Marianne Williamson: Vogue magazine is not the 'gatekeeper' of who gets to run for president

Rebecca Morin
Updated

WASHINGTON – Author and activist Marianne Williamson criticized Vogue on Tuesday for not including her in an article profiling the women running for president, claiming that the magazine is not the "gatekeeper" of who gets to run for president.

"The framers of the Constitution were very clear about who's qualified to run for president, and they did not make any media, certainly not Vogue magazine, the gatekeeper here," Williamson said during an interview on CNN.

Vogue's article features interviews with Sens. Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Kirsten Gillibrand and Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. In addition, a number of photos of the five women together were released with the story featuring the women of the 2020 presidential race.

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In a statement to CNN, Vogue said they are "in no way discrediting Marianne Williamson and all she's accomplished."

"For the photo, Vogue wanted to highlight the five female lawmakers who bring a collective 40 years of political experience to this race," the statement continued.

Williamson said she first saw the article "online like everybody else did." Although she is mentioned in the article, Williamson said that "nobody talked to me" about the article.

"When we asked about it, we were told the decision was to make it only about the elected officials," she said.

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Williamson is one of just two Democratic presidential candidates who have not served in office; Andrew Yang is the othere. Both candidates made it onto the debate stage last week.

On Tuesday morning, Williamson posted one of the photos from the Vogue article and commented why she had issue with it.

"If we’re going to free this country to be all that it can be, then first we have to free ourselves from the thought firms dictated to us by a corporate/political/media establishment," she wrote in the caption of the Instagram post. "It is the people and the people alone who should decide who will be their president, unburdened by the insidious influence of an elite on patrol. Period."

View this post on Instagram

You might have noticed who’s not in this picture. And let’s be clear why it matters: the issue is ethical responsibility on the part of the media. The framers of the Constitution did not make Vogue magazine the gate keepers of America’s political process, here to determine who and who is not to be considered a serious political candidate. The framers themselves determined the qualifications for the presidency: that someone was born here, is over 35 years old, and has lived here for 14 years. If they had wanted to say more, than they would have. They didn’t say more for a reason: they were leaving it to every generation to determine for itself the skill set it feels is necessary to navigate the times in which they live. President Franklin Roosevelt said that the “administrative aspects of the presidency are secondary,” and “the primary role is moral leadership.” If we’re going to free this country to be all that it can be, then first we have to free ourselves from the thought firms dictated to us by a corporate/political/media establishment. It is the people and the people alone who should decide who will be their president, unburdened by the insidious influence of an elite on patrol. Period. Full stop. #bigtruth marianne2020.com

A post shared by Marianne Williamson (@mariannewilliamson) on Jul 2, 2019 at 12:06pm PDT

Challenging Vogue's statement, Williamson said that if the creators of the Constitution wanted only elected officials to serve as president, they would have explicitly said so.

"Now if they had wanted to say that you have had to been an elected official, they would have. And they didn't for a reason," she said on CNN. "They were leaving it to every generation to determine for itself the skillset that that generation feels is most necessary to navigate the times in which we live."

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Marianne Williamson: Vogue magazine is not the 'gatekeeper' of who gets to run for president