Offline with Jon Favreau - Andrew Yang Still Wants To Give You $1,000

Episode Date: July 25, 2026

Was Andrew Yang ahead of his time? When he ran for president in 2020 on a platform of universal basic income and the threat of AI job displacement, people didn’t take him seriously. Now, Andrew's got even more ideas on AI and UBI, how our political system should deal with it all, and whether it can be done with only two parties. He and Jon discuss how the Forward Party’s independent candidates could spoil elections for Republicans, his new book of essays “Hey Yang, Where’s My Thousand Buck?” and why he’s decided to join the cast of a new television game show: Nation’s Dumbest.For a transcript of this show, email [e-mail]

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We've all been conditioned to market logic. We're like, look, we all have to be positive contributors in the market economy. And like, if you become obsolete, then you must resale yourself. And like, now everyone's going to become a welder, electrician or whatever. And it's bullshit. You know, it was bullshit when we said the coal miners, we're going to become coders. It's bullshit now. Like, it's bullshit when we said the factory workers are going to become nurses.

Like, it's bullshit now. And when we say college grads are all going to become handymen, especially when 60% of college graduates are women. And 2.8% of electricians are women. So it's like, you look at that math and be like, oh, what's going to happen here? I'm John Favro, and you just heard from today's guest, Andrew Yang. You might remember Andrew's 2020 presidential campaign where he came from nowhere to end up on the Democratic primary debate stage, mostly based on his universal basic income proposal to give every American a monthly $1,000 check. He also spent that campaign warning

people that AI was coming to take all of our jobs. Well, here we are. Yang was unsuccessful in that campaign, but it turns out he was ahead of his time on AI. So when I heard he was in L.A., I wanted to invite him on to talk about how he sees AI now, whether he still thinks his old UBI proposal is the right way to deal with the coming job displacement and how our political system should deal with it all. You might also remember that after his 2020 bid, Yang left the Democratic Party to start the forward party, the goal of which is to elect independent-minded candidates and reform the electoral system. So I wanted to dig into that as well and get his thoughts on the Democratic Party as it stands today. We also talked about his new book of essays, Hey Yang, where's my thousand bucks?

And for fun, why he's decided to join the cast of a new television game show, Nations Dumb. It was a fun, freewheeling conversation that I hope you'll find interesting. We'll get to it in a moment, but before we do, if you're not yet a paying member to Friends of the Pod, what are you doing? In addition to it being the best way to support your favorite pro-democracy independent media company, becoming a paying subscriber gets you access to this show ad-free, as well as ad-free episodes of all your favorite podcasts. Plus, Friends of the Pod get access to special behind-the-paywall shows like Pod Save America Only Friends, Dan Pfeiffer's Polarcoaster, and our least offline podcast, Terminal. online. Head on over to crooked.com

slash friends to subscribe today. All right, here's Andrew Yang. Andrew Yang, welcome to offline. Hey, thanks for having me. It's great to be here. All right, I got to start with the nation's dumbest. Yes. Because I have watched the first episode. What a place to start.

So for people who don't know, you are a contestant on a new reality slash game show called Nation's Dumbest, along with celebrities like Carmen Electra, Jojo Siwa, Steve O from Jackass. It's currently airing Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on Fox. Yes. So it's a series of trivia challenges where the winner each week gets to leave the show. Yep.

And then the last contestant standing is the nation's dumbest. Yes. One episode has aired. You did not win the first week. Yes. I know you can't divul. You were close. You were one of the final two.

Oh, thank you for watching. I know you can't divulge what happens tonight, Wednesday, though people will be hearing this episode on Sunday. How are you feeling about doing the show now that the first episode has been out in the world? Well, thanks for asking, John. I did get a bunch of text messages being like, hey, I'm seeing you on TV at this show that is not your usual activity. I feel good about it because I made friends with Ice Tea and Stivo and Dr. Drew and Matt Liner and a bunch of the other contestants because you're trapped. it's sort of an intense environment.

Hilaria Baldwin asked me, have I been on a reality TV show before? And then I said, only if you count running for president. And then everyone got a laugh out of that. So it's been a good experience. The best part is that I watched the first episode with my kids who are 10 and 13,

and it was one of the few things we've come together and watch as a family. And the kids were like, oh, you didn't know that or you didn't know that. And so, like, that was actually a joy. I know. I watched with my six-year-old, and he had a few answers. Yes.

He knew some. The trivia is, it's interesting. It's, um, it's maybe like middle school level trivia, but some of it is harder than you think. Like there were, there were questions that I got, but I was like, if I was there under all the pressure, I could see myself fucking that up. Well, thank you for understanding, John, because it's true. You're surrounded by these floodlights and there are 20 camera people and they're like, yang. like I'm going to describe this exercise what is it

I'm just like oh man that was a hard one thank you for saying so do you I do you feel extra pressure on the show because I feel like to not be a dumb ass is that what you're saying which I appreciate

I feel like they they like sought you out to try to I don't know like because they have you know some people you don't expect to be that smart you're on there and some of the other contestants are like you're the presidential candidate you better get this right. Yeah, I certainly did feel some more pressure and I joke that my crew will be over if I wind up being the nation's dentist officially, like losing to everybody. But I realized when,

so first, they reach out to me and I have a call with the producers asking them, why me for the show? And they said, we're looking for a politician or journalist that people don't hate, which was very flattering. Yeah. And think you'd be good for this. It's like, are you smart than a fifth grader. And I realized that if I turned it down, it was primarily because I would be uncomfortable with it or daunted by it. I wouldn't be turning it down for the right reasons. You know, I had some friends saying, don't do it. You're going to look dumb. It's going to be bad for your image. And I was like, these are not excellent reasons to say no. Like, it feels like I'd be whistling out. So I said yes. I definitely had second thoughts during some of the

tapings about that decision and major life decisions. decisions that preceded it. But now, you know, watching it as a family, it's actually been really fun and different friends have gone to kick out of it. Look, my co-host and co-founder, John Lovett, went on Survivor, and only lasted one episode. And that is the greatest gift of content to me and to tell me that. That would be the gift that keeps on giving. You show that clip over and over again. Somewhat serious question about it. Like, I've heard you say that one reason you thought the show is worth doing is that, you know, a primetime network audience reaches a lot more people than political shows like this or at least a different audience than those shows. How do you think

about getting attention and what kind of attention is valuable or is it all valuable? Because as a presidential candidate who came out of nowhere and ended up where you did, you clearly figured out something about how to capture people's attention at a time when it's become an incredibly scarce resource. Yes. That's why I have a thriving, consultancy on that very thing. No, I don't. Yeah, I say, and I wrote this and my substack, I say yes to doing podcasts that are much less cool than this one. I mean, there's like a real one. And I knew that a couple million people, minimum, we're going to watch this Fox Reality TV show. And when I ran for president, it's funny, John, you know when you're on a needle mover and because

people on the street will say to you like, hey, I saw you on this or I heard you on that. you're like, oh, that one actually reaches normal people. Yeah. And then there are a lot of things you do that just disappear immediately. Right. And so I thought, well, look, this is going to get in front of millions of people. And I've been in Iowa and Ohio and Michigan. And a lot of those people are not tuning into political news.

Right. But that server at the diner could be like, hey, saw you on this, saw you on that. And so it felt valuable in that way because I think one of the issues we have is the fragmentation of media and the siloing and the polarity. and everything else. So if you could reach someone just trying to relax at home with their kids, like after a hard day's work, I thought that was a win. The thing you got attention for during your 2020 presidential run

was your prediction that automation and AI were coming for millions of jobs, and people treated you like, in your words, the magical Asian man from the future. Yes. Now, you know, Dario Amodi says it, Sam Altman, Bernie Sanders. Why do you think your prescient warning wasn't taken more seriously back then? Well, I don't knock anyone or blame anyone because back then saying artificial intelligence was going to come seemed kind of like Terminator or, you know, sci-fi. And now it's very much with us.

I came here in a waymo. I don't know what that says about me. Anyone here? Like written or not written? I've written in one. Yeah, yeah. They're everywhere here. And I feel like a lot of my stuff in 2019, 2020 aged very well, a little bit too well.

And when I get asked now, it's like, hey, how are you feeling? I feel really, really despondent that we are in the place we are. I think this is going to be terrible for many, many Americans. It's going to suck up tons of value into this super vortex of AI capital data centers, processing power, and millions of Americans are going to look up being like, what happened to my job? Why is my kid home from college and doesn't have a job? that requires a degree. And it makes me angry and sad on behalf of those families.

So, I mean, I'll be a little more lighthearted for a sec. So I was with Dave Chappelle who introduced me and said, here's a guy who got everything right in 2020, but no one listened because he's Asian and then got a laugh. I mean, I made the case that I made to the best of my ability. And now the truth is that I feel more troubled by our institutional inability to respond to the problems of our time than I do anything else. Yeah. And especially true around AI. I mean, there is some debate still over the scale of the job loss that's coming. Oh, yeah. We're going to debate it even as they fucking disintegrate beneath our feet. You know what I mean?

Well, that's, I mean, I shouldn't laugh because it's terrible. You know, I think you said back in February, you think that millions of white collar workers are going to lose their jobs in the next 12 to 18 months due to AI. You know, the data sort of tells a couple different stories. Yale's Budget Lab has been tracking this monthly, and they show 55,000 explicitly AI attributed layoffs last year. That represents just under 5% of all layoffs. On the other end of the spectrum, Stanford finds employment for young workers in AI exposed jobs down 13 to 20%. even that larger number measures the problem in tens of thousands. So if you think like millions are coming, what are the numbers?

What are the current studies and measurements missing? Sure. The easiest people to fire the ones you haven't hired yet. And I run a company Noble Mobile. We have offline parties. I mean, people, you know, we come back to that, sure. And Noble Mobile has 100% not hired. junior engineers and data analysts and other folks that we would have hired just a few months ago

because of AI. And if you extrapolate that through the economy, Noble is not a huge company, but there are millions of companies like us who are each saying, you know what, I don't think I am going to hire that whippersnapper. Instead, I'm going to have this person use AI tools. And that's happening 100%. I mean, we're here in Los Angeles, and I think there are a combination of things that are happening to LA, but I would argue that AI is one of the forces that's hurting media production and like studios and folks who used to show up to work and like shooting these studio lots every day. So I'm very happy to be the guy who's like, look, I think it's millions and then have that conversation. And if someone comes to me later and is like, yo, Yang,

it was really only 700,000, ha, ha, then it would be like. Millions weren't until five years from Yeah, yeah. It's like, oh, you screwed up by 18 months. You know, because there are so many people who have been right there saying we're going to decimate a bunch of jobs who now have changed their tune. And they haven't changed their tune because they actually think differently. It's because they've been told, yo, stop freaking people out. Like, people are very negative on AI. The approval rating. I saw was 26%.

It's, like, incredibly unpopular. two different people through a Molotov cocktail and shot at Sam Allman's house. And so there genuinely was a coming together where they were like, we have to stop freaking people out about job loss. Everyone,

then like the CEO of Goldman Sachs rights in New York Times op ed being like everything's going to be fine. Meanwhile, I talked to someone internal at Goldman Sachs. He was like, oh yeah, we're going to fire 40% of our own people. So,

you know, who do you want to believe? Yeah. Like, I'm, it aggravates me. Like, you know,

so many people, are full of it on this because they'll say one thing in public and then you know the organizations doing something different. Well, then the other argument you hear is, yes, the transition's going to be rough and transitions between, you know, economic revolutions often are, but what happens is new jobs are created where old jobs disappear. What's your level of confidence that that also happens this time around, or is this a transition that is different than industrial to post-industrial to information economy and all that? Yeah, this time is different.

It's going to be terrible. And I'm numbers that I can attach to these things if people are interested. I mean, I'll throw one number out there. There are maybe 2.9 million Americans who work in call centers doing customer service still to this day. And AI is going to do a number on that. We can see that very, very fairly. And then imagining that those people are going to get re-skilled to what exactly.

Like no one really knows. And, you know, you then look at the two to three million Uber drivers. Maybe it's like a partial income, but still, I mean, they might be keeping their family afloat. Those are the obvious ones. There are a bunch of inobvious ones ripping through various orgs. And I think the entire comparison industrial revolution is very, very limited and dumb, honestly. I mean, but I hear it all the time. I mean, you're kind of straw manning it too.

Yeah. Because we've all been conditioned to market logic. We're like, look, we all have to be positive contributors in the market economy. And like, if you become obsolete, then you must resale yourself. And like now everyone's going to become a welder, electrician, or whatever. And it's bullshit. You know, it was bullshit when we said the coal miners, we're going to become coders. It's bullshit now.

Like, it's bullshit when we said the factory workers are going to become nurses. is like it's bullshit now. And we say college grads are all going to become handymen. Especially when 60% of college graduates are women. And 2.8% of electricians are women. So it's like, you look at that math and be like, oh, what's going to happen here? It's like, is everyone just going to change who they are? So that it's, yeah, you can sense where I am on this particular topic.

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So the question is what to do about it. You've talked about how it's time to stop taxing labor and start taxing AI. What does taxing AI look like to you? Token tax, payroll tax equivalent. There's a bunch of different proposals out there. Yeah, I like a token tax. I think it's very direct and measurable. I like a value-added tax and we're the only major economy that doesn't have one.

It's very hard to game your way out of if you're a major company. It would include AI and the data centers. And more and more value is going to flow towards these global tech companies and we're not going to see meaningful tax revenue. So that's really the problem to solve. If you solve that, then you can get more of the value into people's hands. I mean, the economy might be $31 trillion. dollars now AI is going to grow the top line it's just the issue is that most people are not going to

feel those benefits in a meaningful way um so there are two mechanisms one is how do you get the tax revenue and number two how does that family feel like it's going to benefit them and do you think um so obviously you know your big proposal is universal basic income yes thousand dollars a month yep freedom dividend might have to ratchet that up a little bit i was going to say so that was my next question like What is UBI still the answer? Is it the only answer? Like how, if we're taxing these AI companies now, then what do we do with it? We should distribute it quickly and broadly to the American people. And I'll tell a story, which I don't think it's in my book, which I appreciate you listening to. Of course. And have you written a book, John?

I have. I thought so. I have. So did you get a note from your publisher saying, hey, AI wants to absorb your book into the Borg and they want to pay you $2,500 for the privilege. Have you got that? I didn't get that yet, unless someone got it that I didn't. It might have been right before. Yeah, not yet. So the point is that our data right now is getting sold and resold for about $300 billion a year. And no American seeing a dime of that.

AI models are now the foundation of these multiple trillion dollar companies that are IPOing, and most Americans are not going to see a dime of that unless they somehow get access to the IPO, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. And so having that value get returned to the American people, if you think about it in those terms, actually very, very sensible, and it becomes increasingly necessary as all of this accelerates, would be my argument. I'm just trying to think of how this actually works because right now the revenue of all of the AI companies combined is, you know, it's like what a few hundred billion dollars globally. That's right now.

Yeah. And so the worry is that the value from the companies comes after the jobs are gone. Right? Yeah, totally. And again, that like, you know, so UBI that's your old proposal, that's 1,000. a month. That's like a, what, $3 trillion proposal a year? Yes, it comes to a lot less than that because of existing benefits and a bunch of other things. Right. But let's say order magnitude, like that, that's what we're talking about. I think that's the kind of move that we should make.

Right now, US GDP might be $84,000 ahead. So if you think about something for each American to get, if you were to say 12,000 or 15,000, that might sound like a lot of money if you compare it to other things that we currently have coming out of the government. But if you compare it to $84,000 in GDP per person with an up arrow attached to it because of AI, you know, it's going to get to $90,000. It's going to get to $100,000. So at what point do you go to Americans and say, okay, you know, 100,000 ahead, everyone's getting 15. and that's going to help us manage the greatest economic and technological transformation in the history of our species. Yeah. You know, like that is what I mean, that's what we're looking at right now.

I understand the political argument for a universal program like this. When we're talking a transformation of this scale and a problem this large, do you worry that handing out, you know, a thousand dollars a month or a couple thousand, whatever, it's, goes up to to people who are pretty wealthy is taking away resources that could be targeted to helping people through this transition in other ways than just giving them cash. Or maybe it's even giving people who need it more cash. Or maybe it's not even the level of the amount of money. Maybe it's targeting it towards a specific group of people who are going to be more likely to be displaced by AI than other people. Yes. All right. Check it out. Okay. If you look at our history, The major other time where we saw this displacement was the trade adjustment assistance, TAA,

which was meant to help the displaced manufacturing workers when we started kicking their jobs to Asia, let's say. And we were bad at actually targeting and delivering that at that time when you could actually point to the town in Ohio and say, okay, we're gutting this factory, like, let's try and help people. With AI, it would be very, very difficult to target in any intelligible way because, you know, you have little company here, you have a big company there, you have folks, you know, never being hired. And so when you start looking at the difficulty of targeting and that any intelligent system is drawing in money from the big winners anyway, whether it's through a value-outed tax or an AI tax, then you don't care, and using the most extreme example, it's like if Jeff Bezos gets an extra $2,000 a month, but we're bringing in, you know, tens of millions of dollars or more from either his company's activities or him personally, then you don't care about sending the dude $2,000. dollars, especially if it eases the administration problem, and it makes it seem fair, politically plodible, appealing to folks. We're just shitty at targeting the gains.

And if you start trying to target, you end up in a TAA-type problem. I'd urge anyone who thinks that we can do this to go look at the history of what happened with the TAA program, because it did not go well. And that was easier to identify than what we're looking at now. Yeah, you lose and you lose efficiency, and it's just, it's harder to tell you. target. It's really sad when you actually see what happened with that program, the displaced manufacturing workers in Ohio and Michigan, where you had a giant waiting list of people to sign up and they never end up getting benefits. Then even if they did get through the program, the impact

wasn't what people hoped for. Why tax and a check rather than ownership, giving everyone ownership of the AI companies in the upside? I'm open anything. Okay. You know, it's like I know that's like some of the proposals too is like a, you know, everyone gets a little piece of the, of the upside. And I don't know what you thought about that. Yeah, no, no, I'm open to it. I think that one of the fears I have, I will say, and one reason I love starting a conversation with something like universal basic income is that let's say that people via the government now become shareholders of some of these companies. And then we can all be like, yay, we got shares. And then the stewards of that are like, okay, we're going to chill and see and wait. And then,

like I get rid of your jobs, but then I'm still not feeling any benefits, even though technically like my government. Because we have, you understand it. Like we have two problems in this, you know, current environment. One is where's the value flowing in? And then how is it coming back out? So then the other, like the other option that's sometimes seen as like an alternative to UBI is like redistributing work, right? And not just money. So there's job guarantees, shorter work week, work sharing, like they've done in Germany, wage insurance. What do you think about all those? Again, I'm very, very open-minded. And I love a shorter work week. I love that. The one I dislike the most is something like of a job guarantee because I think you wind up with

bullshit, make work jobs, and people justifying. Yeah. So my joke with Bernie, we were talking about in 2020 and you know he was for a job guarantee and I was for universal bates income and my joke was why not distribute gray overalls while you're at it and like a pickaxe it's like that's where this lands yeah but I'm I understand the spirit of it and I do have an Asian joke here which is like I'm Asian so I love work like I love people working I just think people ideally are creating work for themselves, starting initiatives, organizations, nonprofits, working in their faith community, like doing things that they want to do and that they're passionate about. The big challenge of this era, John, is trying to define an economy around human flourishing at a time

when our labor will not be meaningful in terms of economic output. And that's a very hard thing to actually accept. Well, it is. Then it's like the, but then I think like that the problem is so big that, I mean, unless we are giving people, you know,

a 70, 80,000 year salary through UBI, which is, I mean, that's incredibly, incredibly expensive. Like, how are we like,

do you see a future where like no one's working? Like where like 90% of the, the, of the labor is automated and AI is doing it? Like how, how severe do you think it gets? Yes. So I'm 51 and what I say to people is that I'm at an age where if I don't get dumber in a given month, it was a good month. Meanwhile, AI might get twice as smart during that month. So saying that, oh, if I like take this course or like, you know,

do this, like I'm going to be able to compete is stupid. It's like the goalposts are just sprinting away from me by the time I even get to the starting block. Like it's crazy. Right. So then after you accept that, then it becomes a question of, okay, like, how do we make it so that people have a place to go for structure, purpose, fulfillment, community, values, training. You know, when I wake up in the morning, what am I going to do? Right. And to me, the only satisfactory vision is that we make it so that I have a place to go based upon things that, A, I want to do and B, that we need more of. And the three things that most of us can agree on in this dimension would be health and wellness,

education, nurturing, and caretaking, and arts and creativity. Okay. These are three things that most people can look at and be like, okay. Even the AI won't completely eliminate the need for those things. Well, here's the thing is that AI could, for example, do the art much better than I could, but that is not necessarily the point. like we're going to redefine the economy. This is more about personal fulfillment.

Yes. Like these are things that we have decided we value as a society. Because right now we're in this most dangerous of times, which is what we actually value as a society, is just getting shit done, capital efficiency, and we've all brainwashed ourselves into, you know, like hustle mode and like like grindy, grindy and like, you know, I'm going to ask, you know, all the stuff.

And then if someone falls by the wayside, we have mock sympathy for them. them for like a split second, be like, oh, it sucks for them, and then be like, oh, well, you know, they turn away. Meanwhile, in this case, AI is going to get many, many more of us, and it has nothing to do with my intellect or education or work ethic or character. It doesn't matter. You know, it's like, it's better than me.

And so what we have to do is we have to say, okay, AI is going to do a lot of work and robots, going to do a lot of work very powerfully and effectively. So what do we care about? What do we want more of? what do we want to spend our time doing? So one of the illustrations I pose is that at this point, we should all be getting paid to go to the gym. You know, it's like instead of us paying, like, we should be getting paid.

And then the personal trainer who's there all energetic there to whip us into shape and whatnot should also be getting paid. Yeah. And they could be paid in wellness bucks. And then they could take those wellness bucks and then, you know, use it on a salad or use it to go to the game or use it and they get like recognized for the wellness bucks and like we could get wellness bucks showing up. Who's paying us the wellness bucks? So what we need to do in my opinion is build a multivariate human centered economy. Okay. Around multiple pursuits. And then if you have this wellness box as an example, the wellness books would be monetized by the federal government. If I was in,

if I was in charge, I'd be like, look, there's an exchange rate, whole thing. You can take wellness bucks and like turn them into stuff. You can go to Chipotle like at a brito. You can live great on the wellness bucks. Yeah. You can live well on the education and nurturing bucks. And the example I used on the trails that we have an autistic son. My wife is at spent years at home with him. The market economy values that at zero. Right. We all know that's perverse and that's immensely valuable. And so she could be getting like these nurturing bucks. I mean, we'd have better name. They'd all be called Yang bucks, honestly. Of course.

And then arts and creativity, if someone paints a mural or goes and performs live, which I love, like the cafe or whatnot, instead of counting on the charity of strangers, which, like, you know, it's very, I always, by the way, give money to any musician I pass because I have a reputation to uphold and I'm like... The rest of it. Could be a camera, right? But the government would say, look, this new currency is real. Everyone would doubt it at first.

they'd be like, oh, like it's bullshit. But then after you have a bunch of people taking action on it and then realizing that they can carry a balance and do these things and even like trade it with each other and do it, you could stimulate billions and billions of dollars worth of activity in each of these dimensions that could occupy millions of Americans very happily and do it at a fraction of what it would cost if you were paying people in USDA. Okay.

this is like a sort of utopia that's sort of on the other side of the transition right like say we could get this well by the way we have to get there as soon as fucking possible well that's what I'm saying because that this chasm in the middle is going to consist of us all freaking out our kids coming home getting depressed and dysfunctional feeling they don't have a place in the world and eventually we start killing each other well that's already there no that's what I was getting at is that like the the transition regardless of what's on the other side of the transition regardless of what's on the other side of the transition is the most precarious part here because of politics, right? Yeah. And, you know, 80% of Americans want more regulation. You've got politicians from like Bernie Sanders to Ron DeSantis attacking data centers. I was thinking about something my old boss, Barack Obama said to the New Yorker a couple months ago. He said he's like working on a, he's been working on helping like lawmakers could come up with like AI agenda. That's not simply a knee jerk, screw the billionaires and tech thing because the judge.

genies out of the bottle and he said he worries that without a proactive agenda, some of the populist impulses could go in bad directions that don't actually help people or reinforce some of the anti-democratic trends we've seen. As usual with him, he's sort of understating the issue here. But it does seem like this could supercharge all of the political trends we have seen over the last decade in ways that are quite destructive. And I wonder how you think about sort of navigating that challenge. Yeah. The path of least resistance is disintegration. conflict, strife, hatred, like the whole nine. And I am Asian.

And so one of the things I joke about with my community is like, look, guys, we all know that when the wheel of hate turns, it will land on us like relatively early on the list. And so we have to try and keep the country strong and whole and together and keep us from turning. on each other. I think it's a noble ambition that Brock is laying out. But right now, let's take wealth inequality as like something I think we can all agree is driving nastiness and polarization, anger, and frustration. AI is going to supercharge it all. Right.

I mean, anyone sane can see that. And so what you'd have in the best of worlds would be government acting as a counterweight, bringing the folks to the table and saying, look, God. pitchforks are going to come. Let's try and figure this out. We don't all want to be using Chinese AI. By the other, I have an AI joke. I'm going to share.

It's fun. How far behind the U.S. is China and AI? How far? 12 hours, because they wake up and see whatever we did. All right. So, it's good. All right. So we need to have a grand bargain-type approach.

And even the folks I know at the AI companies, the argument is like, look, guys, this is just enlightened self-interest. Because even though you're sitting on stacks of money, bulletproof cars and private security and like the bunker and the rest of it, it sucks. Like, it's terrible. So how about you give some back and stay above ground? That's really the argument. And some of them are like, yeah, yeah, I'm down with that. Others have just said like, no, it's all going to shit. and like I'm just going to, you know, monetize.

Right. But you have to try and take advantage of the first group as quickly as you can. Hoof. Well, let's talk about politics. You were a Democrat for most of your adult life. You ran for president as one. You left the party in October of 2021. What in your view is so wrong or broken with the Democratic Party

that you didn't think it was worth changing it from the inside? It was the math. Genuinely, I looked at it. was like, hey, you know, you have maybe 30 of the 50 states where the Democratic brand is quite underwater negative. And by the way, it's got a lot worse since 21. And so if you want some kind of genuinely dynamic solutions-oriented environment, you need someone like Dan Osborne to become Senator Adam Nebraska. By the way, union guy, you know, like military veteran, pro-choice, like, you know, a very reasonable thing would be.

Like a fine U.S. Senator, you know, and got 47% in Nebraska as an independent, forced the Republicans to spend $10 million in a deep red state. So I'm sure they enjoyed it. I'm sure they enjoyed propping it up, Deb Fisher. So I looked at the math and the map, and I said the two-party system is going to get worse, not better. It's going to become more polarized and dysfunctional and not somehow right itself. And so the only way out would be to try to have a positive independent political movement that can compete in ways that, you know, a traditional partisan couldn't. And I experienced versions of this, John. So I'm walking around Iowa and say, hey, I'm running for president. And the waitress at the diner says, very, very intrigued. Like,

oh, really? Like, what party? And then she recoiled and was like, oh, it's like, I just spreaded horns. And I was like, wait a minute. Like, aren't I for you? I mean, at least that's a way I was brought up. So Dan Osborne's running again. You know, Seth Bonner running in Montana, who was advised by John Tester, the last Democratic senator from Montana, who's like, hey, I think his direct quote was, the Democratic brand is poison in Montana, so run as an independent.

And now Seth is raised seven figures and, like, poised to be potentially competitive. So it's – But then the Democrat is still in the race. Yeah. So – screwing the whole thing up. Right, right. And that is one of the points here is that, like, a lot of folks listening to this podcast think Democrat and then any third party is a spoiler.

But then if you look at a place like Montana, it really could be the reverse where you, Seth Bodnar one-on-one with the Republican, who, by the way, in this case is like not exactly a strong Republican, just like some weird last-minute replacement job. Yeah. Not beloved. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you can compete there. But if you throw a D next to the candidate's name, you probably can't compete because, you know, and you can feel how you want to feel about that. But it's just math. It's practical. And so the question is, how can you make more of these environments genuinely dynamic and competitive? And I saw that in 2021 when I was just doing the research and I'd urge anyone to take a look at some of the numbers, electoral map, gerrymandering, number of competitive districts. Senate races, et cetera. And it's very hard for me to imagine a world where the Democratic Party, as it

currently stands, gets a durable governing majority, solves all the problem, turns all the red state's blue. It's actually trending the other direction because a lot of the biggest blue states are losing population. And so congressional seats are then like drifting the other direction. More and more rural areas are, I mean, I can stop there. People kind of get it. You are right about the brand and the math. The challenge I see is, like, I love that, you know, Dan Osborne can run in Nebraska instead of the Democrat, and then a bunch of people will think, oh, because there's not the D attached to his name that maybe I'll give him a shot, even though most of his, all of his positions,

he could fit comfortably within the Democratic Party. Yeah, a whole lot of them, most of them, right? Yeah. And even all of them, he would still be, he wouldn't be kicked out, right? Well, by the way, his big break from the party in terms of like the voters of Nebraska is he was like, look, I'm a pipe fitter. I'm a mechanic. I have tattoos on my arms. I don't even own a business suit. And like I think that politicians should wear NASCAR jackets with the names of all their corporate sponsors on them.

Right. Because that's what's going on in Washington. And I was like, yeah. So like that's, you know, that happens to be genuine in Dan's case. But I agree with you on his policy position. But the challenge is at some point, Republicans are going to get smart to this and figure out that if someone's not running with the D next to their name, but they have a lot of the D positions, that they're just a Democrat trying to fool you by shedding the party's brand. And like it's, do you see the forward party as a party that people join and support because they see their political beliefs reflected in the party? Or, like, some third parties, is it just a home for people who hate the other two parties, the two major parties?

We are political infrastructure for positive principled independence. But what does that mean? What positions? What beliefs? Because everyone has like, and you know this, right? Like, it's a Seth Bodner and a Dan Osborne has a different platform than a Bloomberg. Right? Yeah.

Right? There's like the socially liberal, fiscally conservative. independent, there's the culturally conservative, economically populist independent. Do they both have a home in the forward party? Is it just everyone who's not completely ideologically left and ideologically right? Well, we have principles around being data-driven, solutions-oriented, rule of law. Like, listen to vote totals. Like, you know, here are the constitutions and the basics. But it's also collaborate with people from either party or any party. like don't demonize, like don't villainize.

And I think those three figures you named, you know, obviously Dan Osborne and Sad Baner, sure. But we'd be perfectly happy with a Mike Bloomberg as well, even though he might differ very significantly from Dan Osborne and various economic issues. The point we would make is that right now our current system is not going to deliver what the majority of Americans want. And so how do we get ourselves to a place where it will? And in my view, that starts with having, you know, like dynamic U.S. Senate that in this case might have two or three principled independence from South Dakota, Montana, and Nebraska, instead of it being run by, in this case, the Republican Party. And I think that's more achievable than most Americans realize that if you had one or two of these independent Senate, candidates break through, it would be a very, very big deal for our national politics. By the way, to your point, I just want to say, you know what the Republicans spent that 10 million on in

Nebraska saying Dan Osborne is a Democrat. So to your point, that's like the attack line. It's like he says he's an independent. He's lying to you. He's just a Democrat. And then, you know, anyway. But it also, it works in Nebraska because the Democrats are bowed out or is bowing out this, right? Like, we're not going to have this. We're not going to have a situation we had in Montana, right? The situation in Montana is because Republicans, the Republicans, the Democrats, the Democrats, Republicans are all, you know, enthralled to Trump, and it's a Trump party, and everyone's, and they're all cohesive. And so they're, at least for now, they're one party. And in Montana, the Republicans are going to win because the Democrat won't drop out, and Seth's in the race.

And so then they split the vote, the Republican wins. And it's like, whose fault is that? Is it the independent candidate, the Democratic candidate, both, everyone for not being able to figure. it out. Like, I'm just wondering if both the Democratic Party and the Forward Party are put it at a disadvantage because the Republican Party has unity and can take that partisan Republican voters, but other voters who might be sick of the Democratic Party brand interested in being more independent will split the vote and then it will end up to the benefit to Republicans. So Dan Osborne being one-on-one with Deb Fisher is not a one-time thing. In 2022, just two years

before, Evan McMullen got a one-on-one with Mike Lee. Right. Because the, Democratic candidate in Utah was like, hey, look, I'm going to give it to him. I've got her shot. Right. And that Democrat, like, you know, I think New Evan, like it was kind of coalitional. It was like a good energy and a good vibe. In South Dakota, Brian Bangs, who ran for U.S. Senate as a Democrat in the last cycle and that was running as an independent, said, hey, I will agree with the Democratic candidate that whichever one of us is polling weaker gets out and supports. it's the other. And, you know, like, right. So, um, the other thing I'm going to just say from the starting gate is like, no one thinks Montana is going to be competitive in the absence of like an independent candidate. Same with South Dakota. I mean, these are just red blotches on the map to the vast majority of folks. But if you get to those states, you realize that it's not like

everyone loves the Republicans there. And it's not like everyone loves their electeds in D.C. I mean, a lot of them hate them. So it's like if you decide you just want to play the current game, then you're just giving the Republicans uncontested wins in various places. And so at least if Seth runs and they can make, like you can work it out with the dem, at least you have a chance. Like we're introducing possibilities where there would be none otherwise. Offline is brought you by three-day blinds.

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And more savings to your bottom line with lower transaction fees. Give your business a real edge with Rogers Red Partner program. More than a point of sale, a sign of smarter business. Learn more at Rogers.com slash Red Partner. Com slash offline. So this is all sub-presidential level. What do you think about sort of 28 and the field that the Democrats, might have in 28? What's your, what's your, your scouting report on the bench? Oh, so fun. Are you a

sports guy, John? Are we hitting a lot like that? I have too much politics in my head, so I don't, I don't have enough space for all the sports stuff that I used to. I, I do like sports, but I get asked a lot about the candidates, and I know most of them, I'd say, in the Democratic field. I think it's going to be a governor who's not part of the Biden administration, is my feeling. And so that gives you Gavin Newsom, Josh Shapiro, Westmore, J.B. Pritzker, Gretchen Whitmer, if she decides to run. I think there might, was there news on her not? I don't know. I mean, I thought what she might be very strong. She kind of rolls it out and then sort of walked it back, but it seems like she's not going to.

Yeah. So I think Americans are eager to move on from the Biden years. Oh, I shouldn't laugh. By the way, like I want everyone to rewind the tape. a little bit. And I think you were in on this, which I appreciate about you, because you have something called a brain. So for now, it's, all right. So if people keep up with me, you know, I've, I've not been a Trump fan from the get. Like, I decided to run for president because Trump won in 2016. I was like, oh, my God, like, things are going to get, um, more fucked up. Like, it's time for me to get off my, um, you know, my couch and do something about this. Fast forward to 24, Joe Biden's running, and I was like, this is a catastrophe.

And so I get behind my guy, Dean Phillips, go up to New Hampshire, being like, hey, it's primary time. Let's go Dean. The new Dean scream. And watching the knives come out for Dean really, really saddens me to this day, where this dude tried to save the part. from itself, really. It's like, come on. Watching all the Democrats, A, fall over themselves to get out of Joe's way and be, Shiv, Dean, in the way they did, it was just such a calamity and missed opportunity for the country. I mean, a lot of these governors I just listed would have been great candidates in 2024. If they, like, you had a primary. And I think that's where the Democratic

Party failed all of us. I'm angry about it every day to this day, you know? And Dean lost his seat in Minnesota, and this is a guy who'd, like, you know, three-term member of Congress from a competitive district. Lost his, you know, like, like, I mean, I'm going to say, like, lost his reputation. I mean, I'm not sure that's true because his reputation kind of got vindicated, but there was like a parade of hit pieces and his colleagues being like, oh, like this guy terrible. It's like, what are you talking about? Like, this guy did what we wish everyone did, which is, like, put his career on the line for

the country. Well, I will say, so I was very much on the, like, I don't know about this is not a great idea for Biden to run. And I was way more vocal after the debate. We had Dean on and gave Dean a hard time. But not because it wasn't like other people in the party was like, how dare you run against him? Because my framed to Dean was like, yeah, this is pretty scary that we're doing this. And it's like nice that someone's actually challenging him. But like, what are you off?

Like, what's the choice? And I feel like it's indicative of a larger issue we have, which is we're all very good at talking about what's bad or what we don't like. But you can't beat something with nothing. So me, Doc. What are we talking about it? You know, I do, I think that in the Democrat, when I say this for the whole party, right? Yeah, I know. And I worry as much as like I think that and I know you have thoughts on Kamala Harris as well.

But like, you know, she only had 104 days and all that. But it was very, okay, what do I have to? Like, I want to win. I want to help the party. There's so much pressure on me, which like I totally get. But it was like, okay, what do I need to say? And I, although the governors you talked about too, I sort of blame all of them too because they could have run.

They could have run before the debate. They could have not endorsed her and forced a primary afterwards. There was no time. So they didn't. I understand why. But like, it's really a collective problem here where at the end of the day, you need to, if you're going to run for president and we need someone who runs for president who's like going to be for something and you understand immediately why they're running for president. I'm with you. And I do remember you being one of the more lucid voices on like the yo guys.

Is this really the best approach? You know, so. What about you? You're going to run? I am. I know you're, you see, so you sound like you're leaning towards it when I, when I've heard you. Oh, it's good, I guess. I mean, shoot.

Leaning forward, Andrew Yang. I'm, I did not run in 2024 because I did not think I would be constructive or helpful or generative. What I did do in 24 is go to New Hampshire and South Carolina and try and help Dean Phillips force a Democratic primary. I thought that was my highest use. And it made me sad when, and you did it something above average just by having. Dean on. I mean, you know, so that gave. Yeah, we were in like a skill like, oh, you must not come on because you've done something horrible. Yeah, no. I mean, he was like, you know, freaking, again, third-term member, Congress, vice chair of the Democratic caucus. He's real dude. Yeah.

So, so I thought that was my highest use. And the question now for me is like, what is my highest use? You know, I try and ask myself that's like a, you know, like I have two missions. Like, you know, how can I do the most good? And two, how do I stay married? Those like the two main things that motivate me at any given day. Goes through my head. Yeah. Make sure my kids still like me? Yes.

So really the major question for me is, how do I see things playing out and like, how can I be helpful? If you did run, would you run as a Democrat? I know, I have a lot of respect for a lot of the candidates who are currently in the field, but, you know, like, I can't say to you what I said earlier and then spend like, you know, the last number of years trying to build a political alternative and saying, you know, I think the answer is, actually, it's the Democratic Party again. Well, I guess you're, I mean, the thing that would worry me is, I think, I mean,

you know the history of third party candidates on a presidential level. Like, the system just makes it impossible for them to win. Ross Perot got, what, 18% of the vote, 90% of the vote, still got zero electoral votes. The only one who's ever gotten electoral votes is George Wallace because it was, he was a factional candidate in one geographic area. So. Though if you do rewind the tape, I think Abraham Lincoln technically was a third party candidate. Like that

You know that That is also part of our history But What you're asking right now, John, is the sort of thing That someone like me weighs It's like you know

Because I like I consider myself a do-gooder Like I want to do positive things And so you have to figure out Hey, is this going to have a positive impact? Right One of the reasons I ran for president in 2020 Is that I thought I'd have a positive impact Win or lose.

It's like, look, I'm going to let people know about the fourth industrial illusion and AI, mainstream universal basic income as something we need, hopefully accelerate the end of poverty in our time. Because poverty, we can alleviate it if we just decide to do so. I mean, it's fucking madness that we haven't. We are the richest, most advanced society in the history of the world, and AI is going to give us an unprecedented in human history chance to flip from scarcity to abundance. That's like the only big opportunity in this time. Like, is it going to make us crazy? Is it going to decimate our jobs? Like, yes. But it could also flip us to abundance.

And so that is the project of this time. And I thought I could help us in 2020 move in that direction, win or lose. And when I was on programs like this, if someone was like, come on, Yang, like, do you really think you're going to win? Then I have to be like, of course. Because, you know, if you say no, then you're a joke and like people, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. So what I said to, and I don't know if this is you specifically, but what I'd say to people is like there are multiple versions of victory. If I thought that there were multiple versions of victory, I'd be much.

more enthused about running because the reality is I'm unlikely to actually be president. And I'm also not someone who's terribly motivated by that, though, in part because, you know, I'm like Asian, like son of immigrants. It's not like, I'm going to be president someday. That's not a thing that was happening in the Yang household. It's more, you know, it's like, I love this country. Can I help it? Are there any Democrats and the potential candidates now that you think come close to getting the AI story and the crisis and solutions?

Like, is anyone talking about it in ways that you find compelling? I think a lot of them get it. The question is, what are we going to do about it in what time frame? And that's something, you know, I'm more dubious of, truly, because one of the great diseases of this time, John is that the political incentives and what happens to most people are now like more unrelated than they've been in our lifetime. You know what I mean? Yeah.

And so my concern is that someone's going to win and then have various pressures coming in and then do some of the things maybe. And it is all assuming, by the way, that we were fair elections and the institutions hold up and like a lot, a lot of, you know, like things you have to hope hold. but I'm someone who thinks that we should be distributing money to human beings right now. Like I was sincere in 2020. It's like, look, at a minimum, we should be adopting a negative income tax and a revved-up child tax credit so that more money is flowing to the needy among us and the number show it pays for itself.

And I'm not sure that's going to happen with even some of my favorite people in this field. winning. Yeah. I do like some of them, though. Yeah. I want to end on one question that's just because it's the most offline topic of all. You now run a phone company, Noble, Mobile, whose entire pitch is that it pays you to use your phone less. It is very offline. Explain the model and the idea behind it, and you even have offline parties, which you referenced earlier. Yes, offline parties where we put your phone in a bag and then you have to make eye contact with people. We actually had someone get someone's phone number on a napkin. They walked out with like a napkin. It's like the 90s, man. You and I remember.

I know. College parties. That's why this generation's going to solve it because we've seen, but we've experienced it now. Like, you're a Gen Xer like me then? I'm a millennial. Oh, you're another millennial. I'm 1981, so. Like my wife was born in 81.

Okay. Yeah. So yeah. So yeah. Yeah. All right. So check it out. Check it out.

I'm the magical Asian man who's trying to give everyone money. And then, and Americans are more frustrated than ever about our finances. So I saw what Mark Cuban did with college. Plus Plus drugs. Have you had Mark on? Actually, yes, we did. I'm sure you have. I'm sure you have. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Good, good, good. So Mark starts cost plus drugs, which gets Americans a better deal on generic drugs. And I was like, Mark, that's freaking genius. And so I thought, can we get Americans a better deal on something else that we all pay for? So I listed the expense structure of the average American family and household. And it goes, you know, you know this. Housing, healthcare, education, food, fuel, transportation. media and then wireless. We spend $83 a month on our wireless service. I was spending $140, $150 a month

on Verizon just for myself. I'm a chump. I'm going to put you on the spot. I don't know if this has ever come up in the history of offline. Which provider do you use and how much do you spend? Do you know? Verizon and it's definitely up to like one between, I want to say between 150 and 180. Me too. You and I, same. Same. It's a lot. All right. All right. Because I have the automatic pay, and I get the, like, the thing from, the text message from Verizon. It's like, you've paid the bill this month. And I'm always like, mm-hmm.

Yes, every month. I got it. It was like 154-74. It was the number they kept texting me. All right. The average American spending 83 a month on their wireless. The average European is spending $35 a month on their wireless. Oh.

Same stuff. That $48 a month, Delta, comes to an extra $100 billion a year that Americans are spending on data that's really a commodity at this point. And one of the secrets in this industry is that you and I chose Verizon because it was the best network and we are a very special and important people. So we deserve the best. It was more expensive. Over the intervening 20 some odd years or so, all of the three major carriers have now built very robust networks so that there's almost no difference between them. So you and I are spending 150 a month on Verizon for like a brand that. that might have been true at some point, now less true.

So I went to the carriers and was like, guys, who's going to give me Andrew Yang and Scott Galloway and some other people, like the best value possible to distribute to the American people, like the Robin Hoods of Mobile? Yeah. And T-Mobile said we will. So T-Mobile is our backbone. We don't sit on their tower, but we use their towers. And the average noble mobile user is spending $42 a month as opposed to, $83 a month on unlimited wireless. I'm on it right now. I switch from Verizon. And here's the

kicker that any data you don't use, we give you half the money back at the end of the month. So that's the- So you're using your phone less. That's the gimmick of if you use your phone less, we will pay you. And the average noble mobile user is using 17% less screen time than they did previously, which I'm going to say is probably realistic for a lot of people because I like you, I'm a heavy phone user. But 15% less. It's like, yeah, I can do that. And by the way, the entire thing psychological because when you're doom scrolling and looking at stuff that's probably making you sad now you're like wait a minute I'm actually costing myself money doing this and you're like oh let me making me miserable and poor so those are the two things we try and solve for with noble is

save more money and we pay five and a half percent interest at any of the same things that psychologically if you have a growing balance like it'll make you happier yeah and then And also, doomscroll less, look up more, touch grass more, and that will make you happier. So Noble mobile, you know, millions in revenue, like thousands of very, very happy customers. And anyone listening to this, if you go to Noblemobile.com slash yang, you get three months for free, which will save you $250 on average. So I'm still the magical Asian man from the future trying to give everyone money. And I don't even need to be president to do it. Look at that.

Yes. So, you know, and this brand tie-in with offline is, I got to say, perfect. I know. I can't believe I didn't know about this before. But we love any kind of gimmick, any kind of strategy to get people off their phones or at least use their phones less. So I'm glad we could end the conversation with that. Thanks for coming by. Thanks for having me, John.

I really appreciate it. Of course.