Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - Andrew Yang Full Interview

Episode Date: October 4, 2021

To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.tech/To listen to Breaking Points as a podcast, check them out on Apple and SpotifyApple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/breaking-points-with-krystal-and-saagar/id1570045623Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4Kbsy61zJSzPxNZZ3PKbXlMerch: https://breaking-points.myshopify.com/Pandora Papers: https://www.icij.org/investigations/pandora-papers/global-investigation-tax-havens-offshore/Andrew Yang’s Book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/667341/forward-by-andrew-yang/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man.

We met them at their homes. We met them at the recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to it. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

I'm Michael Kasson, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on good company, the podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi. We dive into the competitive world of streaming. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core. There are so many stories out there. And if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Listen to Good Company on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, so guys, we have an exciting interview for you with Andrew Yang.

I had the chance to sit down with him for an hour as part of his book launch. This is kind of a co-production that's going on his podcast. We're able to share it with you guys. And we had talked to you earlier about the fact that he's planning on launching a third party. And the thing he really wants to focus in on are rank choice voting and open primaries. And you guys know when you know, why not do this through the Democratic Party or why not start a nonprofit? Why are you going the third party route when we just know how high the deck is stacked against third party efforts, even ones

that have great policies, great people involved in all of that. So we get into all of that. I felt like I came away with a much better understanding of what he's up to and what his plans are. I think it's actually really interesting. I hope you guys enjoy it. It's a long interview, hour long, and we get into his mayoral race, his presidential campaign, anecdotes, his treatment by the media, all of that stuff in this hour. So here it is. Hope you enjoy it.

That's right. Hi, everybody. Very excited to be joined today by the one and only Andrew Yang. Andrew, I know in your book, your new book, Forward, which is the reason for this conversation, you talk about how they would always introduce you in like the vaguest possible way as businessman. Good old businessman, Andrew Yang. Businessman billionaire. Now we have, yeah, exactly.

Tech billionaire, right? Must be. Has to be. Now we've, yeah, exactly. Tech billionaire, right? Must be. Has to be. That's not a stereotype at all. But yeah, so now obviously we've added a lot of other things to your intro. Former presidential candidate, former mayoral candidate, author now of multiple books, the latest one being Forward. I have a copy too. Oh, look at this. The future of our democracy. On the back. What does it say? Crystal Ball. Despite being ignored and written off by mainstream media,

no 2020 candidate had more of an impact in changing our political conversation than Andrew Yang. Thank you, Crystal. I meant a lot to you. That's true. So I bring a very unbiased perspective to this. No, so I mean, my very first question for you,

congratulations, first of all. Second of all, how did you find time to write a book, Andrew? I came off the trail in February and then COVID happened. And you're right. I was busy during that time. I was a surrogate for Joe. I started a nonprofit. We distributed $8 million. I was podcasting, obviously. Got involved with a number of there. But night would fall, my kids would go to bed at around 930 or 10pm. And then I would write until 1am is the way it would go. It's like,

10 to one were my writing hours, crystal. And then I'd get up, you know, a little bit sluggish, a little bit late. But I tried to make the most of last year because coming off the presidential trail, I knew that there were some experiences I really wanted to capture and document. And I wanted to get them while they were fresh. So I got to writing really in March. And I wrote every, if not every day, certainly every week through the entirety of last year? I have to think also, you know, I did not run for president, but I did run for Congress. And so I have just the tiniest taste of what it's like after that campaign ends and the sort of like the adrenaline of that and the emotional roller coaster of that and these incredible highs and lows that you're experiencing on a daily basis, when that all goes

away, it also seems to me like this was probably a really good way for you to kind of like work through what that experience was all about. And also just to keep yourself on track and super busy. Your schedule is already packed, but you decided to pack it in even more. Yeah, it was very useful processing and reflecting. And it was a whirlwind on the presidential trail. I did very little reflecting when I was running, that's for sure. It was just, okay, what needs to happen right now? Where are we going? What's the media appearance? What's the event? What's the rally? And then when the campaign ended, I was wiped out, frankly. But I also felt this real obligation to try to keep the movement going and growing because

I felt so indebted to the people that had supported me. And when I suspended my campaign, a lot of people were very upset. And that hurts, too, because, you know, you see all these messages, you're getting all these messages. And so I wanted to make good on what I felt like was the promise of the campaign. Certainly, I'm really proud that it felt like we really advanced the cause of cash relief, where when the $1,200 checks first started going out, I got dozens of press requests being like, do you feel like you've been proven right? And I always tried to say that it's really all thanks

to the Yang gang Gang and the folks who supported us. But I heard from dozens of members of Congress who said to me that they thought that our campaign was a reason why cash was front and center. They said that without us, it might not have been as ready a solution. I don't think there's any doubt about that. I also don't think there's any doubt about that. I also don't think there's any doubt that of the various stimulus measures that were taken during the pandemic, direct cash aid was

the most effective. It certainly seems like the research bears that out. It also was the thing that our government was most able to handle. Seriously. Didn't create a lot of needless, you know, like right now we're dealing with, we had this eviction moratorium, there was aid passed to help renters be able to stay in their homes to help make sure that, you know, small landlords were kept whole as well in the process. And such a tiny sliver of that went out because it fell to state and local governments. There were a million hoops for renters to be able to jump through to get that aid. So it really did sort of prove out your thesis that, look, this is the most straightforward approach, and it's also the most effective approach. I think

we really saw that this year. It's infuriating how little of the rental aid got out. I think right now it's at 17%, eight months in. 2.6 million families are potentially going to get evicted. And so our government allocated the money, but it just wasn't able to get to the people that needed it. Because the fact is, if state and local governments don't get it into your hands, nothing bad happens to them. It's like, oh, like, you know, 83% of it's still sitting in an account somewhere while people's lives are being disrupted and kids are being traumatized, the whole thing really should make us all angry. And I think you were one of the people that talked about how when the CARES Act first came out, that so much of it went into the hands of megacorps and institutions.

And I think the numbers I saw said that less than 18% of it actually went to people and families, which is a recurring theme. And if you have 2.2 trillion, you could conceivably have given every American a thousand bucks a month for six months, which I'm going to suggest probably would have made a lot of Americans much happier than what we did do, which was send money in every direction, but toward the people that needed it. Yeah, and it's also just a respectful solution. It's giving people the respect of believing that they know what to do with that money, that they're going to spend it wisely,

which again, the research has shown and borne out time and time again. There are a million things I want to get to with you. I have so many questions for you. We'll be here all night, Crystal. I want to start with- The first three hour podcast. There you go. We'll go many questions for you. We'll be here all night, Crystal. The first three-hour podcast. There you go. We'll go Joe Rogan style. We'll go three hours, three and a half hours. No

problem. No, I want to jump into the big news making from this book, which is that you announced that you are launching the Forward Party. You announced the planks of that. It is a third party. You're sort of giving up on the Democratic Party or so it would seem and striking out on your own. Talk to me about what the Ford Party is all about and how you came to the decision that a third party is a better pathway than trying to reform the Democratic Party from within. One important thing to know, Crystal, and I'd love to hear what you thought about the book because I haven't really spoken to you about it. But I wrote this book in 2020 late at night, like reflecting on my journey and what I'd experienced and what I thought the real problems were. by Jonathan Haidt and Lawrence Lessig and Ezra Klein and Catherine Gale and Michael Porter and all these other books, because I was trying to put my finger on something that had been nagging at me through the process. And right now we're being set up to fail, truly. There are different people

who are listening to this who have different feelings about the Democratic Party and its efficacy. But I would actually look at the rental aid program as a microcosm of what's going on in our government, where if you have a program, in that case, you dedicated tens of billions of dollars to a renter's aid, and it doesn't get to anyone, what happens? What happens to our leaders? Absolutely nothing. What happens to the bureaucrats who are meant to administer the program? Absolutely nothing. Nothing happens. The connection between us and our representatives is not what we want it to be and not what most of us believe it to be. And so when I was researching this book, I found that there are a bunch of truths that most of us ignore, like the fact that only 10 percent of Americans are essentially responsible for electing 83 percent of our representatives. Like the fact that overall approval of Congress is at 28 percent now and the reelection rate for individual reps is 92%.

I'm actually curious, Crystal, in your congressional race, what was the dynamic? Was it an incumbent? Like, who are you running against? Yes, I was running against an incumbent in a very conservative district of Virginia. He's actually still there, a Republican who's still there. And it was during 2010. So the Tea Party wave. So I was running as a progressive in a conservative district against an incumbent. Amazing timing, amazing. Like you can just tell walking into it, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. And I guess in a way that was that was kind of the beautiful part of it, because if I had known, I never would have actually done it. But so much of, I think, especially in particular at the house level, so much of the dynamics are

just how's the district drawn? Is it an open seat or an incumbent? What is the national mood overall? Things that have literally zero to do with you or your campaign, how hard you work or what you want to bring, the issue set that you want to bring to the American people. So your district at the time was R plus. This is a long time ago now. I want to say it was R plus 12. Wow. So that's a it was R plus 12. Wow. So that's a very daunting landscape for you. Trump wins like 60 some percent in this district.

So your race in some ways is an emblem of this crystal where the incumbent that you lost to is still there 11 years later doing his thing. And any Democrat who runs against him is doomed in that district as it's currently drawn. You're phenomenally talented. I'm sure 11 years ago, you were awesome. But to your point, not awesome 11 years ago, but I was doing my best. I was very earnest and I was working hard. Yes. But to your point, anyone could have run and they would have lost under the Democratic ticket. That Republican member of Congress only has one concern and it's getting primaried. So what you see is very powerful incentives that will drive a Republican in that situation to want to placate the 10 to 20 percent most extreme voters in his or her district, which is one reason why you see so little dissent from Trump. Because if someone says, hey, Trump doesn't speak for me, then all of a sudden,

you'll be out of there because the most extreme 20% of Republican voters in that district and around the country are going to get rid of you like that. So we have very, very strong incentives to drive people toward the extremes, to some extent on both sides. Right now, I believe it's a much bigger problem on the Republican side. On the Democratic side, there are also distortions, though, where you have special interests that are much more involved in the process, because they have a lot at stake. And so they're there in the most extreme 17 to 20% of Democratic primary voters. So the system right now will not lead us to positive results. And so coming to that conclusion myself, and one thing I pride myself on is just being intellectually honest, is like,

okay, if this is the conclusion I've drawn, then what's a true answer? And the answer I found was we need to change the closed party primary system to open primaries and rank choice voting to change the incentives so that our legislators aren't trying to please the most extreme 20%, but instead are trying to please 51%. And that would transform incentives overnight. All of that. So in terms of the solution of rank choice voting, and open primaries, or jungle primaries are sometimes called, I think that that all logically makes a lot of sense. Because then you also don't get in the situation of like, you know, during your primary, I'm sure there were a lot of people who wanted to vote for you who were excited about what you had to offer, but weren't convinced that you could win and they didn't want to quote unquote

waste their vote. And so if you have a ranked choice system, then people don't have to worry about that. Or same thing with Bernie or any other number of candidates who people could have felt like, let me just actually vote for the candidate I really like. And I'm not wasting my vote. I'm not serving as a spoiler or any of that. So all of that makes a lot of sense to me. There's two questions I have for you. Well, probably more than two, but we'll start with two questions for you on the approach specifically, which is everything you've described is like not so much a Democratic Party problem or a Republican Party problem, right? And Lord knows I'm not a defender,

really, of either of those parties. But what you're describing isn't necessarily a specific problem with either of those parties. It's a problem with the system writ large. It's an incentives problem. It's a systemic problem. So why start a third party to address that? Why not, you know, get the Democratic Party to push for it or have an outside organization that's pushing for a reform movement or getting this question on the ballot in different states so that they could pass their reforms that way? Why take the approach of the third party? Again, this is not a one party problem. This is a problem that's systemic. And so if you were to try and do it within the Democratic Party and you play that out, how would that work in red states?

And right now, if you look at the states that have ballot initiatives that allow one to get open primaries and ranked choice voting on the ballot, a lot of them are red. The one state that has already done this is a deep red state, Alaska. And I do want to illustrate how this works in real life. Lisa Murkowski, the senator from Alaska, is the only Republican senator who's up for re-election in 2022 that voted to impeach Donald Trump. Her approval rating among Alaska Republicans is now 6%. It's literally political suicide for someone to do what Senator Murkowski did. But Alaska just changed their primaries to be open primaries and rank choice voting last year. So now Senator Murkowski actually doesn't go through a strictly Republican primary.

She goes to everyone. And so she has a fighting chance to be reelected. Now, does that incentive change have something to do with her decision to impeach Trump? I'm going to suggest probably. I'm going to suggest that that's probably the case. So if you're going to try and make this happen in diverse states that are both red and blue, you can't try and nestle it within one of the two parties, because then any other state that you're operating in will say, oh, this is like a Dem thing, or this is a Republican thing, as opposed to something that's system-wide. I get that too. I get that too. But of course, you also know the history

of third parties in the country, which is, you know, as hard as it is to get things changed through the existing parties, the best modern day performance we've had for a third party presidential candidate, of course, is Ross Perot. He didn't win a single state. There are already existing third parties. You have the Libertarian Party. Crystal, I want to, because you often say, like, you're kind of shooting towards what a lot of people have done, which is something that I want to pull back from, which is people just fast forward to the presidential. I mean, like, to me, is people just fast forward to the presidential. I mean, like to me, I'm not thinking about that at all.

I'm thinking about what we can do to try and make our legislators incentives better right now, or right now in real terms right now means November 2022. And so if you're trying to get that done, you could say, hey, let's start an organization around this, which I think is a great idea. Some organizations are doing that work and I'm trying to do my best to help them. But if you're going to ignite a true popular movement around this, you need to raise something of like a flag to join. And so that's why I believe that you need this popular movement that, by the way, is inclusive of registered Democrats. You do not need to change your party registration to sign up with a forward party. If you're a Republican who's sick of it, you can sign up with a forward party and keep your Republican registration. Because I'm a practical guy,

changing your party registration would disenfranchise you in 80% of these districts. Like, why would you do that? So we're a popular movement that's going to be inclusive. But I think a lot of people that are most excited about this are people that think that the party system is broken. And if you rewind, this duopoly we're in is a nightmare of the founding fathers come to life that has lasted for 130 years and makes zero sense on the face of it. They were anti-partisanship. They wanted shifting coalitions and factions. The UK has five political parties. Sweden has eight political parties. Netherlands has 18 political parties. We're stuck with two.

By the way, if you were going to have a system where you have two major parties, you know what could happen? Hypothetically, one of them succumbs to terrible leadership. And then our systems aren't prepared to actually try and check that. Because guess what? The founders didn't imagine that there would only be two political parties. So there are so many problems with the current system, the way it's set up. And we're just going to drive ourselves crazy until we get to the bottom of those problems. Everything else is just going to be like praying for things to change when you

really dig into it. There is no reason to expect it to change. It'll get worse. The polarization will get worse. The dysfunction will get worse. And we're going to be looking up being like, why aren't things changing? This is the way we actually change it. So lay out for me what the plan is. What are you thinking of in terms of the midterms? Will you be fielding candidates? Will you be pushing for ballot access? Just talk me through sort of like the plan of what this looks like in the near term.

I love it because this is another misconception. Crystal, again, we're smart, we're practical, and we want to get great stuff done. The pillars of the forward party start with open primaries and ranked choice voting. So someone needs to be for those things. But they also include things I think a lot of your listeners are huge supporters of, like universal basic income, human-centered economy, fact-based governance, modern and effective government.

And this is something that you really have to stand up for, which is we talk in these arguments, passing relief when only 17% of it gets to people is a moral failure. Like someone should be held accountable for that. But we actually aren't paying attention to whether the pipes work. It's just, oh, I stood up, I did something. And then we go home while people are left wondering why the system's not working. And the last pillar is grace and tolerance, which is, to me, one of the things that's necessary to try and bring the country back together.

Like we're getting set up to attack each other. We're getting set up to attack each other. We're getting set up to regard our fellow Americans as mortal enemies. And it's a recipe for disaster. So if someone is for these six pillars and they're running as a Democrat in a primary or running as a Republican in a primary, let's get behind them. You don't need to run as forward party. We're going to be a group that just supports people who are for these principles. And simultaneously, we will be activating voters to pass these ballot initiatives to try and implement open primaries and ranked choice

voting in states around the country. Gotcha. So this sounds a little bit like the the DSA model in that they'll back candidates who are running on the Democratic Party line. They also do field candidates who run outright as DSA candidates, but they've focused electorally and had some success that way in backing candidates who are running as Democrats, but support their shared values. Is that kind of like the realm of what you're thinking in? Yes, because again, we're smart and impact driven. And in a lot of these locations, it is impossible to run as anything other than a Democrat and Republican. So we're going to support people who are aligned, regardless

of what letters next to their name. So one other thing I wanted to ask you about is you talk in the book quite a lot about the extremes and the incentives within the party, within both the parties to sort of move to the far edges of those parties and the way that just as you said, you know, you're not really worried about someone from the other party challenging you. You're worried about your primary challenger if you're in one of these many, many, many safe districts. How do you define extreme, though? Because it struck me as I was reading this, a lot of people would have said that you running on universal basic income, that that was extreme, or that was radical, or that was a fringe idea. So when you're talking about party extremism, some people would say, you know, healthcare for everyone is extreme, even though we're the only

developed country that doesn't do that. Some people would say raising taxes on corporations is extreme, even though 80% of Americans support that, right? So when you're talking about extremism, just what what do you mean by that language? It's playing out differently in the two parties. And I think on the Republican side, we can see what's going on where you have people who are hardcore Trump supporters completely dominating the party primaries and making it so that the Republican Party really is just a vessel for Trump. And I know there are many longtime Republicans who are looking up saying, oh, like, you know, like, this is not what I thought the party was. But here we are. On the Democratic side, it's a bit different. And I referenced it a little bit earlier, is that there are people and I'm for different policies.

As you saw in the book, I'm for health care for all. I think it's common sense and we need it. I'm obviously for universal basic income. But on the Democratic side, what you see is that there are special interests that have outsized influence in the process, in part because it is a closed party primary. So this could be teachers unions, it could be big pharma, it could be different groups that have very, very high stake in what happens from leadership. And there is some ideological shift too that happens on that side. But I think the different influences the parties struggle with are different. I'm going to suggest that regardless, having to appeal to 51% of voters would be an improvement, regardless of which party you're talking about.

One of the parts in the book that I thought was really interesting is you talk about how, this isn't exactly your language, so I don't want to, you know, I don't want to twist your words here, but you're sort of talking about how power changes people and how power corrupts, which is, of course, you know, something that is an old adage. And the other thing that I was thinking about as I was reading that is people who are in support of moving away from the Democratic Party and towards a third party, they oftentimes will say, you may go in to change the Democratic Party, but the Democratic Party is ultimately going to change you. What was your experience with that? I mean, you didn't end up

as the nominee, but you certainly had a lot of people who really believed in you, these huge events, these huge rallies, hundreds of thousands of people donating, I mean, I don't know, maybe millions, lots of people donating to your campaign, millions of dollars flowing in. Did you find it hard to remain yourself? Did you feel yourself influenced by that sort of newfound fame and modicum of power? I do write a chapter about this, but I think the biggest problem is when someone shows up in DC. And even if you're raring to go and you want to change things, you're looking at the seniority system and people who've been there for 20 25 30 years who are in

power and so the natural approach you're going to end up with is to bide your time and to to be there for a while and say yeah you know it'll be my time eventually for me personally i'm kind of an odd duck crystal i don't know uh i mean like running for president was, was like an act of activism on my part. I thought I could help educate us about what's going on with our economy and accelerate the adoption of universal basic income and the end of poverty in our time. And strangely enough, I never expected to get recognized on the street. No, it's, I mean, in a way it didn't make any sense. Um, and I think part of it has to do with, uh, being an Asian guy where like, I joke in the book that like, uh, you know, Asian guys feel like we have like an invisibility cloak where if we just

like, you know, don't try to draw attention to ourselves that people will just totally ignore us. And so even now, you know, I don't, oh, I mean, I could make a joke now. It's like, I'm not very powerful because I don't run anything, which is pretty accurate. But certainly, and you might have had this experience lately because I know in some ways, you know, your popularity has been growing very quickly.

Getting recognized in public is a trip. Like that's weird. But what's funny, uh, you, you know, your popularity has been growing very quickly. Um, getting recognized in public is a trip like that. That's weird. Um, but what's funny, Crystal, is that even though it's happened to me over and over again, like I still act like it's the first time when it happens when it's like, Oh, well, like, well, do you want a picture? Sure. Like, um, um, I, I do think the problem is if someone winds up in D.C. and is there for years, it will distort you over time, even if you entered with the best of intentions. It's one reason why I'm for 18 year term limits in each House of Congress. We have to try and do the excesses of, because our leaders don't understand technology natively, especially if they got there 30 years ago. So what has been the response from the Democratic Party establishment? I mean, you endorsed Joe Biden. You went and campaigned for him.

You went and campaigned very hard in Georgia. You ran for mayor of New York as a Democrat. Something else I want to get to and ask you more about. So they've definitely assumed you're fully in their camp. You've got their back. You're on their side. Have you gotten much of a response from them? Have they been surprised? Have they been disappointed? Have they been supportive

from some of those folks who are in the sort of upper echelons of the Democratic Party? I've gotten various text messages from members of Congress. They've been inquisitive would be, I suppose, the word I'd use. But the people who are texting me know what motivates me, know what's in my heart. I'm just trying to do the best I can. I think that there's some curiosity around it for sure. And I think also that people in the press have been sensationalizing it in a particular way.

Hopefully even this conversation will make people feel like, okay, I see where he's going and this makes sense. I mean, we need a popular movement to address the structural incentive problems in our system, or else we're going to just drive ourselves crazy. And the craziness is going to result in political violence, it's going to result in a recurrence of, you know, some unthinkable things that we've seen over the last number of months. I want to be the leader of the anti-polarization movement, the forward party. And so I think a lot of Democrats right now are kind of waiting and seeing how it plays out. But I have gotten messages. Some of them, you know, are from friends and they say that one of them said, like, look, I'm really sorry to see you go. But that they believe that I'll be back in some form in the sense not rejoining the Democratic Party necessarily. But that I'll, that I'll see them. Because people that are trying to make positive things happen just end up around each other a lot.

Would you ever run for president again as a Democrat? Right now, I'm focused on getting the forward party up and running to a point where we're excited about candidates at 22 and these ballot initiatives. You know, I'm just going to try my best to maximize my own impact in the time we have, Crystal. We don't have unlimited time. I mean, our democracy is disintegrating. We have to take it very, very seriously and try and bust ass as quickly as we can. I don't have some deep native desire to hold a particular office. I don't have some burning ambition. I'm going to do whatever I think is best for the country.

You know, if there's a need I can fulfill, I'll certainly take a look at it. But, you know, I don't have any designs passed trying to get some ballot initiatives passed in 22 and hopefully getting some candidates across the finish line. So one of the things you talked about in your presidential campaign and also talk about in the book is the sort of corruption of money in politics, both when you're running for office and you're having to solicit all these donations, then you get into office and the first thing you got to do is dial for dollars again and go meet with lobbyists and raise money from lobbyists and that whole cycle, not to mention, and we see this, I would say with Kyrsten Sinema right now, you know, pushing back against the reconciliation bill at the same time that she's raising money from the very corporate interests that would benefit from that bill being killed. At the same time, you're looking towards,

okay, when I get out of Congress, then I'm going to get a cushy gig in the private sector for X and Y and Z companies. So let me make sure I'm happy with them. They're happy with me while I'm here in the people's house. So you talk about that rot and that corruption and how corrosive it is to and how it messes up the incentives of people who may be genuinely good people who want to serve and end up not doing what they set out to do once they get to Washington. How will you protect the forward party to make sure that it's not subject to that same sort of corrosive impact of money in politics? You know, I got asked this the other day, Crystal, and my immediate response was who on earth would donate to the forward party because we don't run anything. If you're a big corporate, it's like, let me get behind the Ford party because they're really going to lower my taxes.

You know, the only people who would donate to Ford are people that want to see our democracy actually live up to that name, that they want a system that will have our legislators answer to the majority of us instead of the mostological minority. Now, if we're running the show, then I would love to have another conversation with you about how we're going to make sure the forward party doesn't get overrun by corporate donors, because we're looking at innovative ways to do that. But right now, I mean, it really is sort of funny in the sense that like no one rational would donate to the board party for for self-serving reasons, because it just wouldn't make any sense. I think you saw yourself a little short there, though, because, you know, you're a very influential person and you have a big following. So it's not crazy to me to imagine that there would be people or interests who would love to have access to that. I mean, for some of these people to throw you $100,000 or whatever, it's nothing to them. Why not place a bet on this thing, even if it is a long shot chance?

If they do that and it pays off, then we'd be happy to publicly disclose all the people that have donated to us. And then we can have a conversation as to what the future holds. But I would have to say it would take a real visionary with a very long time horizon to do it for bad reasons. Maybe I am selling myself short, Crystal. Maybe I'm cool enough where people just throw money at it to hang out with me. Everybody's cool enough to be subject to these influence. I mean, as you point out, a lot of this isn't about sometimes in the commentary can get very much caught up on individual personalities. And like this person is sold out, that person is corrupt, and people have

agency and they deserve blame for those things. But we're all human. And like, we're all subject to these sort of corrosive influences. I see it in my own work. One of the things that we try to do with our business model is protect ourselves from being too driven by the YouTube algorithm or by what's going to be monetized or not by YouTube. Because, look, I know I'm a human being. I know when I was at MSNBC and they told me, hey, next time you say something mean about Hillary Clinton, you got to run it by us. I know that impacted the way that I covered her. So I just I have a lot of humility. I know you do, too, about how we're all subject to these influences, even when we have the best of intentions. I'm with you for sure. And I think

that's the big lesson about our current system, Crystal. It's one reason why, again, we're all pulling our hair out wondering why it's not getting any better. The system is fundamentally corruptive. And then what we're doing is we're pretending that certain people are good and not corrupt, and those people are corrupt. And then someone's like, oh, that person's a hypocrite. The system is dirty. The system is making it so that a reasonable person can enter and then try their best out, try their heart out. But they'll be there grinding and dialing for dollars. Someone that gives to them is going to represent some corporate interest. That's the way our system is designed. And the best thing we can do right now is to try and clean up our system so that it actually is more responsive to popular will.

And this is the best way to do so. So I'm with you 100%. I think it was a quote from Ezra Klein in his book that I quote in my book that corruptive systems overcome good individuals with ease. And that's what we're seeing over and over again and we're wondering why it's not working. So I wanted to ask you a little bit more about some of the planks because I think they're really interesting. And you mentioned how grace and tolerance is one of

the ones that you find to be sort of most critical and most vital. That's something that really resonates with me because I do think we have a situation right now where people feel very impotent. They feel like they did the thing they were supposed to do. They voted for the right candidate. So they got out there and organized or they gave their 10 bucks or whatever. And they're still not able to see that change in that progress that they've been wanting to now for years and years. And so I think a lot of people, not a lot of people, but some people turn that sense of impotence and the way that they can find power is by, well, let me judge this person. Let me shame this person. Let me call this person out. Let me be full of condemnation rather than,

hey, how do we build solidarity? How do we build a cohesive movement that can actually effectuate change? So talk to me a little bit about when I see grace and tolerance, that's what I think about. But talk to me about what you think about when you put those two words into your party platform. Well, one thing I think about are my family members who voted for Trump, and I still love them and hold them dear, even though they voted for Trump. To your point, there's so much pain and suffering and rage them and hold them dear, even though they voted for Trump. To your point, there's so much pain and suffering and rage, and it's manifesting in different ways in different quarters. It's legitimate. It's real. One of the things I want to do is try and channel all of that energy into something that's productive and solutions oriented. That's what the forward

party hopes to do. But the grace and tolerance I was thinking about really is just to try to embrace our shared humanity and our fallibility and our difference. One of the points I make in the book is that a lot of people's politics are born of circumstances they do not have any control over. And so then despising them for that is not, one, it's not helpful, but it's also not acknowledging their humanity in the same way. I mean, I grew up with people who were, I grew up with a lot of Italian Americans in upstate New York. And, you know, I got picked on a fair amount as one of the lone Asian kids in my school. And no, like looking at those people now, I mean, I haven't seen them all and whatnot. I mean, like we were probably in very different places politically, but, you know, like you still shared so much time and experiences with them. And it's it's something that's gotten lost now.

The ideological barriers, particularly in a two party system where it becomes good versus evil on both sides, then we're never going to get anywhere. And we're going to end up ginning up the engines of personal destruction. We're just going to keep on having this rise and fall of just about everyone who raises their hand and tries to do something positive. And then the people that are going to end up riding various waves are going to be not the people you want. So that way, like if they're just waves of negative emotion, then the people that will harness those waves are going to be not super productive individuals. So it's hopefully an antidote to that. Hopefully saying, look, I disagree with you on a lot of things, but you're still a human

being. You know, like I screw up. I'm still a human being. I try and put in the book various episodes of my screwing up as a parent or a partner or a friend or a boss or a candidate or whatever it is. And, you know, like it's you get up and do the best you can the next day. I think that if we can forgive ourselves and each other, then we'll have a much better chance at getting some positive change done than if we're really, really intent on trying to pick people apart and find the worst in each other. Yeah, I mean, I 100% agree with that. Do you see that as mostly like an ethos, a sort of moral value? Or do you think that there are actual policy choices that we could make that would help to create that culture? The biggest policy choice we could make is open primaries and right choice voting, because then all of a sudden you'd have really diverse points of view and no one could bully you

for wasting your vote. And, you know, people could show up and you'd have a much higher level of dynamism. And the incentives would be towards a higher degree of reasonableness. Because if you put a reasonable legislator in there and say, hey, cater to the 20% most extreme and polarized voters in your district, guess what? They're going to sound more unreasonable. So when you talk about something that will actually make us more reasonable, you have to set up incentives that reward reasonableness. That's what I hope the Forward Party becomes. We're like the reward for reasonableness, like the wet blanket that will bring the temperature down. Andrew Yang, America's wet blanket. You know, it's like

something along those lines. Like we just got to kind of get people focused on things that are actually going to help us. Right now, and Ezra Klein says this, it says that right now we're just feeding cycles of political rage that are leading to madness. Why do you think it is that you write about how when you're running for president in particular, you'd meet someone, maybe they were a trucker. And obviously you spoke a lot to, that was a big thing, Truckers for Yang, and you did ride-alongs and you talked a lot about the future of the trucking industry. Maybe you meet a trucker. And immediately when you say, I'm a Democrat, it's like switch flips, they're not interested. Suddenly you've gone from being an interesting fellow human to some other thing. Where do you think that comes from? How did that happen? I think that comes from the fact that we have these polarized media columns. When I say column,

I mean, you know, you have Fox on the right and then MSNBC on the left, and then CNN somewhere in the leftish middle, I suppose, if you were to characterize it. And so that trucker has probably listened to a lot of talk radio because he's a trucker. So he has something of a caricature of the Democratic Party in his head. And the most extreme statements of the Democratic Party have probably been piped into his truck by a contemptuous talk radio host for a long time. And so then when Andrew Yang shows up at his truck stop and says, hey, I'm running for president as a Democrat, they're like, Democrat. But unfortunately, I got that not just at the truck stop, but in the store, in the diner, on the street.

And this, again, is one of the problems. I mean, we're rewarding our media outlets for ginning us up on both sides. And that's where all of the money lies, really. You know, again, I mean, we'll see. You and Cy are doing a great job of this. But like, I'm hoping that there's an audience in rationality and reasonableness and solutions. I'm sure I'd make a lousy trucking talk radio host.

Maybe they'd be into it. You never know. I shouldn't sell myself short again. But the media incentives end up driving us toward these extremes, Crystal. And I think that's why people react so negatively to each other on both sides. Could you talk a little bit more about the media? Because you also have some great anecdotes in the book about, I'd love if you tell people the Wing Ding episode.

And I'll just set it up for folks a little bit. So you go to Iowa, you get invited. It's early in the campaign. You're going to this big Democratic Party function called the Wing Ding. It's you, John Delaney, Tim Ryan, and Michael Avenatti. And I'll let you take it from there. But I think this episode sort of sums up what political coverage and political quote unquote journalism actually is. Yeah, so I feel a lot of pressure, because it's like my first big political

speech and like 1000 Iowans there. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I have to knock this out of the park. So John Delaney speaks, Tim Ryan speaks, I speak, and then Michael Avenatti speaks. And I thought he was awful. Like he was just reading and he went over long and it was boring. And I was like, this is terrible. And then he comes off of the stage and he's surrounded by a dozen political reporters and cameras who are peppering him with various questions. Journalists, I did not even know were in the room. And they just followed Michael Avenatti around for a number of minutes and then wrote up articles about how Michael Avenatti excites the Iowans and a bunch of other

things. And I was there and I was like, what the heck just happened? Like, you know, like, I thought he was terrible. And, and the write ups did not mention me or John or Tim for the most part. And so there was a sense it's like, wow, the story had already been written, like they showed off and they were just going to be like gavinotti excites the iowans right and the actual iowans themselves whether they responded or not was sort of irrelevant yes and what i think that happened was that they would find you know an iowan or two who would give a positive quote and by the way you could have gotten positive quotes about any of us from Iowans because Iowans are very nice. They are very nice people. Very nice people.

They could have been Andrew Gag excites Iowans. Where was that story? But this is like the first major brush. And it's so jarring because obviously Avenatti was a total flim flam. Yeah. And the fact that he was getting elevated that way next to two candidates who had already declared in me and John. And then Tim was certainly going to declare. But the media was not there for any of us.

So what do you think is the sort of what's the solution there? Because this is one I struggle with. I mean, obviously, I'm trying to offer my own solution just through my show, which I have to say is a little self-serving, but it does give me hope that we have an audience that is truly ideologically diverse, that Sagar and I certainly have different views on things, that people stick with us, our audience sticks with us,

even when we say things that they may disagree with at times. That does make me hopeful that there's an appetite for something different. But if the media is such an issue and driving so much sectarianism, which is really what it is, what is the solution for that? Because they're not going to change. You know, they profit off a crisis. They profit off of political violence. They never had higher ratings than they did on January 6th. That was great for business. Trump was great for business. So how do you get out of

that cycle? Well, I have some ideas in my book, but I'm also a huge fan of breaking points and you and Sagar. And I think that you are truly the answer, not to put pressure on you. But when I say you, I mean, truly independent viewpoints that are free of corporate media that develop followings because people begin to trust you. I have a theory, Crystal, that in the new world, people won't trust institutions so much as they'll trust people. People trust you, people trust Sagar, I hope some of them trust me and so that the goal is then to build a constellation of trusted voices who can be voices of reason and moderation and reasonableness even if you have like you said I mean you can have very dramatic policy wishes but like giving everyone money I mean you know that used to be seem seem very extreme. But that you try and traffic in reality and you don't make up your own facts and you try and treat other people in a certain way and people grow to trust your viewpoint.

Now, the question is, can you and Sagar and some of these other independent voices become true rivals to the media networks? I believe you can, truly. And I'd like to be a part of that. I have some ideas on the cable news front. I suggest in the book that we should bring back the Fairness Doctrine, which existed until the Reagan years, that just said, if you present one side of a point of view, then you should present the other too. Not 50-50, but just like have some moderation. And the FCC used to have authority over that. And then they got rid of that. And then, lo and behold, Fox and MSNBC came up very shortly thereafter. You know, that's actually, of course, during the Reagan years is when we totally took the

brakes off. And Clinton continued it too, by the way, and went to this model of wildly unfettered capitalism where the only value that we're really leaning into is the value of money, the value of profit margins. What you call for in the forward party is what you call human-centered capitalism. Talk to me about what you mean by that. Because in some ways, I almost feel like those two words, human centered and capitalism, are at odds with each other. If you're looking at capitalism just as making money, profit margin, because you certainly see that in our health care system. Since we've put the profit margins at the center of everything, it means we don't get good health care.

We don't even have that as a value within the system. So talk to me about what you mean by that phrase. What I mean is an economy where we're actually measuring ourselves as the unit of progress, like our quality of life, our physical health, our mental health, our education rates, our clean air and clean water. We should be reporting on those numbers much more diligently than stock market prices or GDP growth or headline unemployment. And if you looked at those numbers, you would see that we're at 28th in the world in public education, clean air and clean water, infant mortality, all these basics. And we shouldn't accept that. No, like if you have our level of wealth and resources and kids are dying unnecessarily

and we're failing so many in our education system, it should be reported on all the time. And, you know, if you saw it, you'd see that mental illnesses are spiking. Like what good is high GDP if your kids are anxious and depressed all the time? Which, by the way, is a byproduct in part of social media and the rest of it? So that's what I mean by human centered capitalism is that we are the point of the economy, not the fuel. So if you measure human progress, then you'd see that we've been failing and falling down for a long time. I wanted to ask you a little bit about the mayoral race. There were plenty of autopsies of, you know, why you started on ahead and didn't end up pulling through in the end. I gave my own thoughts on the matter. What was your sort of assessment of what went wrong there and why

you weren't able to ultimately prevail. No, Crystal, I mean, I've done a fair amount of reflecting on it. And no, it seemed like I wasn't the right candidate for this place, this time. I mean, I'm proud of the campaign we ran on some levels, we got over 115,000 first place votes, a lot more second and third place votes, thank you, New York, more individual donors than any a lot more second and third place votes. Thank you, New York. More individual donors than any other campaign in the history of the city. And the most important thing is when I just walk around the streets of New York today, yesterday, tomorrow, people just are happy to see me. It's a good feeling. So we felt we came up short. We weren't the right candidate for this moment. But I'm really grateful for all of the support I got and the experiences I had.

Anything you would do different or you just feel like you weren't the fit for the moment? Well, I'm sure, you know, obviously, if you come up short, then like you want to do some things differently, maybe you get a different result. The other thing I wanted to ask you about that, which you do talk a little bit about in the book in the afterword is in New York City, they do have ranked choice voting. How do you think that that played into the outcome? And what sort of lessons can we extrapolate from that to how it might apply at the state and the federal level? I'm a huge rank choice voting proponent. I'm actually going to be trying to help promulgate it all over the place, obviously. I mean, it's like one of the core tenets of the Ford party. And I thought rank choice voting in this mayoral primary was a plus. I got to campaign with Catherine Garcia. 95% of New Yorkers found it easy to use. 77% want to do it again. And if you get four out of five New Yorkers to agree on something, it's pretty damn good in my mind.

So ranked choice voting should be here to stay. There is a distinction, though, between ranked choice voting in a primary, which is what we had in New York, and an open primary with ranked choice voting, because you did shut out a lot of independents and Republicans. I had a lot of people come up to me on the street and say, hey, I want to vote for you. I'm an independent. How do I do it? And then if they were a registered voter already, they were too late. They needed to change their registration by February 15th, which was more than four months before the election. So if you'd had a truly open primary in ranked choice voting, I think that would have been better. But ranked choice voting was still a

plus because it should have rewarded folks who were willing to come together and solve problems more collectively. And I was excited to try and give Catherine a boost down the stretch. You know, she was obviously my second choice for mayor after myself. Yeah, and she almost made it in there. Almost did it. That would have been a great testimonial.

Like that was, yeah, that was happening. I was like, yeah. Wild to watch that all unfold. You know, Andrew, are you optimistic? Because I have to say, as someone who covers the news every day, and, you know, watches some of the same failures that you chronicle in your book, the same incentives, the same disappointments, right now, as we're recording this, you know, the fate of the entire Biden agenda looks like it may well crumble, even though pieces of it have 80 and 90% support. The one that I think particularly rankles is this idea

of negotiating prescription drug prices for Medicare, which is literally supported by 80% of the public. How are you not doing that? Yeah, it's crazy. How are you not doing it? Democrats have been running on this for over a decade and still may not ultimately happen. So do you look at that set of facts, not to mention all the tensions that you also chronicle and the way that we're sort of intentionally being pulled apart for profit by nefarious actors and nefarious institutions. Are you able to look at that and still feel hopeful and optimistic?

It's awful what's happening. And I do not feel great about the state of our country, our democracy, Crystal. I think, you know, I'd be lying if I was like, oh, yeah, I'm feeling great about things. There's a real chance of political violence upcoming in 24, in my opinion, 22 potentially. It's one reason why I'm doing what I'm doing is that if you are honest

and you see what's going on right now where Democrats theoretically have control of the government and aren't able to deliver on various things, and we all know that their hold on power might vanish pretty quickly and leave us at a point that in some ways you could argue is square one or maybe worse. What is the true answer? And so this is core to your question, because you're like, Andrew, are you optimistic? I see myself as deeply, deeply practical. And I like to think clear eyed. If you're clear eyed, you cannot look at the system and say, yeah, this is working. Like this is not working for Democrats, independents, Republicans. It's driving us all mad. And so in the face of that madness, what is a real answer? What is a real solution is changing the duopoly. The duopoly does not make any sense on its face. There's nothing about two parties in the constitution. It's holding us back in so many ways. 57% of Americans want a third party. 60% think both sides are out of touch. So if a majority of Americans are at that point, why can we not change it? And it's because we've been told we cannot change it. Like that, that's really the answer to it. So then you have to say, okay, hey, if enough of us get

together, can we change it? Well, let's do that. Let's start the forward party inclusive of everyone of every alignment. Don't need to change your party registration. And let's change the incentives that will have real hope. This is my best shot at something I can feel great about because at least win or lose, I will have proposed and championed the thing that would actually do the trick. You know, like that, that is my responsibility. My responsibility is just to be honest with anyone who I've been fortunate enough to get your support or anyone who's listening to this who's not a Yang person but is like, what the hell is going on and what can we do about it? It's one reason why I feel so strongly about this book that after I wrote my last book, The War on Normal People, I thought to myself, this could be my greatest contribution ever. And I would die happy. Like, you know, if I managed to advance the understanding of the automation of our economy and universal basic income, and that is my legacy, you can put that on my epitaph. And that is a okay with me. And at the end of my presidential campaign, I had, you know, these emotions because I was like, Oh, like

I fought my ass off and heart out. And I think I might've made a big difference. Like, you know, who can say that? Like, that's a great feeling. But then I also felt this responsibility being like, oh shit, like the problems are still getting worse. And like, I'm still here and my kids are still here. And like, I got to try and make a go of it. I now think that forward and this diagnosis of our problems in our democracy, just to let you all know that you're not crazy. What's crazy is to look at our system and think it should be working. Like it's set up not to work. And so if I can help people see what the real solutions could be, then this could be my most important work or contribution ever.

And so that's where I am now, Crystal. Like, this is a very long winded way of answering. It's like, hey, how do I feel about the future? I feel pretty damn bad. But, you know, but I feel like, okay, here's a real answer that if we were to get our legislators to a point where they have to answer to 51% of us, dilute all the special interests, dilute the extremity, make it so that things that have 80, 90% approval actually pass, then we'd have a shot at it. But it's only possible if we free ourselves of the duopoly. The duopoly is not going to pass anything that's going to solve our deepest problems. Well, you asked me what I thought of the book. I really enjoyed reading it.

You know, one of the things that I've always appreciated about you, Andrew, even when we've disagreed on various issues or tactics or whatever it is, is I always, you know, I feel like you're coming at it very honestly and that we can have these conversations and I'll ask you a question

and you'll actually give me an answer, which can be a rare thing. I'll try my best, Chris. I'll try my best. I'll try my best, Chris. I'll try my best. I'll try my best to do this down as well. So I really enjoyed the book. I thought it had that characteristic honesty, self-reflection. You mentioned that you kind of think about areas where I could have done this different, or maybe I should have endorsed a different way here. And am I balancing these competing priorities in the right

way? And that's, I really enjoyed that. I enjoyed the clear headed focus on kind of like, here are the big problems facing the country. And these little process skirmishes in the theater in Washington is really not where it's at. So I enjoyed the book. I totally recommend the book. I think people who get who want to understand to understand what it actually is like to go through the meat grinder of a presidential campaign and all the ways that, you know, I don't want to use the words rigged, but all of the ways that this thing is structured in a certain way to generate certain outcomes. It's very revealing in that way. So congrats, Andrew. Thank you, Crystal. And I got to say, I think that running for Congress in the way you did is such phenomenal perspective. I wish that every journalist who covers politics had to run for office because, you know, you just understand it differently. And it's one reason I think why people love you so much and you can do what you do is that, you know, you, you have your beliefs and convictions, but you also have a sense as to what the meat grinder is.

Um, I tried to convey it in a way that was interesting to people, but I think that, you know, I mean, literally there's a chapter in running for Congress where you're like, oh yeah, I remember that. Oh yeah. It's, you know, it's a different level, but you can kind of relate to some of those dynamics. So congrats again, Andrew. Where do you want people to get the book? If you go to andrewyang.com, there's a preorder link there.

There's also a book tour. I'm heading to 10 cities around the country. If you want to have a fun night or afternoon, you get a book, I'll sign it. And then we're going to have an hour long or so conversation about the future of the country. So we'd love to see you out on the trail. But andrewyang.com is the place to go. That's awesome. And what are the what are the first steps for the forward party look like? And where can people find out more about that at andrewyang.com as well? Yeah, it's forwardparty.com.

But andreayoung.com obviously has the links. I would love for you to sign up. We're going to get to work on campaigns as quickly as possible. So if this sounds like something you want to be part of, people have been waiting for a third party forever. And then right now with the forward party, they're looking at it being like, hey, can this really fly? If enough of us get together,'re looking at it being like, hey, can this really fly? If enough of us get together, we can make it fly very, very high. So go to forwardparty.com, sign up, buy a T-shirt, do whatever you want to do to support.

But let's fix it. Let's give ourselves a real chance. You very successfully, and I know it wasn't just you, the Yang gang and the pandemic and all sorts of good and bad things, put UBI on the map, direct cash assistance. So if you can make rank choice voting and open primaries, if you can put that on the map as well, that would be doing an incredible service to absolutely everyone in this country. Thank you, Andrew.

Thank you, Crystal. That's exactly the way I see it. UBI was the what, open primaries and ranked choice voting is the how. This is the second leg of the journey. And let's do it. Thank you so much, Crystal. There you go. Great to see you, Andrew. Hey, guys. Thanks so much for watching. That's right. Just as a reminder, you can become a premium subscriber today. Watch the full show completely uncut. Our reactions to each other's monologues. You get to listen to it. You get to ask us questions. All that good stuff. Link is right there in the description or at BreakingPoints.com. Best of all, great way to say screw you to the mainstream media.

I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two

of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports.

This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Michael Kassin, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on good company. The podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's next. In this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sood, CEO of Tubi. We dive into the competitive world of streaming. What others dismiss as niche, we embrace as core.

There are so many stories out there. And if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content, the term that we always hear from our audience is that they feel seen. Listen to Good Company on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.