Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/19/23 Andrew Yang On 2024: Trump 'MILD FAVORITE' To Win

Episode Date: September 19, 2023

We welcome back Andrew Yang to the show to discuss his thoughts on the Biden v Trump potential rematch in 2024. We also ask him about his new book 'The Last Election' out in stores now.Andrew's book: https://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/last-election/To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. is still out there. Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip-hop. It's Black Music Month and we need to talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone

breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better let's talk about the music that moves us to hear this and more on how music and culture collide listen to we need to talk from the black effect podcast network on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Your gut microbiome and those healthy bacteria can actually have positive effects. Your mental health, your immunity, your risk of cancer, almost any disease under the sun. This week on Dope Labs,

Titi and I dive into the world of probiotics, the hype, the science, and what your gut bacteria are really doing behind the scenes. From drinks and gummies to probiotic pillows. Yes, really, probiotic pillows. We're breaking down what's legit and what's just brilliant marketing. With expert insight from gastroenterologist Dr. Roshi Raj. Listen to Dope Labs on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If

you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Very excited to have a special guest with us this morning, former presidential candidate, current co-chair of the Ford Party, and author of the new book, The Last Election. I should say co-author alongside Stephen Marsh. There's the book. You can see it there. And it's a novel this time. It is not nonfiction as his previous books were. The one and only friend of the show, Andrew Yang. Great to see you, sir. Good to see you, man. Great to be back. Hey, guys, congratulations on all the success in the new studio and everything.

Thank you. Oh, well, thank you. And the Focus Group. Love the Focus Group. Yeah, wasn't that cool? We're going to do more. You were a key part of it. Yeah, thanks.

All right, so, Andrew, just talk to us a little bit about the book and what it was that inspired this kind of, you know, dark take that, again, it's fiction, but it's kind of a dark take on the future of America here. Yeah, I got all these experiences running for president. Crystal, I was trying to convey them to folks. And there was something of a message.

I sat down with people and they said, what do you really think is going to happen? Or what happens if there's a major independent presidential candidate? And I said, here's what I think is going to happen. And then the question was, how do you get that message out? And we thought that telling a story was the most compelling, accessible way to do so, because people like stories more than they like op-eds or facts and statistics, which is something I also learned on the presidential trail. Despite the math hat.

Unfortunately, you're probably right. Andrew, what are you seeing as signs of decay in our democracy and all that that you think they're bringing forward in your book? Is it just January 6th? Are there other events and other markers that you can look for and think about that you're trying to incorporate? A lot of it's the media, but you guys can see, you talk about this all the time on your show. I mean, you're looking at a Biden-Trump rematch that two-thirds of the country doesn't want. And so if you have a lane that wide or a vacuum that big, then someone's going to move to fill it. But you don't have a system that naturally accommodates new entrants or parties, frankly. And as the co-chair of the Ford Party, you know, like I live this.

So and so if someone runs, they may end up not having the desired effect. I mean, when people ask me about this Biden Trump matchup and what to do, I say to them, honestly, that the best thing you could do is just run the craziest person you could think of, because the way our system is set up, that might actually do some good. Whereas if you run a really good person, that might not do some good. Right. And so, Andrew, as you're looking at this, you know, the way that the sort of partisan media usually portrays the problems in the country, they usually focus on like specific people like, oh, it's the supporters of Trump that are the problem, or oh, it's the supporters of Biden, the Democrats that are the problem. But I think one thing that you have done consistently is to show people a lot of care and empathy, regardless of where they are on the political spectrum,

which is why you had a lot of bipartisan support, and to stay laser focused on some of the more systemic issues. So what do you see as the core of the issues that have led you to feel like we are a nation on the brink? The core issue, Crystal, is the structural incentives for the actors in the system. And right now, the fiction is that our leaders have to make 51% of us happy. They don't. They just need to placate and please the most extreme 10 to 12% in their party's base, which on the Republican side has really driven them off a cliff. There are distortions on the Democratic side clearly, and you can see that in the lack of a primary for Joe Biden, which I think is setting the country up for a potential catastrophe. So you have these two parties that aren't actually

listening to us anymore. And they've cordoned the country up into blue and red zones where the vast majority of the people watching this are listening to this right now. There's no suspense as to which party is going to represent you in Congress. It's going to be either the Democrat or the Republican. And so there's this illusion of competition that they're casting out. And I said this with you and Kyle. You have a 20% congressional approval rate and then a 94% re-election rate. So in that system, you can do things like thrust 3 million American kids back into poverty, and there's no real problem for you politically because you are insulated from any competition.

So it's this rot in the system that is separating our leaders from us. And you can put a good person in the system, which I prefer. You can put a terrible person in the system, which I don't like at all. And there are terrible people in the system. But unfortunately, the system itself is driving a lot of the dysfunction. And then the media becomes complicit in maintaining the system. But unfortunately, the system itself is driving a lot of the dysfunction. And then the media becomes complicit in maintaining the system. Your rise, I always saw, is very indicative of the internet and its first imprints for real this time on the election. I'd made a comparison here previously about Vivek Ramaswamy, someone who you've talked about previously.

Just wanted to ask for your general take so far as to not only the overall primary process, the Democratic primary, the Republican primary, how you see some of the seeds that you planted and how they're manifesting right now. You know, I got to say, you two and breaking points are part of the cure, part of the antidote. When you talk about my run activating people in a whole new way, I feel like you guys do it every day. So really, like, kudos to you all for actually helping people see things more clearly. I wish that there was a Democratic primary. And one of the ideas I put out there was that there should be a vice presidential primary. If Joe Biden insists on saying, hey, it's going to be me again, like, let's figure out who my successor should be. And then there are folks who are running who

have captured some of the anti-institutional energy. I think Vivek is certainly very high on that list. The Republican Party is more welcoming to outsiders than Democrats, in part because of their relationship with the media. And I wish that anyone other than Trump seemed like they were achieving enough energy to make sure Trump's not the nominee. I think Trump's a total catastrophe, and I'm trying to do anything I can to keep Trump from winning again. As we're having this conversation, I would see Trump as, unfortunately, a mild favorite to win re-election, in large part because I think there are going to be multiple candidates in the general in 2024. Well, let's dig into that. You think because of party stratification, as you said, multiple people running like third party bids, or do you think it's because of structural factors like Joe Biden

and weaknesses there to say that he's a mild favor for re-election? Oh, no. I think Trump's a mild favor to win re-election. So first, I think Joe Biden is not the best candidate on the Democratic side. I think they're having a bad process. I think he's being saddled with some tough economic issues that, of course, people are going to lay at his feet. But I think that the Democrats should have a real process and try and find a better candidate that also helps take age off the table. So that's one thing. Now, Trump and Biden are just about tied in the general, according to most accounts. Trump leads Biden on the economy among independent voters very significantly by maybe 20 percentage

points. And so if you have those two head to head, it's a bit of a coin flip. But then if you introduce a Cornel West and the Green Party, maybe an RFK as an independent, maybe a Joe Manchin, then I feel like the landscape favors Trump. I think there's a lot to be said about that.

Andrew, I wanted to ask you as well, you talked about some of the structural factors. You talked about the system of the elections themselves, the party control, the media control, the way that they choose to operate and the incentive structure that they have as well. What role do you think social media plays into this landscape, too? I think social media is part of the problem, honestly. I think it dumps fuel on the most sensationalist, and it makes everyone's appeal have to be very emotional and tribal, because that's how you get energy, and then in

some cases, small dollar donations. It turns us all into characters in a play, and the narratives are not leading us anywhere constructive. It was Ezra Klein who said, corrupt system compromises good individuals with ease. I'm going to say social media is a corrupt system. That's a really interesting way of putting it. I mean, I guess, Andrew, we have a lot of people who still watch the show, OG Yang Gang, many people who you activated into politics. We've been trying to carry forward some of that energy. Now that it's been several years since all of that happened, what are some of the reflections that you have about viable political movements, why you decided to go with the Ford Party, and where people should channel their energy if they

want to keep it in a good direction and not into cynicism? What I would say to folks who want to make good things happen for people, and I put myself in that category, is that the two-party system is designed to diffuse and weaken any popular energy, in part by separating us from each other. There are millions of Americans on both sides of the aisle that don't like child poverty. But unfortunately, right now, we're being separated and said, hey, your enemy are the people over there, and we're being set up. So unless you make headway on this system, the system that makes our leaders unaccountable to us, leaders that make us think that we are each other's enemies, even though we're all kind of in the same boat in terms of AI and these other issues. So the folks that supported me, I get that you might think that,

hey, this is a different vibe or approach. But this is, to me, the real approach. Because if I was running around saying, hey, let's do all these things, the system would not let those things occur. So unless we actually amend and modernize the system, we're just going to drive ourselves crazy. And each other, you know, eventually you'll be on each other's throats. So unless we actually amend and modernize the system, we're just going to drive ourselves crazy and each other, you know, eventually be out of each other's throats. So let's change the system itself. That's the real path forward. And I feel like Crystal actually exerted herself in this direction a number of years ago, trying to get different candidates in the Midwest who represented more of like a populist working class. I mean, that was one approach.

But the incentives of the parties are driving them very, very strongly in particular directions. And it's away from the direction that Crystal was working them towards because, you know, like at this point, they look at Ohio and say, hey, Ohio is not competitive for us anymore. So I guess you don't care. It doesn't matter. Like, we don't care anymore. We'll just trade you in for a diversifying state. Yeah.

Well, Andrew, you said something in the interview you did with me and Kyle that stuck with me, which is, you know, when you ran for president and you put UBI forward as a central part of your campaign, you massively moved the needle in terms of support for it, interest in it. You made it so it was a majority support issue. But if you have a system that doesn't reflect the will of the majority or even take it into account whatsoever, it doesn't matter. And so I think that's why, you know, the direction you're going and focusing on things like ranked choice voting that could actually open things up so you actually have more Democratic choice available to people.

I think it's actually a really good and positive direction. I'm glad you're engaged in that. I totally agree. I absolutely agree. Crystal, that is really the fundamental insight is that 74% of us want term limits, not seeing that. 85% of us want less money in politics, don't want members of Congress to be able to trade, who cares? It's like what we want is essentially irrelevant. I'm going to guess 80% plus of us don't like child poverty. You know what I mean? Like we'd like to lift those 3 million kids back out of poverty.

But of course, that doesn't matter. And you look around and say, where were the protests when all these people were re-impoverished? Not a peep. So it's only when you realize that what we want and think is irrelevant in the system do you actually catch on. And then after you catch on, you say, okay, how can we make it so that what we want actually does matter?

I mean, two-thirds of Americans want universal basic income, so are we going to get it? Not in this system. You know, it's only in a better system that we'd have a chance at addressing the real challenges of this time. Yeah, totally agree with you. Andrew, thank you so much for joining us. And guys, go out and check out the book. It's called The Last Election, co-authored Andrew and his co-author Stephen Barsh. Really interesting. And I think, you know, sometimes stories are the best way to drive a point home and get people to pay attention to some of these underlying structural issues that

you're trying to highlight here. So, Andrew, always great to see you. And thank you so much for your time, my friend. Good to see you, man. Thank you. Great seeing you guys, too. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. It's our pleasure. Over the years of making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned no town is too small for murder. I'm Katherine Townsend. I've heard from hundreds of people across the country with an unsolved murder in their community. I was calling about the murder of my husband. The murderer is still out there.

Each week, I investigate a new case. If there is a case we should hear about, call 678-744-6145. Listen to Hell and Gone Murder Line on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think everything that might have dropped in 95 has been labeled the golden years of hip hop. It's Black Music Month and we need to talk is tapping in. I'm Nyla Simone, breaking down lyrics, amplifying voices, and digging into the culture that shaped the soundtrack of our lives. Like that's what's really important and that's what stands out is that our music changes people's lives for the better. Let's talk about the music that moves us. To hear this and more on how music

and culture collide, listen to We Need to Talk from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your gut microbiome and those healthy bacteria can actually have positive effects, your mental health, your immunity, your risk of cancer, almost any disease under the sun. This week on Dope Labs, Titi and I dive into the world of probiotics, the hype, the science, and what your gut bacteria are really doing behind the scenes. From drinks and gummies to probiotic pillows. Yes, really probiotic pillows. We're breaking down what's legit and what's just brilliant marketing. With expert insight from

gastroenterologist Dr. Roshi Raj. Listen to Dope Labs on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.