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Tribune News Service
Tribune News Service
Politics
Brian Niemietz

Former staffers accuse presidential candidate Marianne Williamson of tyrannical and ‘dehumanizing’ abuse

Presidential longshot Marianne Williamson responded to a “hit job” story claiming she’s abusive to staffers by denying some claims while confessing she’s still growing.

The 70-year-old spiritual leader, who launched her second consecutive unlikely run for the presidency early this month, was the subject of a Thursday morning Politico article in which a dozen former staffers from her failed 2020 campaign described her as a tyrannical hypocrite prone to “foaming, spitting, uncontrollable rage.”

“If I’ve been a tough boss lady, if I have some lessons to learn, which obviously maybe I do, then I hope that I will learn them,” Williamson told BBC’s Americast podcast.

Politico’s article accused the top-selling author of tossing her phone at a staffer, screaming until workers cried and throwing one tantrum where she had to be hospitalized after pounding on a car door. Williamson denied hurling a phone at a staffer.

A 2019 resignation letter from her former Iowa State campaign director called the left-wing candidate’s behavior “belittling, abusive, dehumanizing and unacceptable.”

Meanwhile, her former New Hampshire state director said Politico’s story sounds about right. Williamson called that former staffer a man “trying to make his way back” into Democratic party politics.

Despite previously vowing to defeat her opponents with love, Williamson told the BBC that playing hardball in politics is hardly an anomaly, stating “I’m not running for sainthood here.”

She also called some of Politico’s reporting “slanderous.”

Her Marianne 2024 website says, “A new kind of American — a new kind of thinker and a new kind of citizen — needs to arise now.”

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