once you get a certain amount of name recognition. Here's what I'm curious about. Do you think it's possible that you can still pull off an upset despite this media blackout? Because it has happened. It's difficult, right? Especially for candidates like you who are grassroots funded. In 2018, AOC beat Joe Crowley despite a media blackout. And there's a really funny tweet, actually, from Joanne Reed of MSNBC, where she says, pretty much all of political journalism are doing an Ocasio Cortez crash course tonight, myself included. So it wasn't just that they were ignoring her. A lot of them didn't even know about her. So is it possible that you can still just share by force of grassroots organizing, pull off an upset and say Iowa or New Hampshire? Or do you think that the media really is a crucial component here? Well, one district, Queens, New York, was not that difficult for Alexandria Ocasio Cortez to drive around, make herself known. We have a whole country here. So when you have a complete erasure and a disabilization on CNN, on MSNBC, my problem has been how many people in the United States don't even know that my campaign exists. So if they don't know that your campaign exists, they, you know, nobody's going to send you any money. They don't even know you exist. And then even among the independent media, there's been a lot of, you know, there hasn't been a, there've been some exceptions for which I'm extremely grateful. But even among the independence, even on the left, there's this revert elitism, for whatever reason, it's almost a feeling of, well, we want what she says, but we just wish it wasn't her. Or let's not send her money or whatever. So the blockades have been pretty extreme. The difference is, and the reason that even running on fumes, we've been able to get those numbers on the polls that we have, is because when people listen, when people actually show up, you know, I have a lot of people, even among people who agree with me politically, who seem to, you know, people who opine about my books, who've never read my books, people who had this stereotype, my career, my personality, who know nothing about me. And so they won't come hear me. Well, when people come hear me, we're gold, because I am saying what not just people on the left are saying, I'm saying what I think the majority of people in America are saying, the majority of Republicans as well as Democrats want tuition-free college, the majority of Republicans as well as Democrats, not as much of a majority, but still a majority want tuition-free college and tech school. The majority, you know, if you actually look at the polls, the American people are a little bit left of center. I'll tell you, Mike, my campaign this time leads me to believe, as it did last time, the American people are not the problem. The problem is this clorotic political system that acts like a lid being held down, seeking to suppress the full expression of the will of the people. And like I said, you know, this kind of weird invisibilization has been true, even among people I would not have expected it from, Amy Goodman. Really? Almost derision from, but like I said, when I'm out there with people, especially young people, it's exciting, it's electric, it's exhilarating, and it's working. So can you pull off an upset? You know, if you had said that to the abolitionists, it wouldn't have been reasonable to think they could, or to the women's suffragists, or to the early labor organizers, or to the civil rights workers. But I don't think that any of those people proceeded because there was some guarantee when they proceeded because they felt it was the right thing to do. And that's why I'm doing this. Somebody needs to do this. Somebody needs to say those things. You say them, a lot of us say them, but I don't believe you can leave electoral politics out of the larger formula in any serious effort to fundamentally change things. Yeah, yeah, that's really interesting. I like your answer there. I like that you also talked about like there's a lid kind of keeping the will of the people kind of suppressed. And we're seeing this right now in action with regard to the ceasefire, for example. I mean, multiple polls have shown majority support for Americans, especially among Democrats. And that's not something that is even a possibility, at least according to the Biden administration's rhetoric. I wanted to ask you about that, by the way. So when it comes to Israel Palestine, Biden is fundamentally at odds with his base. So I'm curious how you would defer on this policy and where your biggest disagreements with the Biden administration is. Well, I've been calling for a ceasefire from the very beginning. The day of October 7th, I appreciated the president's moral clarity. The next day, however, he said, I'm going to be meeting with Jewish American leaders today. I would have said, had I been president, I'm going to be meeting with both Jewish and Arab American leaders today, particularly Palestinian American leaders. America's highest ally should be humanity itself. So ceasefire, immediate ceasefire. This is wrong minded on every level, this military action of theirs. Immediate ceasefire, release of the hostages and immediate architecture for a two-state solution to me. That is absolutely the only way. Would you be open to the idea of a one-state solution with equal rights? And I ask this because more and more, there's been a lot of individuals, including Israeli scholars like Avi Shlain, for example, who don't think that a two-state solution is any longer possible just because there's so many settlements. Like for example, in the West Bank, I think the number is 750,000 Israeli settlements. So how do you do two-state given this situation currently? Is one-state something that would be on the table for you or that you would consider? Or do you think that two-state really is the only path forward? Well, I realize it's something that would have to be resurrected, but those settlements have never been legal. They've never been legal. Those people shouldn't be there. So to say, oh, there's 750,000, where do you put them? Back to where they were, I'm sorry. I'm a practical woman. When you talk about one-state, if ever, if ever, there was a prospect for a bloody civil war, it's one-state. It's like La La Land. Who's going to govern this one-state? I mean, you think it's bad now? They're not even living right there together. So I believe that it's going to be quite a long time before a one-state is desirable there. You know, I heard somebody, I thought this was so American. Somebody said, there needs to be just a one-state. It needs to be secular. And I thought if ever, there was an American blind spot, here are two people who are very clear that their religions matter. And here's this American progressive coming in saying, and they'll both, it'll be a secular country. And so we're going to impose that. So to me, they both deserve and need sovereign states, both of them. Easy, no. But one-state is that doesn't, in any way, to me solve a problem. Well, here's what I will say to that. So a lot of folks were also fearful of, you know, internal disputes with the end of apartheid in South Africa. And on top of that, the other argument, the counter argument is, you know, prior to the Balfour Declaration, there was peace. You know, Arabs and Jewish people for the most part lived in that area. And the Jewish population was much smaller, you know, but you know, there was relative peace. So this is kind of the thinking of individuals like Avi Shlame, you know, and how it is, it is even though it's inconceivable, now it is something that could be possible. What would you say to that? I would say that when you, the days that you're talking about, there were tribes wandering around. There were no nation states. There wasn't a nation state. There weren't any states at all. But that's very different than one state. And in today's world, there's going to be a state. So you, it's not, it's not like we can go back to that. And I don't believe that the entire state of Israel is apartheid. There are apartheid laws. I believe that there is a, you know, clearly the West Bank is, clearly the settlements are, but you know, there are Arabs in the Knesset. It's, I do, I'm not enrolled in the idea that this is not South Africa for me, to me. Oh, okay. Interesting. Let me ask you this, because you do support a ceasefire, which I think is the bare minimum. So that is to me, you pass that test. Let's take it further though. I'm curious. I'm curious for what it's worth. You pass the test. So here's what I want to ask you. And I think that that's worth noting. True. Very true. So in the event you become president, hypothetically speaking, I would assume that you would sign on to the International Criminal Court. So after Dick Cheney might not be too happy about that or George Bush, you know, exactly what I was going to ask you. So yeah, under with us under their jurisdiction, would you as president not pull an Obama and actually recommend some of your predecessors for prosecution, including Joe Biden? No. Why not? Because I believe that a lot of forgiveness and a lot of mercy is necessary going forward. And if you know, I would certainly not like look at someone like, I'm not coming from a Gerald Ford place where he pardoned Richard Nixon because I think it really hurt the nation that he pardoned Richard Nixon, especially when John Mitchell and Ehrlichman and all those guys Haldeman, et cetera, had gone to jail, I think Haldeman went. But when I think of the things that I would like to achieve as president and the political capital that you have having been elected president, I would not be immediately day one. There are a lot of things you could ask me about. If I would do day one or if I would do in the first hundred days, joining the criminal court and suggesting Joe Biden Dick Cheney and George Bush for criminal prosecution would be, to me, the most performative indulgence. To me, those things do not represent the serious work of going forward and trying to write either our domestic or our foreign policy malfeasance, where it is. But what do you say to this idea that if we never hold people who break international law accountable, that they're going to do it again? I mean, for example, let's say that Henry Kissinger was still alive. If you were president, would you even recommend somebody like him who's responsible for four, five million plus deaths? To actually see, first of all, I think other countries would suggest it. I don't think it would be the United States suggesting it. That's really how it works, I think. What would you? What would you? If I were president and we were in the criminal court, would I have suggested it? Henry Kissinger, yeah. I would not have suggested it, but if we were a member of the criminal court, then listen, one of the reasons we should be a member of the criminal court is because some of those things might not have happened if we had them. The fact that we were not a member of the criminal court is what made the Dick Cheney's of the world and the Henry Kissinger's of the world feel such permission to carry out their imperialistic, militaristic tie rates to begin with. That's why I think we should be on the court. Okay, okay. I want to switch gears a little bit. I want to talk about worker rights, specifically with regard to your campaign. So you've addressed this before, but there's been about two dozen plus campaign staffers who accuse you of creating a hostile work environment. They've accused you of emotional abuse. They've said that you've made them sign strict NDAs. And you have addressed this and you said that if all of these folks were under oath, that you would not be convicted by a jury of your peers. And I think that that's fair. Having said that though, I think that this is still going to be a sticking point to a lot of people because worker rights, those of us who have been in that predicament where we've seen bad bosses, we are very sensitive to this employer employee dynamics, specifically because that can foster abuse because of that power imbalance. For me, I've had horrible bad bosses that have given me depression, anxiety, they've abused me. But on top of that, I was also on the other side, where as a boss, I felt like in hindsight, I probably could have spoken to my subordinates with more respect. So just being on both sides there, not to both sides, anything, but like from that perspective, I'm curious what you would say to folks who are still concerned about this. And if these allegations have changed you in the sense that you're, you've kind of revisited the way that you speak to employees or instituted any new policies in the workplace, or if you have taken any of their recommendations to horror, such as hiring a comms director and a data director, because another, another complaint is that you haven't taken what they've said seriously. So just kind of talk me through it and what you'd say to address this. Okay. So in the campaign last time, I definitely said the F word fucking shit too often, not at people by the way, but in the presence of people. I like to think that I've grown or whatever, but I have seen enough men in the office. I've seen Bill Clinton in the White House get angry. I have read enough about Bill, about every male person who is running. I've read about them. The idea that mine is worse. No. In this campaign, there are people with whom I never had a crossword, never had a crossword. I actually thought we had a nice relationship who've come up with the stuff about me. I'm sorry. Somebody said they didn't take the advice of the pros. Are you kidding? Somebody worked for GameStop and is now telling me how the book publishing works, that I'm doing this to sell books. Well, let me tell you something. I have sold some books and the way to sell books in my field spiritual books is to never mention politics. Abuse can go both ways. Do I hope that over the years I have learned something about how to treat employees? I think I'm sure you have too. I hope I'm a better person. The stuff from last time, even though a lot of it was, oh yeah, really? Sometimes underperformers take any kind of accountability as an attack, but did I yell the crossword too much and yell, yeah, I did. But this time, anybody, what I have seen on this campaign about how politics works, I'm sorry, anybody who, people have no idea, and I do. And when it comes to a lot of that stuff, the person who's been abused here is me, including by all the people who repeat those stories and embellish those stories who were not there and don't know what they're talking about, who talk about my books, who have never read my books, who talk about my personality, who have never spent any time with me, or even how I work with with employees. So, am I a perfect person? No. And do I hope that I've become better in that area, in any other area? Yeah, especially with that, having lost my temper and stuff. But, you know, people said I threw a phone or people said I hit a car door many times. No, I turned around, it was too fast and I was upset and I hit my finger. So, there's a limit past which, no. Ask Bobby Kennedy, ask Cornell. If Bobby Kennedy's, if Bobby Kennedy, you know, Dennis Cousinich has gone, all you read is that Dennis Cousinich has gone. If me and mine, oh, she's crazy woman, we all know how she is and she can't keep anyone, she won't listen to anyone. No, I'm done with it. I'm not a perfect person, I hope to be better, but some of the stuff that's been said about me has been from people with whom I never had a crossword. People who are, I thought, oh, he's nice, why don't we hire him? No. So, do I hope- I appreciate, I appreciate you saying that, you know, you could have done things better and you're trying to learn. Because here's the thing, we're all just human beings. We are on this floating rock through space and we're trying our best, you know, and sometimes we fall short, sometimes we were accused of doing something we didn't do, it happens. One thing that I will say is that when it comes to mainstream media, I think that it's fair to say that there's this double standard where female candidates, these stories get publicized much more than male candidates. I think that's totally fair. That's not mainstream media though, that's independent media too. Well, here's why though, here's why. I think that when it comes to a candidate like Bobby Kennedy, for example, he's a fraud, you're not. When it comes to these Republicans, Bill Clinton, they are frauds. I expect nothing but the worst from them. So when there is this type of allegation about a leftist candidate, it does give me pause. Because I think that for progressives, for better or worse, we're held to a much higher standard, right? And so when it's really easy, like again, going back to a lot of people who have been in this predicament, it's very easy to sympathize with these claims because we've all been there with these horrible losses, right? So I think that, I think it's one thing. I'm sorry, go ahead. I'm not disagreeing with you, but if we hold ourselves to a higher standard, then why don't we look at our own misogyny? Well, do you think two things can be true at once? Perhaps maybe, maybe these employees, you know, sure, there's some wrong and maybe they would look at you differently because you're a woman, but also there's some truth maybe to, yeah, you know, you were a little bit emotionally abusive. Like, I think that two things can be true. Like, do you think that it's possible? Yeah, actually, you know, when I think about what emotional abuse is, I think that word has become so 20, everything's abusive. Like I said, under performers, take any kind of accountability is an attack. One person's abuse is another person holding someone accountable. The emotionality that I displayed on the first campaign, yeah. But this, this, this time, this concerted effort, and people saying do not vote for her, people with whom I never had a cross word like people who never had, who could not say that I'd ever done anything to them. Or to, and no, I mean, there's a level, I mean, I know that, you know, just apologize and say, you're sorry, well, I apologize for mistakes I've made and, and this has got, this is and. Yeah, yeah, you kind of feel like it's there's no taking this place and this holy or the now, oh, we're for work. You know, no, there's a limit past it's um, I feel I did almost too much apologizing at the time because it was almost like it was stuff came at me and I'm sorry, I'm just now and I think about that and I spent a lot of nights and thinking my actual interactions with people and that business you were saying she should have listened to the pros. Who's the one who's run for president twice here? I could, I could, I could tell you things that would surprise you. So it kind of seems like to me it's it feels like you've kind of you've done your best to address this and take accountability, but a lot of folks won't take yes for an answer. If I may, they don't want to because you know, there's an old phrase contempt prior to investigation and I have come to there is this irrational animus against me and I feel with some people they might say it's just that but those are the same people who call me crystal lady and I think some people just don't they don't like me and it doesn't seem because if they I mean if you have had any kind of public whatever you see stories written about other people public figures quite differently none of which is to say that I'm a perfect person none of which to say I haven't had my moments nothing would you know or that you know I've said things that were you know should have been said differently all that stuff and of course I hope to be better than a different person obviously but there's something else going on here I see dark in my okay one last thing on this subject then I want to get to health care so here's what I would say just from my perspective if I am not convinced and I'm not saying that that's my position but if I were not convinced some things that I would that I saw that would change my mind would be perhaps you endorsing a unionization or after the election my god I was on the oh my goodness I was on the UAW strike I was out with Christian Smalls the other day and your employees specifically of your staffers would you support that said they wanted to to unionize yeah okay would you consider after the election releasing them from their NDAs what why is what's what what is that for after I've been treated the way I have been by people lying to me the way they have who have broken them I don't know I think that's not unionization where is that I don't understand and every every political campaign they have NDAs I mean that's it's a part of you're not any political campaign you're better but why I see I used to say that as though in NDA I have worked for many people with whom I've I've had NDAs I think I worked for Oprah Winfrey I mean I've worked for all kinds of people with whom I think they had a reasonable a reasonable claim on the importance of confidence within the office space I don't see what's wrong I mean you say there's something wrong with an NDA I mean I have to think about that but I don't see what's wrong with that contract from the perspective of leftists and this is my take I don't speak for all leftists NDAs are another form of control from employers that you know our employers most of the time not with you not with respect to like campaigns but they control the way that we dress they control where we have to be they control our livelihoods and they also control speech so this is another form of control that leads to that power imbalance so that's kind of why people view NDAs myself included arguably depending on the NDA and the circumstance because I've turned down jobs based on NDAs that I've had to sign myself it's just it's a form of free speech suppression in the minds of folks so that's kind of like not to accuse you of saying you're trying to do that that's just one of the instances where people kind of see an NDA and they take pause if that makes sense well if they do them you know I mean I don't see it that way to me it's no different than an NDA meeting you know no that's fair or confidence with your therapist it's a your therapist isn't going to say what went on here and I think sometimes that's really important okay yeah no I think that's fair I think just emotional safety and it goes both ways the NDA goes both ways you know okay okay okay so I do want to move on I want to talk about healthcare so healthcare if you go to your website you have a book on healthcare it is beautiful to see that because a lot and I mean book in terms of like your policy platform there's a lot there I wrote a book about health I mean you could you could right you know we have many many issues on that website and I'm very proud of that tool it's great and it's nice to see another presidential candidate take healthcare seriously because I felt like this was it like with Bernie 2020 2016 are we ever going to get somebody who takes it this seriously and my hat goes off to you honestly your healthcare policies are great there's a couple things that I want to ask you about though just nail down on some specifics and this is really like we're getting in the weeds here but I know that you love the policy you want Korean stuff like that and I'm I do too I'm really curious about it so when it comes to specifics one thing that I didn't see on your platform is what would you do you you mentioned hospitals and how to rein in the prices would you be open and this is a big this is not something that's really discussed would you be open to nationalizing hospitals to create a sort of UK type plan and I'm also curious what the role if any private insurance providers would play in your healthcare system you know when it comes to health insurance there are many different ways of doing it you have New Zealand you have Australia you have Germany you have England you have all different systems and I haven't seen any that are perfect but I see really good things in all of them and all of them also are not the United States so there has to be you know the best minds brought together for what is most applicable here to me the the bottom line is that we must have universal healthcare I believe in a Medicare for all type system now some people say there should therefore be no private insurance allowed because anything like that would circumvent the system there are other countries where they do believe that there should be some allowance for private insurance additionally that's that's that's there's a struggle between those those two beliefs and so we have to see what is possible for the United States in terms of hospitals a hospital industrial complex is certainly a problem but at the same time I like to think in terms of a hybrid economy I like to think in terms of look there's a high side to the to the free market but as Adam Smith said free market capitalism cannot exist outside an ethical context so what's happened now is that the corporatist model has no morals it has no ethics if the bottom line is short-term profit for stock older class then that is always at the expense in this case of the patient at the expense of of workers at the expense of nurses at the expense of doctors and so forth um wherever necessary so I would like to begin with guardrails you know I don't I you know with a vision I once wrote a book that said with a vision you must not compromise politics is the art of compromise I'm not gonna you know come in if I'm president of the United States I'm not gonna come in and okay we're gonna nationalize oil the nationalize energy I mean we're gonna nationalize I'm gonna ask you I'm not gonna I know you'd like that but that's not that's it's hard here you know it's like and we're gonna prosecute any kids and you're even though he's dead posthumously you know no no we want blood Marianne turn this shit around Mike you know we're not performative stuff this is real um yeah I want to be a wise and responsible left-wing guardian of the country and I appreciate that one thing that I want to say about um private insurance and I have been one of the more annoying pushers of Medicare for all who is very insistent on we need to destroy all private insurance companies and it was ever since I read this paragraph from Adam Gaffney in 2019 that it just clicked with me and I was hoping that I could read this paragraph to you because I think it really puts it into perspective how unnecessary these private insurance companies are so he argues and this is a physician part of a physician a national nurses united um so the only one I'm sorry not national nurses united physicians for single pay or something like that I'll put I'll put it down below but the only way to make room for a significant role for private insurance in the American context is to make the public system paltry or skimpier to impose onerous co-pays and deductibles or to let the rich preferentially displace working-class people from hospital beds and doctor's offices but it doesn't seem to make sense to punch holes in your own floor just to create work for a carpenter that is particularly true if your floor is your health care and your carpenter is an extractive insurance agent so I say this about um private insurance companies because if you if you carve out a rule for them you and you you reference this too to be fair you kind of like open you open the door to where you give them an inch they're gonna take a mile they're gonna push for privatization we're seeing like even with the uk like I think that their health care is the gold standard but they are trying the tories are trying to privatize more and more of it uh same is happening happening in Australia so would you be and I know that you you want to be realistic but would you start negotiations perhaps of no no private insurance just to try to see how far you can push it but you just said yourself you said you saw England as the gold standard and they do have the cases where you could have the private insurance well that's diminishing because of the private that's kind of like why I'm so worried right because if and currently they don't have all you know publicly owned hospitals about I want to say like 10% are privately owned I think it should be 0% I think there should be no privatization but I just worry that like okay let's say we get single-payer 2025 when you become president by 2040 you know it could look completely different just because they chip away little by little and that's really the fear I want to build something that lasts for generations like social security I think that the policy the way that was designed has made it so that way it is future proof and there's currently attempts to you know chip away at it privatization but it hasn't lasted because it's it's the way it was designed was crucial so that's kind of like my pitch for getting rid of private insurance or at least starting negotiations there what I can say to you is I'm more with you than not okay but the but the struggle will always be there that struggle right lost any president so so and you know I look at scandinavian countries I look at the hybrid models I I'm more with you than not okay I also understand I also understand some of the problems that occur as well okay that's fair that's fair that's all we can ask for from a presidential candidate I like that on the subject of health care so I felt like for the first time at least in my lifetime I don't know if there were any other instances of this but we actually experimented with free health care in a very limited capacity with the COVID-19 vaccines there was a Commonwealth fund study released last november I want to say and they determined that they saved 3 million lives prevented 18 million plus hospitalizations and we saved over a trillion bucks so to me I view that as a microcosm of what medicare fraud would look like if you take that and you extrapolate how this could look in other you know other other areas and this is what the studies also show as well right there was a Harvard study pre-pandemic by the way that shows medicare fraud would save 68 000 lives we would also save on overall spending and so I felt like man the COVID-19 vaccines that's that's the test like we that's the test but I have to be honest exactly we funded it didn't you just do it literally so it's it's mind-boggling to me that in the year 2023 we're still talking about this as if it's impossible in other countries do it when we did it and we save lives and money but on the subject of COVID vaccines I had something to nitpick with you about okay so bear with me so on the June 26th episode of breaking points you said something that was really disappointing to me about the COVID vaccines you said one of the things that really upset me during the COVID vaccine was how little conversation was even allowed about treatment whether it was ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine and then you later added the CDC and the administrations were both using the media to focus on this idea no it's got to be just the COVID vaccines now I know that you were specifically trying to emphasize the need for transparency and public trust in these institutions but I felt like that was really disappointing because you kind of lending credence to the claims of folks like Robert Kennedy and Joe Rogan who are trying to undermine the vaccine when a single-payer advocates this should be the thing that we are screaming from the rooftops this vaccine worked it worked really well not just because we're trying to bolster our single-payer arguments although that's important but it works because uh the evidence the data shows that so can you expound upon that a little bit because I I felt when I saw that I was really disappointed because I felt like this is not the Marianne that I know who is kind of lending credence to this argument just talk me through it I think my articulation was a little sloppy I think my articulation was a little sloppy but I do have a problem when voices are suppressed and I and I did wonder at the time why there wasn't more conversation about treatment but I think to extrapolate from that that I was in the Bobby Kennedy camp is really far no I wouldn't say that no I wouldn't say that I I would argue that um it inadvertently legitimize that kind of argument and look the reason why this is something that was really concerning to me um and not just you like whenever I hear the argument like the Joe Rogan argument that like man why can't we even talk about this I don't understand why this is going on I felt like it was one of the few instances where the media was actually doing its job because the vaccines were working and ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were not and for me it's a little bit more personal because I have a grandmother and we don't know all of the details she was in a nursing home and we believe that she contracted COVID-19 from the nursing home although when she was finally admitted into the hospital she was testing negative but we think that she got pneumonia from having COVID-19 don't know she died and she didn't get the vaccine because my auntie's convinced her that this was going to kill her it was it was deadly and they were these people that were no you got to go with you know ivermectin alternate treatments and so for me I I felt like man this is not one of those instances where we should we should just cavalier discuss these alternatives like Joe Rogan did for example one one thing that stood out to me and not to make this about Joe Rogan but just as an example of you know he said if you're a young person would I recommend you get the vaccine no and so you know to me this is this is one of those instances where what what are we doing right like I I support Medicare for all because I support saving lives I support the vaccine and was trying my best to tell people do not take ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine the vaccine at this time and this was during like Delta wave 2021 this is the way to go and you know it's not because I'm a big pharma shill I want to nationalize all of them I want to I want to jail these CEOs it's because this is what is going to save lives and I think there were so many countless lives lost because there were people like Joe Rogan who irresponsibly addressed these alternatives under the pretense of free speech when he had no expertise so that's kind of like that's where I'm coming from and I'm not saying that you know you're part of that I don't want I don't want you to think that that's that's the takeaway here I just think that you know and you you said that you know you don't think that you worded it as well as you could have you know when I saw that I thought oh Marianne come on I know you don't I know you don't think this you are a single-payer advocate through and through no and I certainly I was vaccinated if I'd had a grandmother in a you know a nursing home absolutely I would have got to get that vaccine and so right and I'm so sorry about your loss oh thank you thank you I mean she to be fair like she was in her 90s so we we were as soon as the you know we started to hear these stories about older people in nursing home you know it was horrifying but yeah it that's kind of listen to say we've got to get her vaccinated immediately yeah there's unfortunately just one member of the family who was pushing that you know she lives in she lived in Hawaii so you know my side couldn't didn't have any influence over it I had one uncle who was trying but everyone else they instilled the fear of God into her you know with regard to the vaccine so yeah that I appreciate you you know saying that you misspoke there and I'm glad that you clarified and you said you said just for the record you know vaccines are good and of course gotten it of course of course yes good good good good okay good okay good because I I've seen stories and this kind of dates back to like the the 90s 90s era Marianne where I think that they tried to portray you as anti-vax but after I see that and I'm very sensitive I don't think that that's stories about me talking about vaccinations in the 1990s no I think that they try they tried to insinuate that you were there's been a lot of false insinuations because I said something about mandates this was long before COVID I made a comment about okay I'd never made an anti-vaccine comment no I'm not saying you were I'm saying that the media they they they make these insinuations one and I want to move on to queer rights because there's one insinuation that was really shocking to me and you I think that you address this very very artfully so you got one of the people who you helped during the AIDS crisis to do a campaign ad for you and this was in response to the view Sonny Hauston effectively saying that you told AIDS patients to not take their medicine and I saw this and I didn't have any evidence to the contrary I didn't know how to look this up and I thought oh my god if this is true this is horrible but then to hear your side of the story it was infuriating because you know during the AIDS crisis you know gay people were like taboo you know nobody wanted to be around them their own family members so to hear that you were there actually speak treating them like human beings speaking to them that was as a member of the community I was very touched by that explain your reasoning because I just to put everyone who wasn't alive during that that time myself included everybody thought that this like weird gay disease was contagious but you were right there with them explain your thinking because I don't think that a lot of people understand how how bad it was at the time to be gay and to be around gay people but you were there so explain your thinking because I think this is so important and it speaks to like how we can all be better as allies it's not about my thinking it's about my experience I was giving lectures on a set of books called A Course in Miracles and A Course in Miracles is not a religion it is a system of spiritual psychotherapy that has to do with the relinquishment of a thought system based on fear the acceptance instead of a thought system based on love it's just about being more loving when I start I started lecturing in 1983 soon thereafter this disease and it was very similar to what happened with COVID and that all of a sudden it's all you hear about but it was the opposite of COVID and the COVID was very easy to get but the chances were you would survive AIDS was the opposite very hard to get the chances where you would die so it took first of all Western medicine much like with COVID it wasn't like it wasn't trying nobody thought Western medicine wasn't trying but they kept coming up there was this disease they couldn't they did nothing was working people just dying everywhere and in addition to that the organized religions were eerily silent because they were working out their own you know homophobic stuff etc so silence so here was this woman I was at the time in my early 30s talking over the in the Los Feliz area of LA about a god who loves us no matter who we are what we've done and and how when we love each other enough anything is possible and so gay men started coming to my lectures and it started becoming this thing and we couldn't guarantee that someone couldn't wouldn't die but we could guarantee that nobody was going to die alone and so I would be giving lectures two or three times a week but we would in the days that I wasn't lecturing we were doing support groups and then I wanted a house where we could all because we would be giving these support groups at people's apartments and then I would say well you know someone's okay really use a massage is there anybody with massage or anything we'd start make I'd make appointments in this little pink book I had and then I was like well why don't we rent a house and I started talking up at my lectures about how we should have a house where everybody could be because we were all holding on to each other so much at these lectures and the support groups but I knew people needed it all day every day so David Geffen I don't know if your generation still knows who David Geffen is and if he's still I'm not sure myself that's pretty interesting yeah well David Geffen a gay billionaire and he called me one day he had been at the at the talk with his lover that morning he said I hear you want to I heard you say you wanted to start a house for people who are HIV I said yeah I want to start a house and it'll be really great because people can come over and then they uh you know people can have it can be like an all-day support group and people be there and people can get massages and people will come in and just give therapy and just donate their services and we'll have food and then people who are ill you know it'll be a place where everybody can be in non-medical support services and he said um how much would this cost you and I said oh I think we can do it for $5,000 and he said but I don't know if he was laughing on the other side of the line or not he said oh really what was where's the $5,000 what's four I said well and I'm so naive at that time about who he is and who he was I said well the rent was the house on Sierra Bonita in West Hollywood I said the rent is $2,500 but see the way they do it is you have to pay first and last also yeah he said oh really so I'm informing him which is very funny if you know David Geffen is he said really I said yeah I said so that's your $5,000 I said yeah he said well won't you need money for staff and I said no no no well gonna be there talking to me volunteering and all that kind of stuff and he said okay well thank you so much for telling me and uh then about an hour later there was a knock at my door with a check for $50,000 from David Geffen wow so then we had it was really extraordinary and then we would have the lectures and the lectures were kind of like you know it's like almost like a social it was where people could gather and it was very beautiful because a lot of people knew you know I would hear people one of the things you would hear a lot of young men say you know in today's world you can't even imagine this but this is the world we were living in there how many young men were going through all of this anxiety about calling their parents but the issue about calling their parents was twofold I have to tell them I'm gay and I have to tell them I'm dying and I heard people say it's harder to tell them I'm gay than to tell them I'm dying wow and then what started happening was I remember the day I went in and I said where's Aiden and they said um no he's not in today I said well he's always here why isn't Aiden here well I can't get he couldn't get out you know he couldn't leave the house today and I said well how's he gonna eat I don't know I said oh okay we'll have to take the food to him and so what would happen is people get to the point where we were delivering food so then we started as a project of that first and that first center for living we also did in New York and then so then we started a project of the center for living which was called Project Angel Food was a meals on wheels homebound home delivery which today has served over 16 million meals wow and because it still exists today feeding homebound people with critical illness no matter what their disease in the LA area and then when we started Project Angel Food it Hollywood showed up in such a profound way I mean you're talking about people like Bette Midler and Elizabeth Taylor and like I remember our first fundraiser you would get things like um Frank Geary would design your patio or uh I mean just lunch was in LA and we made a million dollars at night I remember wow uh huh that's so cool it was very beautiful I love that story it was very profound so when you know it's all part and parcel of the same thing Mike yeah about me so I that I told gay people not to take their medicine first of all there wasn't even any medicine and then when it was the last thing I told people or that they got AIDS because they didn't pray enough or it's all part of the same she's crazy cookie she's horrible it's very gross because like we all like to think you know in hindsight is 2020 right where we like to think back and say you know if if I were alive in this time I would do X but the truth is I think a lot of people a lot of liberals a lot of very progressive minded people today would not have wanted anything to do with gay people and so like you I think this is such a big accomplishment because you can say I actually know what I would have done I lived it and I did it and I think that's so cool like I love the story it wasn't just what I did it's what they did for me too I mean they I it wasn't just me giving it was me receiving you know this was before before gay men you know the idea of a gay man adopting a child was something and so like when I got pregnant all these gay men in LA we're having a baby we're having a baby um you know it was uh it gave me everything too it didn't it it went both ways trust me I love that's yeah I love that so much uh one of my favorite things to hear I love that about you thank you for that I think that's great um on the subject one more question about LGBTQ plus rights it you know we we've come so far you know since then thankfully but there's still so much work to go uh you know and in the last two years I mean the backwards movement that we've had with regard to trans issues has been just colossal and this year alone the ACLU tracked 500 plus anti-lgbtq plus bills across the country a lot of them passed a lot of them like don't say a gage end up from in care bans and now I believe the number is 19 different states they all ban gender from in care for trans youth so what I want to ask you is if you were president how would you address this is this something that you would need to do legislatively could you use your pen because at the last debate so the republicans were implying that they could easily ban gender from in care um with the stroke of a pen they wouldn't need you know congress to do this so could you do the opposite you know could you wipe out these bans with a stroke of the pen how would you address this because this is going to be I think the next battle going forward well first of all you know you said we've come a long way but we have a long way to go I see it the opposite I see it as with really as you then indicated gone backwards in ways that are really shocking actually yeah you know in the development of a nation just like in the development of an individual sometimes you take one step forward and two steps back we thought we really enlarge part because of AIDS then you had the human rights um what's the organization human human rights campaign right campaign yeah uh was founded you know so really felt like and then we have marriage equality really felt like we were just opening up a whole new world of possibility right um so this has been these these steps backwards have been part of a larger picture of the barbarism that is ascendant in in the world unfortunately uh first thing I would do almost the first thing I would do is confer special protection status on transgender americans they are a targeted group today they were targeted group and I would confer a special protection status on that yeah I know on your your platform you said that you would declare violence against trans people and their suicide rights a national emergency which is something I haven't seen um from another candidate which is I and I hadn't even thought about that as a as an idea I think that's actually really great um in terms of like gender affirming care do you think that that declaration would assist you with that would that give you the tools that you need to stop these bans um under the same logic uh I have transgender friends who agree with me that nothing non-reversible uh should be legal until 18 so I think once somebody's 18 they should do whatever they want to do but the prefrontal cortex isn't even uh fully developed at 14 or 15 so um you know people talk about how hormone therapy is reversible there's controversy about that but at least there's enough of an argument that it's reversible that I'm to me that's between a patient and their doctor what uh I'm curious because I'm um I assume that you you support a gender affirming care uh what do you mean by non-reversible procedures for trans youth uh like what what specifically for instance I think if a woman decides I'm I'm not actually a woman I don't want to be in a woman's body I totally respect that and as of her 18th birthday she can do whatever she wants to do but I believe that that there should be some things that are not happening until you're 18 would you support um hormone replacement therapy or puberty block for transgender replacement therapy is different there is at least an argument now I've heard some people who who argue with that but there is enough legitimate claim you know both sides have argument to me there is enough legitimate claim that yes it's reversible if they want to later that I think hormone replacement is should be legal okay how about puberty blockers as well well that's what the replacement really is yeah right so that way okay so it's the really it sounds like the one thing that's a sticking point to you is the double mastectomy we are on penises and all that kind of stuff well yeah currently uh you can't do uh bottom surgery until you're 18 and you know as well as I do that even when you qualify for that we live in late-stage capitalists hellscape and if you want to get any surgery you can't do it it's very expensive I have trans friends who are doing go fund me's to get surgeries that they need in the 30s so yeah yeah that I don't necessarily think that people would take issue with that the one thing that I will say is with double mastectomies is that this is such a rare occurrence and the only time that it is permitted is in circumstances where it's a teen that's like 16 and they have shown persistent gender dysphoria for a very long time at the doctor and parent consents to it um but if that's the only thing that you take issue with then yeah as long as long as you are basically you go with the consensus of science I think that's that's where we can all we can all agree which is good yeah um okay so there's man we are we're running out of time here I don't want to take too much of your time we didn't get to ask about climate change but I do want to give you the opportunity I always do this to candidates to just kind of like make your last pitch um you know use the microphone now to let people know why you're doing this why you're running and why you think that they should support you and where they can support you well it's interesting because I have a hard time using the word should I don't think anyone quote unquote should support me I think someone should as a responsibility to yourself and to your country know what other what people are proposing and I do appreciate the opportunity to say what I am actually proposing as opposed to the fairy dust that is thrown in people's so much which I think has blocked many people from seeing what I am proposing I'm proposing an economic bill of rights uh and taking uh Franklin Roosevelt's economic bill of rights moving it into the 21st century want universal health care want tuition free college and tech school uh want complete cancellation of the college loan death I want subsidized child care child care is a real crisis for many Americans I want paid family leave I want guaranteed sick pay I want affordable housing guaranteed affordable housing and a guaranteed living wage in addition to that I want a department of peace we need to learn to wage peace as effectively as we wage war there should be a peace academy just as there is a military academy peace building is a real thing we should have armies of peace builders just like we have armies of military personnel uh when there's greater economic opportunities for women greater educational opportunities for children a reduction of violence against women and an amelioration of unnecessary human despair then there is statistically a higher incidence of peace and a lower incidence of violence um we should imagine a world without war in a hundred years and reverse engineer from there just like we play war games we should play peace games some people think that's naive I think it's what's naive is to think that we are guaranteed survival on this planet for another hundred years if we don't at least try and the peace uh the peace department applies as much those issues and those elements apply as much to any corner of the united states as any other corner of the world I also want a department of children and youth I would be a very child-centric president if we want a country that is thriving in 20 years we're going to have to pay far more attention to 10-year-olds today everything is an early childhood we now know about the human brain 90 percent of it is developed in the first five years we have children in America who are traumatized before preschool we have elementary school students on suicide watch we have throughout public schools in the country uh trauma rooms and we have to ask ourselves why should childhood be a trauma for millions of children in the richest country in the world to me children are the primary example of collateral uh due to vulture capitalism due to this malevolent strain of capitalism that has come to dominate our our country they're not old enough to work so they don't have any financial leverage in washington they are not old enough to vote so they're no constituency at all and their needs are just collectively and systemically uh neglected I want to just as john kennedy declared we would land a man on the moon in 10 years I want my declaration to be that within within 10 years every public school in america would be a palace of college and learning in the arts we now have millions of children who go to schools where they don't even have the resources that allow them to read and if you cannot learn to read by the age of 10 your chances of high school graduation are drastically reduced and your chances of incarceration are drastically increased so we need a massive transfer of resources in in the direction of children 10 years old and younger so major child one of the things I I look forward to in the space of possibility of my being president is bringing together the best minds on early childhood that has to do with nutrition some of that nutritional issue we have a high infant mortality rate among black women a high maternal mortality rate these things will not be neglected by me um next I want to declare climate emergency we need to ramp down a fossil fuel extraction uh president Biden has given more oil drilling permits than even trump did yeah plus he okay the willow project he approved the willow project if you put the willow project and uh um those permits together they completely nullify the otherwise you know healthy benefits of the green investments in the inflation reduction act and of course he calls himself the climate president because it's a purse thief thing look over here don't look over there look at the green investments don't look at how much we are allowing investment in in the dirty energy and at this point it doesn't matter whether it's a democrat or republic and those guys fall in line with big well and they fall in line with defense contractors um we need an immediate mass mobilization from a dirty economy to a clean economy so uh and I I don't see how to get there at this point unless we do declare a climate emergency and get along with it and the last major pillar of my agenda um of course I stand for reparations and all kinds of things but the last a big part of what I think is necessary in order to turn this thing around is we need to end America's war on drugs um it was started in 1971 by Richard Nixon who knew that drugs were not uh America's public enemy number one he did it in large part as a matter of fact as an attack on black communities we spent a trillion dollars clearly we have not solved the problem of drug addiction in America we we have exacerbated it there were 300 000 people in uh prison when I was in college there are now 2.3 million and 46 percent of our federal uh federal prisoners are non-violent drug offenders the vast majority of them should be home with their children so for the hundred billion dollars that we spend um on the drug war every year for a fraction of that we could have a world-class network of recovery options we should not be criminalizing drug addiction which is now an ubiquitous issue in America is one of the primary you know it's a disease of despair these are deaths of despair we should treat it as a health issue like they do in places like um uh like Portugal so for me you know the presidents have drugs are I want a recovery czar um so whether it's recovery whether it's children whether it's peace uh we need to put our focus on our resources in some places uh that they are not now in the meantime short term profit maximization for huge corporate entities whether it has to do with insurance companies pharmaceutical companies big food companies big agricultural companies big chemical companies big oil gun manufacturers defense contractors they are a system of economic tyranny it's why we don't have universal healthcare it's why we have over a million people rationing their insulin is why we have carcinogens in our food that aren't allowed in other countries why we have chemicals in our pesticides it's why we have guns flooding our streets it's why we're ramping up fossil fuels it's why we fought wars that have nothing to do with with righteous foreign policy so we have to see their money obviously citizens united and so forth by the way what I hope a younger generation will do they need to pass an amendment to establish public funding for federal campaigns and I would like to think it would happen before but we all know the realities now um this is you know this is corporate it's a system of of tyranny when you have short term corporate profits taking precedence you know they have become that's become our governing principle and it takes precedence over democratic values over humanitarian values of the safety health and well-being of the american people and our animals and our planet and our future and we need a president who says so this incremental approach just means we'll hit the iceberg a little bit later in a different angle but I think that we need a president who lays it down that bluntly and yet sees the transition from a dirty economy to a clean economy from a war economy to a peace economy like like you and I were talking about it has to be wise it has to be responsible I couldn't in my four years get us completely around the curve get us completely turned around the ship but I think I could get us around the curve and then send it over to a younger generation because it would be their turn and I believe that first of all I believe that everything I just said is the way to be Donald Trump as well right I agree with that because you know Franklin Roosevelt said that we would not have a hostile you know we would not have a fascist takeover in the United States as long as democracy delivered on its promises and what we have now is a country in which democracy doesn't deliver on its promises we're not going to win in 2024 by warning people or scaring people about Trump we're going to win by offering people the end to this aberrational chapter of American history which has moved 50 trillion dollars of wealth away from the bottom 90 percent of the American people into the hands of one percent cutting the cord and having a new beginning a new beginning of hope you know Mike I'm old enough to remember in the 1970s the average American worker could afford a house and could afford a car and could afford a yearly vacation and could afford for one pair to stay home if they wanted and could afford to send their kids to college because one job could support a family of four I remember that and we've just got to cut the cord there is no negotiating with the with the malevolence of an amoral system that just put stockholder value above and beyond any the rights of any other stakeholder or the earth itself and we need a president who says that we need a campaigner who says it we need a person who makes that claim to the American people and my my sense of the American people is they're not stupid well you know my father used to say talk to the smartest person on the jury give people a chance to be noble give people a chance to be smart and I believe that's a way to win in 2024 it's and I don't think anything less than that will win in 2024 and I think probably even more importantly than that it's the way we'll start to repair the country and have a new beginning that sounds wonderful Marianne I want to thank you so much for coming on the program you you gave us so much time and on top of that you let me ask really hard questions you answered honestly I really appreciate it so much thank you thank you thank you I'm a big fan mic and I really appreciate it I will likewise likewise