WASHINGTON — Marianne Williamson, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate, has proposed the creation of two new federal agencies: the Department of Peace Creation and the Department of Children and Youth.

Williamson was asked how the Department of Peace Creation would differ from the State Department.

“Well, the State Department works with international issues and I do believe that we need a far more robust relationship between the State Department and the Defense Department. I have great respect for the U.S. military. We all should and must. My father fought in World War II and as I said, you know, you’re the president. You’re the commander-in-chief but I see the military like the surgeon. If you’re going to have surgery, you want to have the best surgeon,” Williamson said during a CNN town hall on Sunday evening.

“And I don’t think anyone would doubt that America has to have the best possible military but at the same time, you avoid surgery, if at all possible. Even Donald Rumsfeld, who was the secretary of defense for George Bush, said we also have to wage peace. General Mattis, before he left the Department of Defense, said if you’re not going to fully fund the State Department, I’m going to have to buy more ammunition. I want a far more robust relationship between the State Department and the Defense and I also want the moral leadership of our State Department back,” she added.

Williamson said she wants to restore “the moral principles” and “the moral core of American foreign policy.”

“I want a moral, robust peace-waging and peace-creation on the part of the State Department. I want the moral principles that should be central to American foreign policy back. And then a U.S. Department of Peace Creation has to deal with domestic issues. We have so many,” she said. “We have millions of American children living in chronic trauma. We have the most violent streets. We have domestic war zones in this country. We need wraparound services, anti-trauma, restorative justice, conflict resolution.”

Williamson explained why she would work to create a Department of Children and Youth.

“We have millions of American children who go to school every day in schools that do not even have the adequate school supplies with which to teach 8-year-old to read. If an 8-year-old cannot read by the age of 8, if they can’t read, the chances of high school graduation, it’s drastically diminished, and the chances of incarceration is drastically increased. We have millions of American children living in this chronic trauma, living in America’s domestic war zones, where the PTSD of a returning veteran from Afghanistan or Iraq, psychologists tell us, is no more severe than the PTSD of these children,” she said.

“ We should rescue these children, no differently than we would rescue them from a natural disaster and that’s why when I’m president, we will have a massive realignment of resources in the direction of children 10 years old and younger. We need a United States cabinet-level Department of Children and Youth. If you want to see the economic potential of this country, if you want to see the economic vibrancy of this country, if you want to see the entrepreneurial spirit of this country, you go to any kindergarten in any neighborhood in this country and these children are full-on citizens of the United States and I will be their president,” she added.