Marianne Williamson: Backing Biden 'Blew Up' in DNC's Face

Democratic presidential candidate and self-help author Marianne Williamson slammed the Democratic National Committee for blocking a competitive primary process this election cycle as the party grapples with concerns that President Joe Biden is not mentally fit to run for reelection.

"It was the wrong thing to do to suppress other candidates," Williamson told the Washington Examiner. "How can a party saying we're working to save democracy say, except in this case, where we believe that even if democracy is so important that we need to suppress democracy?

"The fact that this sort of blew up in their face, I think it almost was going to blow up in somebody's face regardless of what the specific detail was, because it was simply wrong," she said. "It was not in alignment with the highest integrity, it wasn't in alignment with democracy."

A two-time primary contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, Williamson suspended her campaign in February after the South Carolina primary before reentering the race a couple weeks later following more than 100,000 "uncommitted" Democrat votes in Michigan's primary.

In her interview with the Examiner, Williamson called Biden's shaky debate performance an "unfortunate experience."

In his first 2024 presidential debate against former President Donald Trump, Biden appeared frail and often gave rambling answers in a raspy voice, which the White House attributed to a cold.

"I felt like, no, this, we've got to change course here," Williamson said of the debate. "We need to recalibrate. We need to recalibrate quickly.

"Given the situation, I think that the real danger for Democrats in this year's election is not people voting for Donald Trump," she said. "People have the right to vote for Donald Trump, it's a free country and so forth. The real problem for us electorally is not people voting for Trump, the problem is people staying home. I was obviously running against the president a long time before there was any sign of the cognitive decline issues or anything like that, but we all know what we know, we all see what we see, so everybody, whether you're on the right or the left, everybody can see what's happening with the president."

Education technology venture capitalist and Democrat primary challenger Jason Palmer, who surprised with an upset in American Samoa on Super Tuesday by pulling more votes than Biden, told the Examiner the situation with Biden is "tough."

"Almost always, incumbent presidents don't really have any competition," he said. "This just happens to be the first time we've had an 81-year-old incumbent president."

Palmer emphasized that his own campaign remains suspended but called on Biden to "step down and open up the race to a younger generation of candidates."

Earlier this week, Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, became the first Democrat on Capitol Hill to call for the president to bow out of the race. Doggett's stance has spurred outreach from the White House as the campaign seeks to reassure a growing number of jittery Democrat lawmakers of Biden's fitness for office.