(NewsNation) — Public polling shows that most Americans don’t want President Joe Biden to run for president again, which Marianne Williamson offers as proof that he’s a “weak” candidate.
Williamson, who is one of two announced primary challengers to Biden, criticized the Democratic National Committee’s decision to not sponsor any debates.
“It’s because the fascists are at the door that the Democratic electorate should have as wide an array of options before them as possible,” Williamson said Wednesday on “CUOMO.” “We should be having a very serious conversation (of) who is the person and what is the agenda that is actually the most compelling alternative to what either DeSantis or Trump or anyone else will be offering to the American people.”
While both Democrats and Republicans have challenged their party’s incumbent president, the president historically doesn’t participate in primary debates. In fact, no incumbent president has ever participated in a primary debate, according to the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
Williamson believes the modern political systems have disempowered the American electorate, leaving control of politics in the hands of only an elite few.
“This is not a hundred years ago where a bunch of men sat around at a table smoking cigars just deciding who the nominee would be. That is not the way the party system is supposed to work,” Williamson said. “The party is supposed to stay in the background until the electorate is decided and then come in and help the candidate who has been determined by the electorate. That is why the president should be debating his opponents in this race.”
Williamson is polling at just under 7%, according to a RealClearPolitics average, behind Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 17% and Biden at 60%. This is her second run for president, following a bid three years ago that ended in January 2020 before any primary elections took place.
A self-help author and spiritual guru, Williamson announced her 2024 candidacy in March. She said at the time she was was opposing a free market “mindset” and corrupt political system that she said prioritized greed above all else “like an atomizer spray of economic injustice.”
On Wednesday, Williamson said Biden “nullified” any investments in green energy with the approval of the Willow project, a ConocoPhillips oil drilling venture in Alaska.
She also criticized him for not doing more to raise the federal minimum wage.
“The president is making incremental changes. The president does what the corporate Democrats do — they try to make an unjust system more easily survivable, but the problem is the Democratic Party should stand for ending the injustice,” Williamson said. “We should do what Franklin Roosevelt did, not just alleviate people’s stress, but bring about genuine economic reform.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.