'I didn't think the Left was so mean': Marianne Williamson blasts liberals for 'lying' about her and says 'the fact that you pray... doesn't make you stupid'

  • Marianne Williamson charged the Democrats on the left with lying about her 
  • 'I know this sounds naive. I didn't think the Left was so mean. I didn't think the Left lied like this,' she told The New Yorker 
  • Williamson brushed aside talk she should end her candidacy and said she will know when it's time to exit the race 
  • 'I'll know the point. I'll know it in my heart. But it's not yet,' she said
  • She said she will live stream her response to next week's Democratic presidential primary debate after she failed to qualify to make the stage in Houston
  • She also responded to critics of her now-deleted tweet on using the 'creative power of the mind' to turn the path of Hurricane Dorial 
  • 'The fact that you pray, the fact that you visualize, the fact that you meditate, doesn't mean you're stupid,' she said 

Marianne Williamson charged the left wing of the Democratic Party with lying about her and being 'mean' about her presidential bid.

'I know this sounds naive. I didn't think the Left was so mean. I didn't think the Left lied like this. I thought the Right did that. I thought we were better,' she told David Remnick on the The New Yorker's podcast.

Williamson was referring to allegations - which she has denied - that she is an anti-vaxxer, that she has encouraged people not to take their medicine, and that she promotes the use of crystals.  

Marianne Williamson charged the left wing of the Democratic Party with lying about her

Marianne Williamson charged the left wing of the Democratic Party with lying about her

Williamson also said she will live stream her response to next week's Democratic presidential primary debate after she failed to qualify to make the stage in Houston

Williamson also said she will live stream her response to next week's Democratic presidential primary debate after she failed to qualify to make the stage in Houston

'You've gotten some coverage that has portrayed you as a crystal-gazing chook,' Remnick noted.

'There is no crystal in my home, David,' she responded. 'There's never been a crystal on stage when I've talked. I've never told an AIDS patient not to take their medicine. I've never told anyone not to take their medicine. I've never told anyone their lovelessness created their disease. I never told anyone they could love enough to cure their disease.'

Williamson is struggling to keep her candidacy afloat after not qualifying for the third Democratic primary debate next week in Houston. She achieved the 130,000 donors needed to make the stage but has not garnered 2 per cent in four pre-approved polls. 

Her comments in the first two debates - including her vow to fight President Donald Trump with 'love' - made her the most googled candidates in the after math. 

There is still a chance for her to make the fourth debate in October if she hits the 2 per cent mark in three more polls.  

Williamson brushed aside talk she should end her candidacy and said she will know when it's time to exit the race.

'I'll know the point. I'll know it in my heart. But it's not yet,' she said.

And she told The Washington Post she'd conduct her own online response to the debate.

 'I'm doing my own live stream immediately. I will be live in Los Angeles and live-streaming my own presentation right after the debate,' she said. 'I want to be respectful of people who are in the debate. I don't want to be taking attention away from the debate. I think I will probably save my commentary for right after the debate is over.' 

Williamson argued to The New Yorker's David Remnick that she has already influenced the conversation with her candidacy and took credit for bringing the reparations idea to the national stage - an issue rivals Cory Booker and Julian Castro have long championed.

'I feel I have already impacted this conversation. Other candidates are talking about reparations. They wouldn't be talking about reparations if I hadn't opened that up and made it a pillar of my campaign,' she said.

Remnick interrupted her to ask: 'Are you saying introduced reparations as a campaign issue?'

'Absolutely. I certainly did,' she responded.

'Wouldn't that come a surprise to Cory Booker?,' he asked. Booker is the sponsor of a bill in the Senate to study the reparations issue and has testified before a House committee on the matter.

'No it would not come as a surprise to Cory Booker,' Williamson argued. 'Cory would say "yup she sure did."'

Remnick also asked Williamson if she had ever met Donald Trump. She said she had not met him but did see him at a party at Mar-a-Lago - his estate in West Palm Beach, Florida - in the 1990s during an AIDS benefit.

'He was like this vulgar American character. I didn't hate him,' Williamson said, adding: 'My mother would have a word for him – a Yiddish word.'

When Remnick asked her to elaborate, she responded: 'I'm not going to tell you what Yiddish word it is.'

Marianne Williamson garnered a lot of online attention for her comments in the first two primary debates

Marianne Williamson garnered a lot of online attention for her comments in the first two primary debates

Democratic 2020 candidate Marianne Williamson tweeted, and then deleted, a sentiment that using 'creative use of the power of the mind' would turn Hurricane Dorian away from land

Democratic 2020 candidate Marianne Williamson tweeted, and then deleted, a sentiment that using 'creative use of the power of the mind' would turn Hurricane Dorian away from land

She replaced the tweet a few hours later that simply sent prayers to the states that could be affected by the storm. Her campaign said the first was deleted because it caused confusion

She replaced the tweet a few hours later that simply sent prayers to the states that could be affected by the storm. Her campaign said the first was deleted because it caused confusion

Williamson then switched to the president's mental and physical state, comparing him from his businessman's past in the 1980s to the present. 

'If you look at interviews with him from the 80s he was really different. He even looked different which makes me think - gives me my own theories on what's involved in all this,' she said.

'Which is?,' Remnick inquired. 

'When you see features on someone's face change that much – I'll leave it at that,' she responded.

'It's not just aging. What are we talking about?,' he asked.

'Do your research David,' she said.

Remnick continued to press her: 'What does that mean?'

But Williamson declined to elaborate. 

'I don't want to go into that. I just think that I think there's a lot of people who find a lot very curious about the president. But I don't want to go into any of that. But I will say this: when he talked about politics.'

'Wait,' Remnick interrupted her. 'You're running on – admirably – a policy of being straight forward.' 

'But I'm not running a campaign of personal demonization, or personal attack,' Williamson responded. 'I can keep it to my conversations of the president's policies and that's all I want to do.'

'Do you think character matters?,' he asked.

'Character absolutely does matter but we were getting into areas here that went beyond character,' she said.

Williamson made headlines recently when she deleted a tweet that drew ridicule for claiming the 'power of the mind' could help divert Hurricane Dorian from making landfall as it works its way up the U.S. coast line.

She responded defiantly in an interview with The Washington Post that was published on Friday, saying that people who pray or meditate are not stupid.  

'People don't like to feel that their values are invalidated and people can feel when they're being condescended to,' she said. 'I was in South Carolina last weekend and Georgia. And you better believe that there were people there praying that the hurricane would turn around — that doesn't mean that they're stupid. That doesn't mean that they don't believe in science or climate change. The fact that you pray, the fact that you visualize, the fact that you meditate, doesn't mean you're stupid, or ignorant or uninformed.' 

Her campaign claimed the tweet was deleted because it caused confusion. 

'The Bahamas, Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas…may all be in our prayers now. Millions of us seeing Dorian turn away from land is not a wacky idea; it is creative use of the power of the mind. Two minutes of prayer, visualization, meditation for those in the way of the storm,' Williamson wrote in the since deleted tweet.  

About two hours after making the original post on Wednesday – as the storm continued to skirt north along the southeastern coast – she replaced it with another tweet.

'Prayers for the people of the Bahamas, Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas,' she tweeted. 'May the peace of God be upon them and their hearts be comforted as they endure the storm.'