america is viewed through her photos in her book project 562 she's interviewed by american university professor birdwatching boo tv every sunday on cspan2nd find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime a booktv.org most. charter communications supports c-span as a public service along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. at our table this morning marianne williamson,

presidential candidate. thank you forpa being here. >> thank you for having me. >> this is your second presidential bid; why are you running? >> i feel the united states needs to make a tone poll after poll to show that they are moving in the wrong direction. that is the sense of the people and the whole radicalism in a way at the court of the american ideal is that the people are directing and yet right now things are being directed not so much by the people as by corporate donors and corporate entities and corporate wealth but actually the people may turn things around. >> are you getting the people to support you financially? >> i am in there. that is with the campaign is all about. a campaign is a big job interview. a long job interview and you are presenting yourself to the people and your agenda, letting people know this is what i would

do if i were given the job and people think about it. the problem we have right now however is the bill forces you to seek to limit the voice that is presented to the people. this is why it's so important as the democratic party as dilaudid debates of the voters of the democratic party there are three candidates so far and the american people should have an wide as array of options as possible. >> what have you heard about the debates? >> what i've heard is what you and everybody else has heard. they simply decided to joe biden is the nominee. that's not democracy. part of it should be and has been the champion of democracy itself to not be so weary of the democratic process in our own house. >> what is your strategy and where are you right now and how do you plan to stay in this race given that the party as you said -- >> the parties are not even

mentioned in the constitution. the people of the ultimate authority. i'm talking to the people. a lot of that conversation with people these days as you know is online, various online platforms but also there are the other primary states, new hampshire, michigan, georgia, south carolina, nevada. you i go out there. that's the american way. >> you areeg popular on social media. explain yource g strategy. >> look at donald trump when he won in 2016 did he have a strategy orve did he not just ht a nerve i think that's my main strategy is telling the truth. i think i'm saying a lot of things everybody says but few people see them as publicly or in the microphone and that is we are not at the moment functioning yet as a government of thehe people, by the people d for the people. thego battlefield at gettysburg lincoln said the

man who died had died on the battlefield and had given the last full measure of devotion so that a government of the people, by the people and for the people would not perish from the earth. earth. it is perishing now. for all intents and purposes the government of the corporation and for the corporation. our congress is in many ways little more than a system of legalized bribery. legislator after legislator in the final analysis does more to answer to the goals of the corporate donors and to the people of the united states. we have the safety, the well being, the health of the american people at this point secondary to the profit margin of insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies and chemical companies, gun manufacturers, big oil and defense contractors. the people know this. we have 39% of the american people who report that they skip

meals in order to pay their rent. this is the richest country in the world and that goes up to 44% among the millennial's. one third of americans are living very economically unstable lives. one in florida are living with medical debt. we have the highest poverty rate including the highest child poverty rate of any country in the world. we have half of our seniors living on less than $25,000 a year and a third of our workers living on less than $15 an hour and not having a place to live. things are not going well. >> what would you do? >> we have to having an economic you turn in the country. we need to recognize that the rights that hold together the level of economic stability and capacity off people to drive tht are granted to the citizens of every other advanced democracy should be granted to the americans such as universal healthcare, such as tuition free college which we had in this country until the 1960s.

that is free childcare, paid maternity, such as guaranteed sick pay and guaranteed livable wage. those are the pillars. they should be seen as the main organs that provide people the ability to thrive, not just to survive on the unjust economic system. >> that sounds like president biden's platform. he is tried it, democrats have tried it. how would you be different? >> i admit if we got to build back better that would have been amazing but we didn't and there atare still things the president could do for instance the president said we would have a raise in the minimum wage which we haven't had in 13 years. a third of american workers live on less. give me a break. so the president got federal workers but then it was time to put it in the bill and you know was stopped at, the parliamentarians. the republican party but they ever allow this to be stopped as parliamentarians we allowed ourselves to be stopped by the parliamentarians because it was

convenient tod do so. the president has also approved and has given more drilling permits them trumpmp data. the president is a nice man. this isn't about who is not a nice man but i have serious disagreements with the president about such fundamental things as whether or not we guarantee that this will be a habitable planet. >> marianne williamson. let's get the calls. connie in florida, independent. go ahead. >> caller: yes, thank you for takingn? my call. i am a longtime student of the course and i've studied for several decades now and i want to know how your political ambitions align with the teachings of ego. i think of myself as radically american and the foundational principles which are included in our declaration of independence

are different with humanitarian. they are number one, all men are created equal. number two, god gave all men and alienable rights of life and liberty and the pursuit of happyness and in the book of deuteronomy it says justice, justice, thou shall pursue. if in fact as it says in the book of independence, governments are instituted. our government is instituted in order to secure those rights of life and liberty and the pursuit of happyness thatth means we mut pursue justice. we do not have environmental justicece or economic justice or criminal or racial justice in this country that we should have. to me love is you feed the hungry child. it's outrageous that we have hungrye, children in this count. you asked about the president. the democrats, the corporate leadership established like to brag about the fact that with the child tax credit they cut a

child poverty in half which is good although i would also say youfe could eradicate it. however, what happened is if it expired that tax credit expired in six months and no one got around to making it permanent so that to me is what love is it's not just a word, it's an action that means you remove the economic shackles that so many people live under in this country. not all chains are visible and the chains of economic doubt and heanxiety and economic despair that the majority of americans live under to me is a loving thing to remove the shackles and that is the humanitarian principle on the economic bottom line that now governs our country. >> next in new york democratic collar good morning. >> good morning. thank you for c-span. you're never going to get

elected to talking about love. god bless you, but i agree with most or all of your positions, but one cannot speak from weakness and that's not what voters are going to go for. one cannot speak from abstract language. you need to talk plain talk, plain english and unfortunately in today's world a guy like trump he is and idiot but he is a shock jock and gets everybody's attention and talks plain talk so my advice -- >> can i ask what kind of plain talk do you want to hear? >> caller: everything should be plain talk and we've got to get off of talking about a subject's in such a way where we just make a results week if it talks about a male body swimming

competitively with other males, not with females, all these things, the immigration we need to get a strong on the border just like on the republicans the way they talk. you've got to talk a strong. >> understood. marianneat williamson. >> the last caller asked me about it and i think the fierce mother that wants to take care of the children, our shared home which is the earth, it's not the other way around i would argue that this nonsense toxic masculine way of looking at the world that is represented by the former president has gotten us to where we are and i would suggest you say that's not the way to go. anything else is in the way to get elected. that isn't the way to repair this countries of the fact that i offer something that is an alternative to such language i think is a good thing not a bad thing. this country elected abraham lincoln and intellectual giants.

the political system has trained us to think like seventh graders and it's notre the time to think like seventh graders. i find it's interesting if you have any to americans that just talk, we are a decent people and we get real and talk about what is really going on in our lives but when- it comes to our publc conversations particularly political all go into these two big a war for anybody but i don't think it is. the former childish slogans this isn't the time in history we can afford to do that. we must get deeper. roosevelt said the most important jobb at the presidency is not administrative but is moral leadership and i think people are ready for a conversationon about what is tre in our hearts. that is where this country is off course. we are governed by an economic system that is polar and puts

the short term profits for the huge corporate entities before the health and safety and well-being of our people and this is unsustainable, it is morally wrong and spiritually wrong and politically wrong and we must change this. >> colorado in grand junction, republican caller. >> caller: good morning, marianne. i am a republican of course. that doesn't mean that i wouldn't vote for you but i would like tos ask you a constitutional question you mentioned earlier that the parties were not mentioned in the constitution. when ben franklin was around he was asked a question about the republic and what government we were going to have and she responded by saying the republic as long as we can keep it. i would also ask you to maybe look at article four, section

four in the constitution and that he says the united states shall guarantee to every state in the union a republican form of government. to me that republican form of government is a represented form of government and i do wish you good luck inab the campaign. >> thank you very much. i agree with of the things you said and also point out president eisenhower says the american mind atlo its best is both liberal and conservative. the free society isn't one in which all of us see everything the same way all the time or have to. so the interplay, the realization that nobody has a monopoly on truth. everybody has good ideas. we need to get back to that. there are conservative values and democratic values. we are a republican form of government and also a democracy. we are as you said a representative democracy is so that constant interplay between

federal power and state power as hamilton said the states are the laboratories of reform. that was played out established in the constitution and we are playing it out in our lives today. thank you. i appreciate your open-mindedness and i want to point out that this business about the parties not being mentioned in the constitution, george washington warned us about them in his farewell address. he said that they can become factions who care more about their factions than about their country and john adams also said he thought it was the greatest threat to democracy. we need to stop filtering ourselves and our behaviors to political parties. we need to become consistently devoted to those elements, to those constitutional principles and the principles of the declaration of independence that matter most to us. we can ourselves as people. >> at carnegie pennsylvania, independent.

good morning. >> thank you so much for taking my call. i have twoui quick questions and actually about 500 of us watching on which. my first question is how can you force biden to debate with you and then secondly, if you were to get elected all of the special interests would call all of their politicians that they own and would make sure no one would work with you. how do you think you can move your agenda if you were to get elected? thank you so much. >> guest: that is an excellent question. number one the first question. i can't force the president to debate me., however, robert kennedy junior and i are both quite vocal about challenging the president to a debate.

this is a democracy that as i said before people should have a wide array of options before them as possible. particularly those of us who do wish to see the democratic win in 2024. we need to be having a very serioust conversation about who actuallyto is the best candidate whether it's the personality or the energy level and what is the agenda that what in fact be the strongest opponent for 2024. it shouldn't be -- this is not just dictating the process bit the reminder of years ago when a bunch of men would set her down at the table smoking cigars just deciding who their nomination to be. that's not the way this should work.d the primary voters should decide. i can't force it but i told you you and everyone listening and everyone who cares about this can be raising issues about this. the b polls show the majority of democrats want to hear what the other options are. the second questionn you asked s quite legitimate no matter who

the president is the president is hoping that they have a party that will work with him or her. let's not forget no matter what even if you don't have a house willing to work with you, even if you don't have a senate willing to work with you, the president has tremendous power. the president of the united states doesn't have a magic wand nor do we want that but the president can produce executive order.r. i will give you an example. when they say that we could responsibly, it's a pretty responsible place, congressional budget office says we could cut a trillion dollars over the next decade frome, the military from our military budget and be fine the president could unilaterally threaten to close we have about 800 bases and about 80 countries. there's so much the president could do by executive order. the president can demand that there would be an auditing of the pentagon and a d schedule idmarijuana from the schedule oe drug and many would argue that if he would cancel the entire

collegeme loan debt the oppositn to shaving off $10,000 what is not have been as easy to state. let's not forget the president's power and at the president is the bully pulpit. i would be saying the truth to people. this is the time that we need radical truth telling. we have lies in this country from serious lies and the answer to that and the way to defeat and override is to tell some serious truths but we have to be honest with ourselves. this country has to reckon with serious mistakes we've made in the past and we need to take a good look inin the mirror where are we not living the principles we say we are and that is what is going to get us to the other side of this. as president because i've had 40 years helping people and organizations and were chaos and transform chaos that's what i will do as president. now i also want to say one last thing to that. i believe that if people see the idea of my being president as

this isn't a bad idea i want to go for that, then also we have to begin an entirely new era of citizenship in this country. many of us have thought i vote everyy two years i will show up for the congressional elections and for the presidential. that's not enough because corporate lobbyists sometimes without our best intentions at heart and the office of the legislators every day. not only that butre some of the things we need to worry about in this country are not just those active in washington, they are active throughout the states and every single state capital so we need a new era of citizenship and people who begin to see our civic activism as a part of the meaningful and well lived life so that means as people support my campaign you need to also get n,involved in the congressional elections in your district if they are happening and you have to get involved on the level of primary i so that i deliver the

kind of legislators who would play ball with me and then we will get a lot done. >> host: for the campaign debates in 2020 the criteria to get on the debate stage was over two of them, one, breaking 1% from posters approved by the dnc or tallying 65,000 unique campaign donors with at least 200 in 20 different states. would you meet those criteria is right now? >> in terms of the amount of donors i don't know. i would have to make a call to my campaign manager about that. i actually don't know. i certainly would in terms of the polls that have me a 10% but now of course who knows what they would say you have to do to get into the debate today. no question at the moment because they say there won't be anyy. but hopefully the voices f the people will be loud enough there will be enough pressure. >> democratic caller in georgia.

>> good morning, ladies. i am an american indian and i would like to know social security which means i work for my money, i hope the republicans do not approve because if i lose my check because of that we will vote them out. what do you feel about social security? >> it must not be touched if anything we need to remove the cap entirely. we need to not touch social security. no matter the debt ceiling question, she's afraid if we take it back she will get less and social security. >> she's afraid under the house republicans proposal raising it to federal cuts i think federal spending cuts taking it back to last year's level i think she's concerned about social security disability the program.

>> democrats need to holdd a strong. the president said in the last state of the union nobody is going to touch the social security and certainly if i'm president nobody's going to touchh the social security. we need to raise the cap. >> host: columbus, kansas, independent. >> caller: i am watching with 500 people on to which. do you support right to repair or ending ama. i'm e curious your opinion o that. rural america over the last few decades i was in a small town in south carolina during the last campaign and the mayor said

something that impacted me and stayed with me he said that there are many people in the country particularly young couples with children that can't afford to have the lives they want on the coast. here in my town i have everything they could possibly want to raise a family but what's happened i don't have the wage that i need to attract them or the system. i don't have the grid. he said before the 1980s, we had a small banks and the small banks catered to the farmers and the small banks would say a farmer would go to the bank and say i didn't do too well this year and at the local banks would say i understand, your work is great, come back and we forward and you will pay us next year. what started to happen in the 1980s was this huge monopolization and conglomeration of everything that many of the smaller banks were replaced by these huge banks and the huge banks were acting in service to the huge

agricultural companies so this squeezed out and before that when there were these small banks and attention and focus on the small farmer, the u.s. government would not only give loans but thet loans that were given to the municipalities came along with grants. all that was gotten rid of to serve the big banks that would change. >> host: next to rhonda in new jersey, democratic caller, you are speaking to marianne, williamson. >> caller: good morning. it is an honor to speak with you. i absolutely love you and watched you on youtube. i would love to seee a woman rn for the highest office in the land because women have compassion and we live on budgets. what is upsetting to me the most about the republican party is i

wouldn't vote for a republican dog catcher. that's how much they've corrupted themselves with the donald trump administration. they are all crooks in my opinion. and i am terrified of where our country is headed now that they have ron desantis there who is absolutely trying to erase black history from our country. this man is crazy. he's donald trump on steroids, he's a copycat with no personality at all. but what ibu would like to say that i love about womenov is tht we have been reversed 50 years in this democracy with a republican rule and now that they have the congress, there is no immigration reform that they aree putting forth. they are still blaming joe biden for everything that they have

done to this country. tucker carlson came out last night on the melbourne show. to think that he thinks this way about me, black people, that it's okay to kill a black employeet and crushed his face in,ck this is the republican party. they are fascists and we've got to stop them. we've got to stop these people. >> host: >> guest: there are fascist elements there. i don't think that is the entirety of the republican party. i do think we all need to respond and have some mercy and compassion. i do believe the majority of people in the country are decent and dignified and open. martin luther king said you have very little persuasive power with people who can feel your underlying contempt so let's move back a little bit. i agree with you that the politics of ron desantis are

dangerous to our democracy. the six week span on abortion, many people don't even know that they are pregnant at six weeks, telling peoplew if you have an undocumented worker in your home can be tried as a felon, the average american not realizing how many people are forced to remain in an undocumented estate and some have liveded here for years and pay taxes and have beenen very contributing as citizens. he tells colleges what courses they can teach and as he said to trying to suppress a lotot of black history and so forth. i am deeply concerned about those things. that's why i think i should be the democratic nominee because the only way -- you know, franklin roosevelt said we wouldn't have to worry about a fascist or communist takeover in this country as long as democracy is delivered on its promises. the deeper problem is and just the disease in the authoritarianism, the problem id

also the weakening of our societal system so we are being attacked on the outside by this trickle-down economic by authoritarianism eroded from the inside in this economic principle of weakening people's lives, so the best way to defeat the republicans in 2024 is with the economic you turn that i've mentioned by offering to the american people universal healthcare, free college, the college loan debt and when i say free college also free technical schools, family paid leave, paid family leave,ho guaranteed sick pay, free childcare and a guaranteed livable wage. this is the way to defeat the fascists not by incremental changes. for many of the incremental changes that are being offered by the democratic establishment at the moment we are telling people the economy is doing well. 20% of the american people are thriving in today's economy and

that the 28% it's like we live on an island that is surrounded by the sea of economic despair. we can't win in 2024 by saying that we are giving you a little bit here and there and even though we stopped that it isn't going to win. we will win by saying it and alienates your stress and we want fundamental economic reform. we want to do more than to help you survive the unjust economic system and we want to end the system w of injustice and that s why i'm the candidate that is the best one to defeat whether it is desantis or trump the people that you are most you'ret concerned about. >> host: how will you measure success as you go along what are the milestones that you need to reach to stay in the race? >> guest: i am aware that what i am saying is aligned and poll after poll shows the american people agree with me. the american people poll after poll from the progressive center of the american people want

universal healthcare, free college and tech school and so on. the positions that i'm speaking to our moderate positions in every other advanced democracies so the people are not the problem, the issue is getting to the people. now there is and i appreciate you having me on, in this country there's a political media industrial complex. there's a lot of mainstream media that come conspires with the political elite to make it difficult for people to hear me and to be on some of the programs which you think i would be on given that i'm the candidate as president of the united p states. the young people are not having that. they are online and i haveg the if you think you to those of you watching me on twitch and these other alternative platforms not just cable television, thank you for doing so, help me spread the word, donate if you can and we have to get this message out

ourselves because the message resonates with thee attitude of the majority of people exactly the messagesle that are most suppressing the country. we need to wake up to this and realize we are getting played by the political elites and if we are going to change things the status quo will not disrupt itself. we have to get in there. of course they say anybody with other ideas of course they would say that. if you look at the original labor movement and civil rights movement these things came from the people. they came from the people and then the parties pickedd them u. it's time for us to do but other generations have done before. >> host: what kind of reaction are you seeing?

>> i go to colleges and universities and point out these people were not even born in the 20thwe century and do not see wy they should have to live their lives at the effect of bad policieses left over. they look at europe and no people in other advancedpl democracies and nations even our democracies they can go to college and technical schools and they don't have any institutional memory of the time it really had their back and they are interested in hearing from someone and they will know it and feel it and it will be miserable. >> host: texas, robert is there. independent. you are next. >> caller: good morning and welcome. i wanted to know george

washington and farewell address rethat went up a couple of poins in my book but what i want to know i believe there's a growing anti-partisan movement in the united states getting sick and fed up of both parties not giving us a choice. if you get in office will you work to eradicate the policies in the unitedd states? i know my opinion but we had the two parties. >> it's called the corporate duopoly. >> i don't think that it's appropriate or within the power of the president to eradicate political parties. the people will make the decision of what happens with the political party. if youf look at the history of the united states they have been very important from the

hiabolitionists party, women's suffrage came from the women's party. obviously the civilam rights movement came from the southern christian leadership conference and so forth. and also, even social security by the way came from the socialist party so what has happened in the last few years and decades as the democrats and the republicans have formed a kind of unholy alliance that makes it difficult to share their ideas that often are very good ideas and need to be in the mix. the american people are registering their dissatisfaction there's no doubt about that but i don't think they are necessarily ready to actually vote that dissatisfaction because people are afraid of the spoiler candidacy and afraid if i vote third-party i might help the person i at least want to get into office. this is going to change over the next few years but it's going to be the people that make these changes. this will not and should not actually come from the president. >> following up on that, here is

a text. curious why switching from democratic to independent party. >> when i ran for congress in 2014 i wanted to talk about ideas that i felt were not particularly welcomed in the elite establishment of the party at the time. it was for one year and then lifelong democrat and anybody can look it's public information the candidates that i've given money to i heard somebody out there talking about this the other day. i am a roosevelt democrat. i've been a democrat all my life. i believe in the pillars of the democratic partys that will personify franklin roosevelt and that is the unabashed advocacy for thena american worker. that should be the spine. it should be taking care of the worker. right now, we've had a

50 trillion-dollar transfer of wealth into the hands of 1% of americansh over the last 48 yes and what this has done is create a situation where policy after policy those who already have wealth in this country having an easier time building even more while everybody else has a harder time even making it at all. >> the person of consciousness and conscious doesn't want to feel that they create wealth at the expense of other people not having the chance to. >> i believe in the traditional values and i've said that. who or what shaped your philosophy? >> my father died in 1994. anytime there was an election if you said to my father who did you vote for it's like roosevelt. i grew up in a home where franklin roosevelt was a great hero and it's interesting because as i've gotten older, i've rediscovered franklin roosevelt for myself. last year i read a book that's been out for a while by doris

kearns goodwin called no ordinary time about franklin and eleanor roosevelt during the depression years and world war ii and its so much for me and thinking.y it's interesting if you look at lincoln and look at roosevelt, both of them had plans what they were going to do when the war was over. lincoln died and roosevelt right before and roosevelt was planning a second economic bill of rights. i'm going to be making a speech in washington at the national press club on the 18th of this month about a 21st century economic bill of rights. we need to take up where some of these people left off. >> he was a well-known immigration lawyer, my brother is an immigration lawyer. my father took us to vietnam in 1965 because he said he wanted us to see. he said i came home from the

seventh grade and my teacher, my social studies teacher said if we didn't fight on the shores of hawaii, this is during the vietnam war, my teacher told us if we didn't fight on the shores ofot hawaii that, no, if we didt fight vietnam we would be fighting on the shores of hawaii a call that the domino theory and my father said the military industrial complex is not going to eat my children's brains. my father wanted to make sure that we had a view that wasn't filtered through propaganda. >> host: kathleen dayton ohio democratic caller. >> caller: first i want to say c-span and washington journal our national treasures. so much of what you say i have

such deep respect for. poverty, childcare, pay scales, corporate greed. my parents, the same thing, roosevelt was the hero and my mother even who died a couple of years ago at 93 what be on the news and they would say they are like the roosevelt and that's the way all democrats used to be but anyway i have such deep respect for you. on the other hand i was at the memorial in urbana ohio with bev and john titus and i, during the question and answer period i got up and asked about the lack of accountability in regards to thc bush administration in regards to iraq and you diverted my question about accountability. i brought up questions in regards to the justice and

accountability with you and i want to ask you in regards to foreign policy, there we were we invaded iraq many of us knew where the false pretenses were prior to the invasion of iraq, syria and libya which we know hillary clinton supported as the secretary of state and senator. so how would you deal with foreign policy and the fact hundreds of thousands of people are dead, injured and turned into refugees, howhu would you deal with foreign policy? >> we have to deal with of the american war. in this town i referred to it a few t minutes ago articulated by president eisenhower. let's notis only forget he'd ben the allied commander during world war ii. when he left the presidency he warned us about what he called the military-industrial complex. we have an 858 billion-dollar defense budget, even though as you said, we've left iraq and lost afghanistan and get our defense budget has gotten

larger. i think there are people on the left and the right that have to realize i thought foreign policy into many cases some not by legitimate security concerns as would be determined by our own military commanders so much as they are determined by the short term profit goals of defense contractors such as northrop grumman, boeing and so forth. we should be aware of the secretary is a former board member at raytheon. so the american people i think are under so many areas about to hit an inflection point. people realize the criminality of the war in iraq and realized that we were lied into that war and i hope they realize while we support t having gone into afghanistan the last years were a spectacular failure and all of the wars ended up doing was to kill hundreds of thousands of people and also to just fill that military-industrial

complex. how would i deal with it? i would do what i just did. lead a serious effort which there are people in both parties willing to have a serious conversationle now about cutting the budget and i would also establish the u.s. department of peace. even donald rumsfeld said we need to wage peace you can't just fight a diseased you have to cultivate health you can't just prepare for war you have to prepare for that which there will ultimately be no more war. john kennedy said if we don't get rid of war, the war will get rid of us. >> host: thank you for joining us this morning on the washington journal for talking to the viewers. we appreciate your time. >> thank you so much and thank you all for having me. >> former secretary of state hillary clinton speaks at an event focused on women's leadership during global challenges. hosted by vital voices live coverage of the conference begins 2 p.m. eastern on c-span2. you can also watch on the video mobile app c-span now or online

on c-span.org.