Marrianne Williamson is abusive?
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“It would be foaming, spitting, uncontrollable rage,” said a former staffer, who, like most people that spoke with POLITICO, was granted anonymity because of their concern about being sued for breaking non-disclosure agreements. “It was traumatic. And the experience, in the end, was terrifying.”
Williamson would throw her phone at staffers, according to three of those former staffers. Her outbursts could be so loud that two former aides recounted at least four occasions when hotel staff knocked on her door to check on the situation. In one instance, Williamson got so angry about the logistics of a campaign trip to South Carolina that she felt was poorly planned that she pounded a car door until her hand started to swell, according to four former staffers. Ultimately, she had to go to an urgent care facility, they said. All 12 former staffers interviewed recalled instances where Williamson would scream at people until they started to cry.
When presented with details of POLITICO’s reporting, Paul Hodes, a former U.S. congressman who served as Williamson’s 2020 New Hampshire state director, said such descriptions mirrored his own experience working with her.
Williamson denied ever throwing a phone at staffers. But she did acknowledge that she went to urgent care after getting upset and hitting her hand on a car door, but said a “car door is not a person. I would never be physically hurtful to a person.” She also acknowledged that there was an occasion when she raised her voice in a hotel room and someone came to see what was happening. “I find it hard to believe that people in politics have never raised their voice before,” she said.
In a resignation email sent to Williamson on Aug. 14, 2019, Robert Becker, the campaign’s then-Iowa state director, wrote that Williamson’s treatment of staff was “belittling, abusive, dehumanizing and unacceptable,” according to a copy of the email exchange with Williamson obtained by POLITICO. Becker, who was a controversial hire due to a prior allegation that he forcibly kissed a subordinate while working on Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 Democratic presidential campaign, added: “I cannot in good faith subject any future campaign hires to this kind of vitriol. For 30 years I have had zero-tolerance for bullying in the workplace, and that has to include the principle.”
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“It would be foaming, spitting, uncontrollable rage,” said a former staffer, who, like most people that spoke with POLITICO, was granted anonymity because of their concern about being sued for breaking non-disclosure agreements. “It was traumatic. And the experience, in the end, was terrifying.”
Williamson would throw her phone at staffers, according to three of those former staffers. Her outbursts could be so loud that two former aides recounted at least four occasions when hotel staff knocked on her door to check on the situation. In one instance, Williamson got so angry about the logistics of a campaign trip to South Carolina that she felt was poorly planned that she pounded a car door until her hand started to swell, according to four former staffers. Ultimately, she had to go to an urgent care facility, they said. All 12 former staffers interviewed recalled instances where Williamson would scream at people until they started to cry.
When presented with details of POLITICO’s reporting, Paul Hodes, a former U.S. congressman who served as Williamson’s 2020 New Hampshire state director, said such descriptions mirrored his own experience working with her.
Williamson denied ever throwing a phone at staffers. But she did acknowledge that she went to urgent care after getting upset and hitting her hand on a car door, but said a “car door is not a person. I would never be physically hurtful to a person.” She also acknowledged that there was an occasion when she raised her voice in a hotel room and someone came to see what was happening. “I find it hard to believe that people in politics have never raised their voice before,” she said.
In a resignation email sent to Williamson on Aug. 14, 2019, Robert Becker, the campaign’s then-Iowa state director, wrote that Williamson’s treatment of staff was “belittling, abusive, dehumanizing and unacceptable,” according to a copy of the email exchange with Williamson obtained by POLITICO. Becker, who was a controversial hire due to a prior allegation that he forcibly kissed a subordinate while working on Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 Democratic presidential campaign, added: “I cannot in good faith subject any future campaign hires to this kind of vitriol. For 30 years I have had zero-tolerance for bullying in the workplace, and that has to include the principle.”
