PBD Podcast - Former Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang | PBD Podcast | EP 144 |

Episode Date: April 8, 2022

In this Episode, Patrick Bet-David is joined by former Presidental candidate Andrew Yang to discuss starting a third party, Joe Biden as president, universal basic income, and much more... TOPICS Andrew Yang explains what both political parties are doing right  Patrick Bet-David reveals the greatest third party candidate in history Why Yang started a third party Andrew Yang reveals whether or not he truly wants to be president Andrew Yang explains who the base of the forward party really is Did Andrew Yang vote for Joe Biden? Andrew Yang attempts to defend Universal Basic Income Andrew Yang gives his honest thoughts on Tulsi Gabbard Patrick Bet-David reveals whether or not Andrew Yang can realistically run the country Andrew Yang is an American businessman, attorney, lobbyist, and political candidate. Yang is best known for being a candidate in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries and the 2021 New York City Democratic mayoral primary. The son of Taiwanese immigrants, Yang was born and raised in New York State. He attended Brown University and Columbia Law School. Follow Andrew on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3DOdJTh Follow Andrew on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3LKydiu Follow GoldenDAO on Twitter: https://bit.ly/3JlVyoO Text: PODCAST to 310.340.1132 to get added to the distribution list To reach the Valuetainment team you can email: [e-mail] Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller Your Next Five Moves (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pbdpodcast/support

Andrew, it's great to have you on the podcast today. It is great to be here. I have a confession. The reason I'm here is because I noticed when you offered, I think it was $5 million to get Obama and Trump together on stage. And I was like, that's my kind of guy. For the disclosure, we paid Andrew 4.8 million to be here today.

But no, it's great to have you here, man. It's you definitely shook up the world with, I believe we need to pay everybody $1,000 among you behind everybody, lost their minds. But I think that kind of created a lot of momentum and then you started explaining yourself on different kind of podcasts you went on. And then people had a decision to make for themselves.

But for the audience that's listening that maybe doesn't know your full background the past, maybe take one minute and before running for office, what did you do before running for presidency? It's another reason why I'm here today is that before I appeared on your TV screen, what are you for president, I ran an education company as a private business, grew to become number one of the country and was bought by a public company in 2009. So I'm an entrepreneur and operator and I started a nonprofit in 2011 to train what I believed to be the next generation of entrepreneurs through an organization called Venture for America

took me to the Midwest in the South. And I saw firsthand that our economy in our country is transforming in various ways. That good for some people, not good at all for other people. And that's why I ran for president was to say, look, a technology in AI are becoming more and more powerful. It's going to transform a way of life.

There are some Americans that are going to be left behind. So we need to think bigger about how we're going to build the economy in the future. And so that happens and then from there you run for office and then you work for CNN and then I think early October 2021 of last year you guys had a break up and then you left the Democratic Party to start a new political party.

Tell us how you came to that conclusion. Oh, I'd love to. So running for president, I treated it like a startup. And when people said to me, it's like, oh, how do you do this? I'd be like, look, when you start something new, you know this, Patrick, I imagine a lot of people listening to this, you're looking at devoting five to 10 years

to make a work or to see if it's going to work. So in the context of politics, I was like, it's three years. And I was like, I can do anything for three years. Three years of breeze. I'm like, it's three years. And I was like, I can do anything for three years, you know, three years of breeze. I'm like, like, we're, we're good startups for a lot longer than that. So I learned a ton on the trail, and then after I came off the trail, I still had this sense of foreboding was like, it still feels like our country's stuck. And so I dug in and to try to figure out why we feel so stuck. And this goes back to why I think you were trying to get Obama and Trump together, is that it turns out our two party system is a big reason why we feel stuck.

You have a country that's more polarized than ever, if someone's fourth and someone else has to be against it. 42% of Americans now see the other side as evil. Don't want their kids to marry someone of the other party. I mean, party is taking the place of what used to be religion in America, like what you're talking about. Or race as well. Or race.

And so with this as the backdrop, and by the way, it's one reason I appreciate what you all do, is that the media is part of this, social media is part of this. It's just trying to tribalize us and separate us into camps. And so I concluded, look, no matter what you're for, the two party system is this going to make

things worse over times going to turn us against each other you need to go back to first principles and if you look at the founding fathers of the US they weren't freaking partisans or democrats or republicans they thought political parties were toxic and terrible. So the question is how do we get from this dysfunctional duopoly to a more functional system and I thought well you need to start a functional third party. And then I don't have it in me to be like, oh, you should do this and then not do it myself, particularly if I'm one of the most logical candidates to actually do it.

So that's, so this is during 2020 when we were all inside for COVID, I was doing this research and coming this conclusion that the US needs to get beyond the two party duopoly and move to a multi-party system. Did you ever have a meeting with Michael Porter and Catherine Gail? That's also what they talk about. Yes. Catherine, on like two years ago, you're going to have to go both of them on. Oh, they were a profound influence on my thinking. Anyone who you should go back and listen to that conversation, you can also read their book,

the Politics Industry. Industry of Politics, I think some like, yeah, I think it's a politics industry, where they break down the politics industry as if it was a business, where you look at and be like, okay, like why does it seem so dysfunctional, why it's so broken? And what they concluded was,

it's not that politics is broken, it's that politics does not exist to actually solve problems. It exists to provide jobs for politicians, it exists to provide jobs for politicians, it exists to provide jobs for consultants. It exists for these media organizations to gin up audiences. And so when you make that leap where you're like, okay, the purpose of politics is not actually to do good things, then you conclude the same thing

that Catherine and Michael concluded. And those of you who don't know, Michael's a Harvard Law professor who was one of the Godfathers in management consulting. And they concluded that look, the incentives are broken. They need to be fixed. And what they recommend is nonpartisan open primaries

to open it up. Very interesting. And then combine that with the rank choice voting process you can choose whoever you want. So those two things are the foundation of the forward party, which I started, which is to say, look, we just need to have a more functional, rational system that doesn't amplify the extremes of the expense of the 50% of us who are in the middle somewhere. You know, when you first started your campaign for New York and to be the mayor, I watch

a video. By the way, whoever cut the video, what a great video. What a great, you're walking around the street, you're talking to people, hot dog, basketball. I think you were playing, I don't know what musical instrument you were playing. I learned a lot about you. And I said, this guy would be a very, and I wanted you to win. Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. You went from first to first to fourth in winning mayor mayoral you know as far as winning the city of New York. Do you think that was because New York the politics in New York is not ready for somebody like you and maybe the power players didn't get behind you. It was just maybe timing or another reason why you couldn't because they won. I think everybody said you were gonna win the whole thing. Yeah. First

shout out to Darren Aaronowski was who's the director of that video. He also made... Sick video. Yeah, he made Black Swan and some other movies, The Wrestler, with Mickey Rourk, you guys are in the middle of this professional movie. No, no, I'm telling you guys, I've seen a lot of great campaign videos. This is probably my favorite I've ever seen. It was that good.

Yeah, I'm Darren Aaronowski's a freaking, you know, one of the best in the world. So I was out campaigning during that time and I think that what turned against me at a certain point was that people just became concerned about crime, crime, crime all the time. And that played to the advantage of Eric Adams, who had been a police officer. This despite the fact that I was endorsed by both the police captains and the firefighters because they saw me as someone who was going to be good on these issues. But I think the average voter looked up and said former police officer, like entrepreneur, the police officer is going to know more about how to get crime under control.

Because of the timing, it's kind of like when Rudy ran the one time, if he ran his campaign in a different time, he would have become president, but at the time he ran, even Rudy Giuliani in New York, I'm talking about when he ran for president, not for mayor. He even said, you know, he made a comment about LGBT, LGBTQ community, and I was like, oh my God, I can't believe you can say something like that, that's a Republican that heard him.

But same thing he ran on, if he would have ran 10 years later, he would have become the president, he would have had a chance to win the whole thing, Giuliani. Giuliani sometime is timing and campaign and what your messaging or you campaign is but knowing where you are today and Having the left the Democratic party and started the forward party What are some things now you Agree that the left is doing right the Democrats are doing right what it was something where it's a tipping point to say I'm just not can't get behind that and was there anything the Republicans are doing for you to say

I'm not fully there to say I'm a Republican myself But these are some of the things I do agree with the Republicans on what they're doing all right So this is one of the problems of the two-party system is you have these kind of increasingly ideological conversations and folks on one side will be like hey hey, government should be doing all these things. And then the other side will be like, no, government shouldn't be doing those things. And I think what most of your listeners want is for government to actually be good at the things that's doing. If you look at the press, what is the press always about in terms of these political conversations?

How much money is going to this? How much money is going to that? We're going to cut this, we're going to take that. And then you're like, where the heck is this money going? Is it being spent effectively? Why do I have the sinking feeling that you could apply more money into the system and wouldn't necessarily help?

Drain the swamp. One of the clearest examples of it in New York City is there is a lot of money getting spent for the New York City public school system on educating these kids. And the results have not kept pace with the investment. And so if you look at this and you go to someone on the left, be like, hit what the problem is,

they'll be like, spend more money. And you're like, I'm not really sure that's gonna do it because you're already spending whatever it is, like 15,000 ahead per year, where if you do the math on a classroom of 30 kids, you're like, wait a minute, it's like a significant amount of money. And it's certainly not bearing fruit.

So this is what's missing from our political discourse. And I'm gonna suggest that this is one of most business people and entrepreneurs when naturally do is like, you show up, you'd be like, okay, like how are we spending it? What are we getting in return? Is it working? Is it efficient?

Is it accountable? The fact is politicians is kind of come and go, money gets spent, they show up, they cut a rib and they announce a program. Does anyone actually come back to see, hey, did that program actually work? Did that bear fruit?

No, by the time you get the results of that, the politicians moved on, everyone's moved on, the press doesn't actually drill about the efficacy of these things. So that's where I am, it genuinely is this middle road that I think most Americans just have common sense about. It's like, look, should the government be doing some things? Yes, in my opinion, I mean, I'm not like a, you know, like someone who thinks

government should be doing nothing, but it should be doing what it's doing at a much higher level, more effectively, more accountability, more efficiently. Do you think I look up the top if you you want to pull out the greatest third party candidates of all time, okay? For most, do you know who's the greatest third party candidate of all time? Probably Ross Pro. Ross Pro, you know, Tom, who would you put as the greatest Republican candidate? I'm sorry, the third party candidate of all time.

In terms of the effect of this and polling and acceptance, I think in my lifetime it's been Ross Pro. You know who it is, if you think about it, it's Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln. I said the exact same thing though.

I just discovered it relatively recently. Because he's the first Republican. There was no Republican. Abraham Lincoln is the greatest third party. That's the exact Democrats and Wigs, right? Yeah, the Republican Party was the brand new startup party when Lincoln wins in 1860 with 39.8% of the vote. You know, they were for candidates, right?

And now you don't think about it because you're like, oh, Republicans is one of the two major parties, but they were brand new in 1860. And here's another wrinkle when he runs for a re-election in 1864, his vice presidential candidate is from the other party. He ran a unity ticket where he's the Republican. And he doesn't. Why has nobody done that since then?

I feel like there's a yearning for something like that. I feel like a Republican and a Democrat work together and show that they can get along. The country would be like, dude, that's amazing. I love it. Well, who did that Tom? Who is it that Lieberman? Who is it that did John McCain tiptoe

to around having Joe Lieberman, the Democrat, join him. And then he ended up choosing Sarah Palin. Yeah. And I talked to someone about that decision who actually got a call from John McCain to the time being like, hey, what do you think if I choose Joe Lieberman? And the political calculation was not there for him.

So he thought that Sarah Palin was gonna help more politically, but it was a real missed opportunity. When you were running for office, and you were kinda going through it, and you got everybody on the Kamala Harris, you got Elizabeth Warren, you got Bernie, you got all these guys, after everybody's off stage, did they kinda like brush you off like listen,

you're not part of this industry. So who are you here? You're not gonna make it any worse, or did any of the candidates try to befriend you, have side conversations with you, have calls with you, have meetings with you, have meetings with you, have dinner with you because potentially, you could be a star, how were you treated?

It evolved over time. We had some jokes on the trail where it's all fun in games until Andrew Yang passes you in the polls. So the candidates who are really, really like tier one were just about always good to me because they're like, hey, you know I don't feel threatened by Yang. This is in 16 Hillary. This is 20. It's like 2019 There were some candidates who were kind of dicks to me honestly, but they tended to be the second tier candidates who are kind of Insider about their you know like their own campaign trajectory. Are these any dicks you can review?

Or I don't want to be a jerk myself, you know? Um, so I remember one who would be second to a child, like I remember something very specifically. Sorry, in my years with 2020. I remember you were pulling it three percent more than Beto, but he somehow made it onto something on CNN. Do you remember this? You know what I'm talking about?

Yeah, there's a period when the press was definitely like, hey, let's try and like fudge, you know, this young campaign's numbers, where they'd have like a graphic up and that I'd raised more than people that were on the graphic. And it's like, hey, guys, that doesn't seem right. So Beto and I were always cool. Maybe because you and I are both Gen X,

since they're probably some other Xers here. So I was going along with Beto, I was going along with Cory Booker. Most of the candidates down the stretch, Patrick became genuinely friendly because I was on seven to eight stages. So you are like seven, you can't be a jerk to someone over and over again,

you know what I mean? But someone must have pissed you off for you to start your own third party, Andrew. Like someone must have said something, or done something, you know what I mean? Someone must have pissed you off for you to start your own third party, Andrew. Like someone must have said something, your dumb son, you said, you know what? I just can't do this anymore. Yeah, the problem isn't anything in terms of personal interaction.

The problem is that everyone is stuck. And then even if you're a successful politician within, let's say, the Democratic party, you're stuck, you know, like your behaviors constrained, your policy positions are constrained. your stock, you know, your behaviors constrained, your policy positions are constrained, and you have a ton of masters to serve, and a media complex that's going to be

pushing you in a particular direction. I'm a problem solver, like I don't know if you all sense this, like I don't really care about like, you know, my own political advancement, but anyone who's in that system, all of a sudden does care. And you know the big thing that people underestimate is that they get surrounded by dozens

of professional political operatives who also have their careers on the line. You know, it's like, hey, we need you to do this in that because, you know, we need to get better jobs ourselves or, you know, we need to be able to go on to the next gig. And that's one thing I appreciate about the folks who worked on my campaign is most of them were not careerists in that way.

Until we raised, we rented a brazing $40 million. So after we passed, like, you know, 20, 25 million, the freaking consultants came out of the woodwork all of a sudden. And they were like, hey, I like, I'm here. We can make some money here now. Yeah, yeah. We're here to help. And this is the thing that also, you know, as a business guy.

At first, I was like, frankly, like, you know, we don't need these consultants. Like, where that also, you know, as a business guy, at first I was like, frankly, like, you know, we don't need these consultants, like where were they, you know, like six months ago. But then when you're in position, where you have to spend $8 million on TV ads in Iowa, you do hire the consultants because you're like, well, hey, I'm not gonna like start from scratch. Yeah, yeah, that point.

Then you're like, well, how do I do this professionally? But that's the smart move to do. I think you do need to bring some people. I was like a company. When the company is doing a million, two million, three million, maybe can manage them. When it starts to 20, 30, 40 million, you kind of need to start bringing some of the C-suite executives

who know how to put systems, infrastructure, you know, protocols, all that stuff. So that kind of makes sense. Yeah. But the point is that the system is going to keep producing certain kinds of candidates and certain kinds of results. And like to me, it's not going to solve the problem. Andrew, go back to it. So a forward party. How much momentum have you had ever since

you announced it? It's been tremendous because more and more people are waking up to the reality that the current two party system's not working and it's not going to deliver what you want. No matter what you want, it's not going to deliver. Unless what you want is people they go crazy and get more and more upset at each other. That's what you want. it's not going to deliver. Unless what you want is people to go crazy and get more and more upset at each other. That's what you want. It's going to deliver that. It's delivering that in a hell of a way. Yeah, it's going to deliver that.

So more and more people go to FordParty.com every day. They sign up, they volunteer, they donate. And we have some really exciting announcements coming up. So it's a good feeling because Patrick, you've been a part of these growth stories. You know when you have product market fit and you feel like, okay, like we're going to grow from here, that's been the feeling. Is the ultimate goal to eventually be a president?

Is that kind of what you're solving for where there is? Because you said something very, very important at the beginning. You said, I treat this like a startup and it's a 10 year plan, right? Okay, that changes perspectives, which means if you're going for 10 years, the world kind of just watched you play and that was kind of like You know, whatever you want to call it all start game people are like okay, this guy can actually play good for him He's got the talent to be on the state seven debates Nobody's gonna be on seven debates and you were blabbing on being seven debates

And they kind of didn't want you to be under so you weren't afraid to go up against them And you were talking shit, which was great and then you were also So you weren't afraid to go up against them and you were talking shit, which was great. And then you were also proposing, hey, this short to format the bay two minute answers is not necessary. We need something a little bit more long from so I can really explain what I'm doing and all this stuff, which people started to listen to. Maybe this guy's got a point. Maybe this guy's got a point. But are you now saying, okay, I went for this. People noticed, you know what? This guy can hang. Maybe next I go for, you know, mayor, Senator, Governor,

Congress, and then eventually in tenures, I'm going to go be a president. What is that vision or the next five moves with you? Yeah. My vision is to try and get this country through a really difficult time because if you fast forward, not even that long, I mean, we all saw what happened on January 6th last year. Unfortunately, I don't think that's a one-time event. I think, we all saw what happened on January 6th last year. Unfortunately, I don't think that's a one-time event. I think that you're going to see us slipping towards more consistent unrest and political strife and violence. And so when you ask what my plan is, my plan is to do everything I can to keep us functional and shore it up to your enthusiasm about a unity

ticket. I would be super enthusiasm about a unity ticket. I would be super pumped about a unity ticket. Now, I'm going to convey to you all, like are people actually talking about a unity ticket behind the scenes? Yes, they are. You know, like, am I going to do anything to help usher that into being, yes, I will.

So I'm about trying to solve problems. Even now, I will say, like, I don't really care that much if I die X years from now, never having been present in the United States. I mean, that was true, even when I was running for present in the United States. I didn't go home and be like, bemoan to my wife and kid.

That's not your dream. That's not your dream. I'm the child of immigrants who's trying to do right by my country, and it's just not doing very well. You know that kind of remind me of it, like when they ask Chris Paul or Wes Brook. So, let me ask you a question. If you retire playing NBA,

and you never make the Winter Championship, you okay with that? Yeah, because I go to a beautiful family. I make $18 million, you're ex-wise. Yeah, it's okay if I make it or not. And then their fans get so furious. How could you say that? Yeah.

I want somebody to want to win the championship, Andrew. You got to tell me, if I ever win, I would be, you know, that whole thing with Trump and Oprah where Oprah says, do you have any plans? I've ever running for office. You've seen this before a million times and not a million times, but, you know, it's all over the place. And he says, I don't know, but if I ever did, I would win because I'm a winner, right? The idea is people want to get behind somebody that's saying, hey, if you vote for me, I'll

be able to do XYZ. So for you, if we go 10 years from now, let's fast forward. Ideal place where you think you can contribute the most. Is it more in the free market? I'm going to go be a media personality. Do that like you did at CNN. Is it going to be more behind the scenes, leading a third party and helping somebody become president or no front runner? I'm going to be the talent and the voice and getting in there, getting dirty,

to help make some real changes in this country, and to do that, you kind of need to fight to get at the highest level of office if you're going to make some real change. Where would that be? What's the most likely of seeing Andrew in which of these situations? Now, I don't think our current structures are going to solve our problems in the time that we have. And so I'm laser focused on trying to make it so that they could. One of my great fears, so this appeared, you know, run for president,

you know, thousands of people coming out to see me and support me. And like, you feel like, wow, people are really investing their hopes to the future in me. And one of my concerns was to your point, Patrick, that you get in there and you can't actually deliver for them why, because the system is not set up to allow you to actually solve their problems, either because the politics aren't there at the party mechanics or our government itself. And so that's what we have to try and resolve quickly, because the problems aren't going away,

and in my opinion, the problems are actually speeding up somewhat. So of those things you name, I think it's going to be around this third-party movement democracy reform. Right now, as we're having this conversation, 62% of Americans want to move on from the doobly. And if you go back to the business metaphor,

if you showed up at a marketplace and there were two providers and 62% of people wanted a choice, you would start a third provider immediately, maybe a fourth one or fifth one too. Now in this marketplace, the two companies have said, no, no, no, like you can't have a third choice. We're gonna keep you from being on the ballot.

We're gonna ignore you in the media. We're gonna like have, you know, we're gonna sue you. Like whatever the heck it is. But the truth of it is that 62% of people want a choice. And I'm saying, like, well, let's get you that choice then, because if you get that choice, it's going to be good for the country. So is it a problem with the current duopoly,

the two party system or the current iteration of the two party system? Because we have other parties with the libertarian party, the green party, et cetera, et cetera. But you're watching a sort of reformation within the parties themselves, post-Trump. Is it the two party system or the current iteration of it? The current iteration of it, it's the worst version of it,

and unfortunately it's going to get worse. So if you were to rewind 50 years or so, the two parties were actually somewhat indistinguishable. It wasn't as dramatic, there wasn't this left-right thing. It was like, Democrat and Republican were different flavors of vanilla. It was the same as that. It would be like, French vanilla versus just plain vanilla. That changed over the last number of years

where you ended up with it getting combined with different factors, whether it's urban rural, whether it's racial, whether it's economic. And so this version of the two-party system is possibly the worst. But I say that, believing that it's going to get worse still. I don't know. So you have, you know, this version is our founding father is Nightmare Come to Life. Regarding the Ford party, I mean, quite candidly, everyone, you were very likable. People started to see what you were doing

and lo and behold, boom, boom, yang, yang, yang, yang, everyone loved it. It was fun to say you're a fun guy. People like to say that and it kind of built up who you are. Now with this forward party, who is part of the Yang gang? Who is the cornerstone of the forward party? Like in the electorate, who's out there that's like,

yo, Yang gang, forward party, this is us. Yeah, so the forward party early adopters have been people who are fed up with the two-party system, and those people tend to overlap very heavily with business owners, entrepreneurs, operators, tech people. I was just at the Bitcoin conference. So folks who are into Bitcoin libertarians are definitely in there too.

And so I joke that it's like a tribe of the people that are concerned about excessive tribalism. You know what I mean? And that tribe of people tends to be these like rational, pragmatic business types. This is you though. Everything he's describing, business owners, operators, free thinkers, you know, Libertarian almost,

what's your hesitancy to maybe being like, yo, yang, gang it up, forward party. Like what's the flaws and what's going on? We haven't even gotten into that yet. I mean, that's a whole different conversation tab. No, for me, here's where I would go with this. All I think of, everything with me is sequencing. You know, you've been around me long enough

to know what sequencing is. So if his goal is to make forward party a real household name, K, hey, I left the Democratic party to to make forward party a real household name K, hey, I left the Democratic Party to start the forward party. Here's who I am. And I left CNN October 2021 and I'm doing forward party. Okay, you have to have a man who was on Bill Mar five days ago. So you have to have the platform to get the eyeballs for the right people to keep seeing it, right? That's right. And he's got it.

He's being picked up. But I wonder if this is president, this is where he's at today, is there four steps before getting here and is the mistake if he goes automatically to here. So we make, you know, like somebody may say, no, he can't do that. Well, why can't he do that? Well, Trump did it. But Trump already had a massive audience, you know, apprentice, business, success. Well, he's an entrepreneur, not at Trump's level, well, he was on TV, not necessarily before he ran for office because he didn't have an apprentice.

So that's the part where what needs to happen in between, because if you don't, you know, India's got 45 political parties. How many of them do we know? 45, 50 political parties. So you and I can go start a political party tomorrow, but to really make a third party like him that he's talking about really Excel,

Joe Jorgenson is going to be here tomorrow. Why is she here tomorrow? Because Joe Jorgens, I'm like, hey, this libertarian conflict makes a lot of sense. How come it hasn't taken off? And that libertarian, 90% of crypto is all libertarian. That's who they are. They see themselves as libertarian. How come there's not been a candidate that's blown up on the libertarian side?

You got John McAfee? Okay, who else do we have? Jerry Johnson. Jerry Johnson. Joe JorgensAfee. Okay. Who else do we have? Johnson, Joe Jorgens and all this up. But how come no one's taken off there? I think there is some steps in between. Oh, to your point, Patrick, if you look at the Democratic and Republican Party, they have this giant media infrastructure behind them.

So if you wanted a third party movement, you probably need a parallel infrastructure. They have a donor network. You would need one of those. They have various influencers, parroting talking points, which you don't necessarily want people parroting, but... So there's this massive infrastructure

that needs to get built. And in my view, and I actually have this experience every single day because of what I'm doing, there are more and more Americans who are like, okay, I get it. Like, we need to build this parallel party infrastructure. You know, let me roll my sleeves and get to it. And some of those people are, you know, like folks who were Republicans or Democrats who are just like, this is not going to work as it is.

As you were out campaigning, you know, you run for president, and like any startup, here's our business plan. And you're not certain about it because this, this and this are the best knowledge and the best estimates and the best guesses you can make about going into it. What surprised you about opinions, perspectives, or realities about the voters, once you got all the way out into the primaries, and now you're really seeing people, you know, 500 people in a gymnasium in Iowa, you get a lot of first-hand feedback. What surprised you when you went out versus what the business plan was? What's funny is how accurate the business plan was

generally speaking. So what I would say to folks, when they were saying, hey, when you're for president, can you do that blah, blah, blah, blah, but like, look, one critical success factor in this whole thing is just can you get 40,000 Iowans on board? Because that would have you win the caucus.

And then they hear that and be like 40,000, that doesn't sound like that many. But it turns out only 6.4% of Iowans participate in the Democratic caucus. So you like slice that electorate pretty quick. So 40,000 I think, you know, Bernie ended up winning with 41,000. So the business plan was accurate in terms of the general goal and the parameters. What surprised me about those folks when I got out there in

real life was stuff that I actually could have figured out beforehand, so I should not have been surprised by it. But they were older, average age of a caucus goer, might have been 50 to 55, that they were very, very heavy cable news watchers for the most part. Like there was like a bit of an institutional vibe to the voters that I still felt myself to be somewhat surprised by. And because of that ordinarily,

like the kind of change that I was proposing, like would take longer than one cycle because of the nature of those primary voters. If you look at the young voters in Iowa, I won the Iowa youth poll. I'm the first candidate to have ever won that poll and not win the actual thing. First candidate ever to win the youth poll, but not win the actual... Yeah, so if they'd cut off voting at approximately 19, I probably wouldn't want that thing. So, but so dear, to your point about the surprise,

it was that there is something of a delay because you're talking primarily to 50 and 60-year-old voters. Andrew, let me ask you, did you, I don't know if this is public information or not, did you vote for Joe Biden? Is that who you voted for? Yeah, I voted. Okay, so how do you think he's doing? I think that it is not a great time in America right now.

And I hear from folks who are close to Joe, and there's a sense that, you know, his energies are not what they could be that his team sometimes doesn't trust him to freelance. And so when he goes into a meeting, like there are not traditional negotiations in the way that you would want them to be. So if you look at it from the outside, you're like, hey, I'm not sure'm not sure. If he has the energy in the way with all, and I think those concerns are very real. Okay, so there's a candidate that you remind me of. Okay, let me kind of throw this out there and you can trash my ideas as much as you want.

So you have no clue what the hell you're talking about, Patrick. Okay. You remind me of Herman McCain. Okay. Okay. Herman McCain, my bad. Herman, not Herman McCain. And he said, Harold earlier.

So Herman can, okay. The whole family. Here's why your mommy of Herman can. Okay. And if you're not familiar with Herman can, I don't think they look anything alike. No, no, I think not looks at all visual. Oh my gosh, no, no, no, no, looks at all. And by the way, he passed away during COVID, I think Tony's 20s. I. No, I don't look so. No, I'm not. No, no, no, no, no, no.

And by the way, he passed away during COVID, I think 2020. I told you, I told you get about her. No, no, no. So he came up with this campaign and he said, no, no, no, no. We heard it a billion times. There are nine, nine, nine. If God only wants me to tie 10%, why should the government

want more than God? That's why it's nine percent federal, nine state, and nine, you know, sales tax, whatever the nine, nine, nine was.'s why it's 9% federal, 9th state, and nine sales tax, whatever the 999 was. And you said that you're like, that kind of makes sense. Cool. Let's go with it. Okay.

I like her, me again. 999, this is fantastic. And then it's gonna, boom, he goes like this. And then it was, boom, like this. Republican, by the way. Republican, totally. He was a former CEO, businessman, a father's pizza. Godfather's pizza. God. Totally. He was a former CEO, businessman, you know, uh, uh, I got a father's

pizza. Got father's pizza. I was what he would have said. So then when you do the math, you're like, I don't know if this 999 thing is going to work out or not. So you came out and you said, you be I, okay, thousand dollars a month, you know, because I agree with you a lot of musk and here's the direction we're going and blah, blah, blah, blah, we need to do a thousand dollar UBI. Okay. So some people are like, I kind of like that idea. It's kind of like Milton Friedman when he said reverse UBI. Yeah. And then the way you got to contribute to do this and you look at the way he explained,

it's slightly different yours. Yours you don't necessarily have to earn a thousand. Here's you have to earn to give back to get some kind of a money from the government. Okay, fine. I see where the idea is coming from. And then the last two years, we actually got UBI and we realize it doesn't work. And here's why.

So 40% of America's money's been printed the last two years. Whatever the numbers you've seen it, I've seen it, we've seen it all over the place. Okay. So, where did the money flow? We send this $1,200, oh my God, it's gonna change people's lives. Well, we realize as low and middle-come families.

The reason why they're there sometimes, because they don't have the right financial habits. They don't know how to save. They spend their, you know, putting back into the market. They're buying products, and it goes back to the business owners. Oh my God, Amazon, he got richer. Oh my God, Elon Musk, he got so rich. How did he become $300 billion?

Oh my God, all these billionaires and all these. Well, yeah, because UBI money always flows back to the rich. So you can trash whatever I said and say, Patrick, you're on because of XYZ. We're now here. This is April of 2022. We bought into UBI a few years ago saying maybe this man's got a good idea. Let's pay attention to it just like we do with our Hermencane. Now that we're here and we know we tested UBI the last two years at the federal level, not just Nebraska, not just Nebraska, Alaska or some of the smaller markets that

we're testing. Where is your opinion on would you be? So I want to unpack what we've done over the last couple of years. The vast majority of the money that went out to folks was enhanced unemployment benefits. And those benefits were tied to not working. I have always thought that's a terrible way to go. You don't want ever to tie funds to someone not working. If anything, you'd want to somehow tie incentives to work into it, instead of having a very powerful business center. So that's number one. Number two, over 80% of the 1.7 trillion dollar cares act or the other stuff, was nowhere near these little checks that people got.

83% of that money went to banks, airlines, cruise companies. You name it. The financial system itself, they just plowed hundreds of billions of dollars into the financial system. They did not send that stuff out as checks to people. So if you start picking out the way that the money actually got into people's hands, one thing that I am very much forward was this enhanced child tax credit.

Like that stuff brought kids out of poverty. It actually apparently helped keep a million people working because when they took it away, then they couldn't afford child care so they don't afford child care, so they don't put a work anymore, so they stay home with a kid. Like, is that a win? So the things that are being put out there right now

are still in my view, like not designed in a way that you would expect to yield positive results. And then some of the results, you know, I would be the first to say that I'd look at it and be like, look, this should have been done differently designed better. And, and position so that more people

were able to pursue opportunities, not provide incentives for them not to do so. If you ran this midterm and you're running, let's just say you had your run in first time, let's just say you're running 2024, 2023, right? Would you still run on $1,000 a month UBI? Or would your campaign be different? Well, right now, my focus is trying to set up

the third party movement for success. If it were Andrew Yang, presidential candidate, like, do I still believe in UBI? Yes, I do. I believe in some version of it. I do think that we need to reformat the way the government administers a lot of this stuff. I think the current disability programs

and welfare programs are not well designed and are, they are attaching various negative incentives. And I found that out when I was out campaigning where a woman, like two women, like 20 women, like you know, 20 men would say to me, hey, I am scared of volunteer at my local church because I'm afraid someone's going to see me as able body and I'm gonna lose my benefits.

Hey, I want to work part time, but like if I work part time, they're gonna take this like child payment away from me. I heard those stories all the time. And in my mind, we should be putting people in position to succeed and not be afraid to volunteer work part time. What happened with because what you're talking about is federal stimulus, right? And then some of the unemployment was federal and also

State, but I think you actually did a UBI Test case in the Bronx. You get a million bucks. You give them to 500 low income. There's a thousand families, a thousand families. So what happened with that? Well, so that was the beginning of the pandemic, and that was just an emergency measure where it's like, look, you know, we have to just try and keep people from, you know, like starving or in that case, there was a period when people weren't sure

whether the government was going to do anything. So I was like, oh, I got a million bucks. Like, let's just send it out to some families in the Bronx. We did get some very, very positive results from that. We actually ended up tying it. I'll tell you guys a story, it's kind of funny. So it's actually harder to give away a million bucks than you think.

So Andrew, I'm willing to try it out. If you wanna give it over here, I mean, you'll be on me. All right, so check it out. First thing I do is I call senior people at Citibank and JPMorgan Chase being like, hey, can you identify like a thousand struggling families in the Bronx? And then they take a couple of days

and they get back and they said, no, we can't. And you're like, you do realize them, just try to give your customers money. And they're like, no, no, privacy, regulatory, et cetera. And I was talking to senior people. It wasn't like I was talking to the backteller. You're in a no, no, privacy regulatory, et cetera. And I was talking to senior people. It wasn't like I was talking to, you know, the bank teller. You're in a vault, Mary, how are you? I have a million bucks here.

So then my second thing is like, hey, can you just like send me a thousand bank debit cards for your bank for a thousand bucks? Each like, you think they might be able to do that. And I was like, I'll find a way to get those into people's hands and they couldn't do that either. What's that? But being an entrepreneur in parallel, the whole time I was talking to

various community orgs and I found one neighborhood trust that helps provide financial literacy and services to working poor and I said can you find me a thousand families and they said not only can we find you a thousand families but we have their bank account information and we can sit down with each and every one of them and give them a financial literacy coaching session. And then we said done. That was cool. We went that direction.

So that's the way we ended up distributing money. And you know, a lot of positive results. But by the way, just give, if you don't mind, real quick, what is the basic found? Like if I'm part of the forward party, what do I believe in? So the forward party has six tenants. The tenants, I think everyone's gonna be like,

oh, that's totally reasonable. So it's open primaries, rank choice voting, human-centered economy, which is like, hey, we should matter in addition to how the giant companies are doing fact-based governance. So it's you should agree on some facts. It's like that. You'd think that would be obvious, but it's not. The fifth is UBI,

and then the sixth is Grace and Tolerance, which is, look, you can disagree with me. We're all Americans, we're all human beings. We shouldn't be demonizing each other, canceling each other, treating someone like they are worth less than us if they have a different point of view. You're not a censorship guy. You don't believe in censorship. No, I mean, you know, it's like. Trump should be on Twitter, so Babylon be should be on Twitter, so those guys should be on Twitter. You know, so the Twitter thing, it's rough,

because Twitter's a private company. You know, it's like, if you're a private company, and then we put you in a position where it's like, hey, you're now like the public commons, you know, but here are these rules. So I'm a free speech guy. Like I think that people should not be afraid frankly, to hear points of view that are different from them

and this fact that we've kind of degenerated to a point where we liken these words to like a physical attacks and whatnot, like I don't think that's productive. But it's a tough one with these tech companies because we're treating them like they're public commons and they're, you know, they're just like a private firm that's traded on this document. That's, I don't disagree with you. One Prager and his wife Sue were going through a Prager University. They said companies are not held at the same, like, same standard as the government is for freedom of speech,

but say you were sitting on a board seat of Twitter. And you're one of 11 voices. And they're talking about, we wanna take Trump down because he's offending a lot of people. And people are getting upset. Would you vote for him taking down or staying on? Well, it wouldn't be based on him offending a lot of people. If it was something where he was inciting violence

and there was actually a direct threat of harm, then you would take him off. If it was like, hey, you're saying things that people don't like, then you'd leave him alone. Andredin, why is Chaman A still on Twitter? You know what I mean? Why is Chaman A still on Twitter? Why are some... From Iran, and I see some of this stuff, I'm like, I totally get it if you're like, you know, if you're my father and you're consistent with me and my sister and my brother, I'm cool. Totally get it, my dad's gonna say, but if you're not, then you're full of shit.

So now your consistency's not there. So you're okay with putting being on, but you guys are calling Putin's the worst thing in a common Amazon, but Trump is off and Trump is a US president. Do you not, like, let me put it to you this way. From another country, I wasn't born here. You were born here.

If I see it from another country, you're more worried about your own president, but you're worried, you're not worried about my ruler, Russia, or China, or Iran, you're gonna get your ass handed to you because of how soft you guys are. You're your own enemy. You seem so weak.

If I look at it from another country standpoint, I would just sit there and say, America's coming down, going down because they can't even get on the same page together. Oh, I mean, to your point, you know, there are a ton of foreign governments who are enjoying, you know, access to our social media companies and the rest of it.

And, you know, I would agree with you that I'm sure our standards are all over the place when it comes to different actors from different places. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's an unenviable position for some of the tech companies. When I talk to them, and I'm friendly with some of them, I'm friendly with Elon too, is now the biggest shareholder of Twitter. You know, some of them have said, look, like having us be the arbiter of what is fair game and what isn't, isn't a position even we want to be in.

We're running a business. We want to just make money and not be on the decision makers and all this stuff. Some of them were like, maybe we start a council. It's not our board where you have media, nonprofits, journalism, government, others, and then it's like a more collective decision. The tough part there is that a lot of these decisions are being made instantaneously,

they're being made by AI because you're talking about whatever billions of messages. Pat, you know what would be good for you to ask Andrew, if you want to. What's that? The question that you ask of messages. Pat, you know it would be good for you to ask Andrew, if you want to. What's that? The question that you asked of the five things, well, he would be a great person. Let's see what he's gonna say.

So who do you think has the most power in America today? Okay. Five organizations and individuals who's got the most power. The richest people in America, billionaire class. President of the United States, virtual governments, which is like Twitter, YouTube, Google, Facebook Google Facebook those guys our educational system or mainstream media I'll say one more time riches billionaires in America president Mainstream media virtual governments or our educational system from first to last who's got most power who's got least

Oh, this is fun And I'm least to first whatever whatever direction you want to go. I'd say number one is big tech. I mean, there are nation states unto themselves. They're number one. I agree with them. I think Facebook has two billion folks. I mean, that's very, very significant.

Number two, the one that popped into my mind was like the billionaire class, it was like the Jeff Bezos' of the world. It overlaps with big tech. So Elon Musk just bought and then 90% of the Twitter. Yeah, so Elon, like, but I would flip a lot between like the billionaire class and the president, because the president because the president

does have some very, very vast powers. Obviously they can make world history changing decisions where foreign policy is concerned in military intervention. But even domestically, there's a massive impact. So I could be talked into either one of those as two. You could think of them as, in a way, it depends upon the president. It depends on the president, it depends on the

billionaires. And then mainstream media for an educational system, five. Wow, you put educational system last. Yeah, yeah, I did. Why is that? You know, I mean, it's a tough thing to say, but, you know, like the educational system, I wish it were higher. I mean, I'm a parent. We all got two kids, you know, nine and six. But you look at it and it strikes me as really, remember the question is, influence. Influence.

Who's got the most influence? You think educational system has the least influence out of the five, more than, less than mainstream media. Yeah, I do. Really unpack that. Why? Oh, so kids go to school. My kids are a little young, so I could change my perspective

when they get older. My kids are nine and six. You know, they get certain messages and inputs. They get some messages and inputs from me and my wife. But I see the impact that mainstream media has every day on our politics, our public discourse. And you know, like when it turns on a particular person or organization, like it really does end up moving

in concern and in tandem. And it could be too that I just went through a couple of media ringers, you know myself when I was running for president and like the mainstream media, I had like a certain treatment. And so it could just be that I was closer to it. But with your, you put education last,

which Pat is a little shocked by, but I've seen you, I've listened to you. I think it might have been on Rogan talking about student debt and the education of the college system, and basically the burden that it is, and you did your math and how much the, you know, as a fiasco. I think you're up to like, you know, 1.9 trillion in school debt.

The cost of college has gone up 250% since I went. And my joke was it's not like you got 250% better than that, you know, probably got significantly worse. So you do have this owner as system, you know, or 65% of Americans don't go to college. And you could say that, you know, that that's because they, you know, didn't afford it, but there are a lot of people that, you know,

college colleges isn't the right fit. So I think that maybe is another reason why, like I answered the way I did, is because like there's this vast, vast universe of people that after they got rid from high school, they're like, all right, good to go. And then they head out into the world. Yeah, I think president is, I may be wrong, but I think president's the least

because you only got eight years. I think education is one of the highest, not necessarily the highest, because you got 20, 30, 40 years of indoctrinating the next generation of people that are coming up. Mainstream media is not as powerful as they used to be. They're gonna be lower, cause virtual governments have taken over billionaires. Hey, you piss off, Ilan, you can go buy something.

You piss off Jeff Bezos, you can go buy WAPO and then write an article talking about the fact that if Elon Musk buy Twitter, you're gonna lose freedom of speech and they talk shit to each other, right? Which is hilarious to say, Elon Musk is gonna take freedom of speech and they talk shit to each other right which is hilarious to say Elon Musk is gonna take freedom of speech away from you Andrew be very careful and innovative could do that to you But yeah, that's why I think educational

better you saying that the someone like individual like an Elon Musk or the wrong Elon Musk is more powerful than a Trump or a Bank the wrong Elon Musk with the wrong intentions is very dangerous to the world if you think about it the wrong guy with that kind of money It's a very dangerous position to be it's it's it's meaning so let me and this is how like it's not the guy that made his money Because Elon made his money working his ass off But if he learns one of his kids when he dies gets one point nine trillion dollars And he's never worth for anything. That's a scary thought right there on what that kid's capable of doing.

You have a family yourself, you have kids who are going through. Four kids, 10, 8, 5, and 9 months. Wow. Yeah, you got nine and six. I got a full household. Yeah, you're an overachiever, man. Yeah, I would have 20 if I could. I'd have 20 kids if I could.

What do you think my Tulsi Gabbard? What do you think my Tulsi? I know Tulsi and I got along well on the trail. So that's one of the underrated things about that set of experiences is that you know It's like people respond to us and you've probably met a lot of us so you know to us here at work to you work human beings But um, you know to each other. It's like I'm hung out with Tulsi and her husband Abraham You know like it does in times and the sticks of New Hampshire just like you know waiting to go on in the Union Hall or whatnot so You know she and I became quite friendly. Why do you think the left doesn't support them? You got a woman who is marketable.

You got a Democrat. You got a military. She's young, great speaker, very good communicator. Why do you think the establishment doesn't elevate somebody like her? Well, why do you think they don't like somebody like her? It was very obvious. Oh, I mean, Shari Shari Shari, they're like an open feud going.

But Hillary, yeah, they're like, they're going back and forth. Yeah. She calls her a Russian asset. Oh, because Tulsi that. Yeah. So I'll just tell a story that might be fun and bring everyone back.

But I was actually standing between Tulsi Gabbard and Kamala Harris on the debate stage and they're going at it. There's a whole bunch of comfortable things. I was like, you know what I say? Probably rewrite that footage and see me be like, I was like, I have my head go back and forth. In the moment, are you actually uncomfortable?

Oh, I was like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm standing between these two people going after each other. But why do you think so? But by the way, I gotta tell you, folks, I wanna give Andrew Yanks a lot of credit here. I gotta give you credit. In my mind, I'm trying to calculate

how many questions you actually directly answered. I wanna say it's less than 50%. You become a broly? You become a broly. And I find myself a man. You become a, you listen. There's coaching to running for office and you gotta figure out a way and you've given the there's coaching to running for office and you got to figure out a way

and you've given the politically correct diplomatic answer, nothing that's going to rub anybody the wrong way. So you're playing it safe the way you're going, which maybe it's a political strategy. You got, I don't know, maybe you don't want to get that kind of publicity with all of the sudden. Andrew Yang said the following on this podcast and he pisses five, you know, 50,000 people up and you don't want wanna have that happen to you. But I think it's as bigger than that, I'm kidding.

But I wanna ask you, I wanna ask you like, specifically, why do you think they don't support somebody like Tulsi? Why not get behind somebody like Tulsi? The way that the media builds up their take on candidates, you know, is born of a number of things. I think for Tulsi, she came out as being against certain establishment positions relatively early. And then when some reporters went and tried to spend time with her, you know, like some of the

treatment, what was not good, and so you ended up developing like this really adversarial relationship, which as a candidate, it's tough because you feel like if I sit down with you and have a conversation with you and we have an interview and then the article comes out and it's mean and negative, then you're like, oh, I spent some time and I tried to open myself up some and then you were kind of harsh to me,

so let me stop doing that. And then you stop doing that and then you know what happens? Another harsh article comes out. Because you're not willing to talk to that. Because you're not willing to talk to the person. So those things can build up pretty quick. And I think Marches to her own beat and everyone sense that.

And so when she would be willing to take on certain establishment figures I think that made it worse with the press and that's not a compliment to the press You know, I mean part of that the fact that she had beef with the lady in charge Hillary Clinton and they were like Ah buddy like you're you're barking up the wrong tree or her Going after Kamala on the debate stage, I think that was another thing. Yeah. Kamala, Kamala or Tulsi, can you imagine like, the two on how they deliver messages,

Kamala versus Tulsi, 100 at 100 times, Tulsi's gonna do laps around Kamala. You think so? A thousand at a thousand times. Do agree in a method or yet delivering message now He made this agreed with it. I know he was in the state on stage with the both of them They were no there are different types of figures. They different types of messengers You know that they are I've seen both speak like an awful lot of times most of the time in a forum where no one else was paying any attention It was like you know, we're those are the best though. Yeah, you know

It it was a fascinating process. I recommend if this thing happens again, which it will in 24, it's like just spend a weekend in New Hampshire or I, if you're close to other things because you can see all the candidates up close. In New Hampshire. In New Hampshire, I'll tell you a random story

is a Hollywood story kind of. What we probably do that, I just wanna say this folks, if you do wanna call them, we're gonna take some calls the last 15 minutes. want to say this folks, if you do want to call them, we're going to take some calls the last 15 minutes. So if you do want to, if you do have a call and send us a text at 310-340-1132, we may take a few callers. Is that the number that we do or what's the number?

Post the number so they can see it. Go ahead Andrew, you were saying. Oh, saying so Paul Jimati, the actor from the Billions. Like he just drove up to New Hampshire for a weekend and just went from a event to event Just saw you know have a dozen presidential candidates including me And so that's the kind of thing. I was like that's really smart because you could actually see people up close and personal

If you just invest a couple days So that's something you can do in either Iowa or New Hampshire I think Andrew Yang just gave us an idea of 2024 will be a new hamster Andrew do you think you have a good good idea? Having been in business yourself, there's different number ones, number two's, number three's, number four's, and number five's and companies. And somebody may be a good number one of a $10 million company, but they're number eight

of a $100 million company. Somebody may be a number one of a $100 million company, but are number four of a billion auto company. Somebody may be a number one of a billion auto company, but are number two of a 50 out of company. Somebody may be a number one of a billion out of company, but on number two of a 50 billion out of company. Like there's levels to life, right? Do you see yourself as a number one of the United States of America?

Can you see yourself being the number one decision-maker, president of the United States of America? Oh yeah, I can see that for sure. And I can see that even more so, frankly, having been around other people. That maybe have actually had that responsibility, for sure. And I can see that even more so, frankly, having been around other people. Maybe have actually had that responsibility. And this is probably something common to a lot of entrepreneurs, but you trust yourself and your own judgment more than you trust other people. You'd rather be responsible for your own destiny, you know what I mean? Now,

I will also say that I've been in situations where I'm very, very happy to entrust the responsibility to someone else who's better situated. Like if you're on Safari and there's a freaking guide, you're like, hey, let me give this to you. But I have a lot of confidence in my own... We said something, I want to... In my own ability to make decisions.

I want to hear a little more. So you said, if you saw some people that I saw, I fully have more confidence in being me number one. in my own ability to make decisions. I want to hear a little more. So he said, if you saw some people that I saw, I fully have more confidence in being being number one, what did you see that got you to be more confident about being a good number one? Well, this is one of the reasons I ran for president, Pat, and you've had this experience too,

I think because of the fact that you've met so many of us over this time. So I started an organization called Venture for American to Train Entrepreneurs. And during that time, I met three former presidents, 20 senators, governors, members of Congress. And after you have that experience, you don't come away necessarily thinking, wow, these people are all amazing and are capable of doing things I could never do. Like it's dead, you're like, you know what? I think I actually have You know what? Like, I think I actually have, you know, like the same level of overall ability or confidence

or in some cases, frankly, a bit higher. I addressed a group of entrepreneurs at like YPO, you know, like EO and these like, you know, ask kicking entrepreneur types. And I said something to them that was honest and some people could judge me for this, but whatever. I was like, I would trust these 30 CEOs in this room more to run the country than the people who are currently actually doing so.

You know what I mean? Because if you had like a bunch of number ones of significant organizations, the way you're describing Pat, I mean they make these decisions every day. They're really results driven, they're good at building teams, they can like develop cultures.

And then you are around the folks in DC and a lot of those people do not have that experience or set of qualities. A lot of these political figures have never run anything. And then we're judging them, not based on whether they can operate but whether they can operate politically, whether they can just show up,

you know, there's a chapter in my last book called Priests of the Decline, where like, you know, there's a chapter in my last book called Priests of the Decline where like you know, it's like we reduced political figures to folks who just make us feel a little bit better as we go home And the problems don't get solved like that. That's what we reduced folks to so you know I know what makes me tick like, you know if I got in there I'd be like look I'm gonna solve as many problems as I can and If you didn't like it then you can vote me out and I'll find something else to do, you know like a I got in there, I'd be like, look, I'm gonna solve as many problems as I can. And if you didn't like it, then you can vote me out and I'll find something else to do. You know, like a lot of these politicians

are addicted to the field, the job. If they don't have that attention, they wither. You know, that's not what makes me tick at all, which I believe would make me a better figure to actually make some of these things happen. Yeah, do you think, and by the way, great answer, appreciate you for that. But do you think, like, I thought you were going to say,

like, if I hang out with some of the people, I got a lot of confidence, I can be a number one. I thought maybe we're going to say Joe Biden gives you a lot of confidence, because his videos on C-SPAN, I'm sure they're very inspirational for you. But going back to this whole topic, you're being a great number one, you can smile, it's okay if you want to smile. That's okay, every once in a while I tell funny jokes.

But do you think your ability to get dirty, because it's very dirty, you seem like a really nice guy, and your answers are, if this is like pushing the envelope where Trump's going to be bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, pushing the envelope. If you know, Clinton was not afraid to go, bam, bam, bam, bam, or even Kamala, hey, you know, Vice President Joe Biden, I remember when you were this and what you did with the bus and holy shit, boom, she goes here, right? And I think when you did that, will you be, I, the idea was so crazy where the world's like, holy shit.

That's pretty crazy. You kind of poked a little bit. But do you think maybe you've gone a little bit safe and a little bit too nice where you're afraid to poke the bear to make a lot of noise? And maybe that's part of your strategy. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. Again, I'm just, I'm just a business guy.

I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm just simply asking questions from you. You know, Pat, I think different occasions I'm just a business guy. I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm just simply asking questions from you. You know, Pat, I think different occasions call for a different type of energy. I mean, I've led rallies of thousands of people and then you go into rally mode. You know, right now I'm in party building mode,

which is like, look, you know, that we can sense that this system's not working and our children deserve better. Let's give them better. Let's solve problems. Let's give rise to a home for the people who feel politically homeless. So there are different ways I can make that case.

Maybe I'm trying to make that case in a way that people find a peeling and agreeable and there are other people who might prefer a more, hey, fiery, the country is heading off a cliff and like, we need to do something about it. Which by the way, I totally believe, I mean, I could present that case too. But, you know, I think there are different occasions, different times. But one thing that people who know me know is that, and this is something you suggest a

little bit earlier, I mean, I've run companies, man. I mean, when it's winning time, you go for the win. Like, I'm not here to mess around. I'm here to save the country. Sure enough, do you have some callers? You also got to give him credit for one thing. What's that? He did kind of, you know, you're one famous,

other than UBI, remember, you're one famous line when you kind of took a jab at Trump. You're like, I can do math. Like, what was the line that you did? Because you kind of did get that. What I said was that the opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian guy who likes math. And then math is an acronym for Make America Think Harder,

which is what the message was. You got the mud a little bit. Just a little bit. I want to double back this UBI. So the idea is you're going to give everybody over $18,000 a month, is that accurate? That was what I was running on, yes. So that's 260 million people, okay.

And this was based on automation taking away the jobs, was the idea behind it? Yeah. Okay, so Forester predicts 1.4 million jobs are gonna be lost by 2032. Why not take that $1,000 a month and put it into a government fund to retrain people, to train them in hard skills, plumbers, carpenters, possibly into tech, into coding.

Why just give them the thousand dollars a month? Because it seems like a band-aid problem than actually fixing the root issue of things. Oh, I'm all for investing in apprenticeship programs and vocational and technical education, more under investing that stuff enormously. Right now, the tough thing though is that if you look at the success rates

of government funded retraining programs, the success rates 10 to 15 percent, and that's not a typo. I mean, you're talking about like an 80, 5 percent fail rate. And this goes back to the entire politics thing. It's like, what is a politician going to say? We're going to train all Americans for the jobs of the future. Then you actually go to that manufacturing town. You know what people are doing? They're not coding, you know, they're drinking themselves to death and getting more and more upset. So we should be doing what you just suggested, but I do think that we need to try and give people

a foundation and as a numbers guy, I mean, you look at the numbers and they're freaking terrible. It's like relocation rates were lower than they'd been, business formation rates, deaths of despair, life expectancy down. I mean there are a lot of people that like the talking points just are not working and we have to actually do something that might help. Does that help you out? Ish, but we'll get to call it. Okay, John, do we have any callers? Yes, we have

Phil on the line. Phil, how are you Phil? Phil, can you hear us? Yes, I can. Thank you for taking my call, honored to be here. Phil, Victor from the Cayman Islands here. I have a question for Mr. Yang in regards to universal basic income. I used to be a big supporter of universal basic income and would actually go on my local radio shows on island and talk about UBI but I just localized it um you know for the local audience and you know people were a big fan of it and I was too until COVID happened and then I saw members of the community who lost their jobs because of COVID but then when their jobs came back they're very comfortable with the government stipend and didn't want to go back to work.

And that's when I realized I don't think this program can work. But my, an alternative I have is a four day work week. I believe a four day work week could work out, you know, it would give people that, you know, A, the wheels of capitalism with turning and B, people have more time to, you know, live their life, hang out with their friends and whatnot. I'd like to hear Mr. Yang's opinion on a four-day work week and congratulations, Mr. Yang, on your freedom, oh no, your forward party. I think it's awesome. Thank you Phil. Congrats to you on living in the Cayman Islands. It's a lot of fun.

So I've run businesses. I've worked in various settings. And I think we all know what happens sometimes when you come in on Friday, where you're not actually working that hard. Not around here, Andrew. Yeah. I know.

I hear it's hard working all the time. And I'm a pretty hard working guy. But work tends to expand or contract to fill the time you give it. If you give yourself six hours, you get something done. Magically, it's going to get done in six hours. If you give yourself 20 hours, it'll take you 20 hours. So as a numbers guy, the stats around 4-day work weeks are really positive.

Productivity sometimes goes up. Well, it goes up. I'm talking about in total, you actually get more done in 4 days and you do in 5 days and other instances. Increases work or loyalty and satisfaction improves mental health and sick days. So all the data indicates that we should be at a minimum experimenting with four day work weeks and more environments and organizations and our maximum implementing it broadly. So you know huge fan of the four day work week and

thank you Phil for suggesting it. Fantastic. Thank you Phil. Anybody else that we have John? Yeah, we have Gil on the line. Gil, how you doing? Hey, how's it going? Fantastic. What's on your mind? So I love Andrew Yang. I actually live in New York City. I live in the Bronx and I voted for you in the primary. Thank you.

And so I wanted to just share a question I had about student loans. You touched on it briefly. You talked about sort of like going forward, how to stop the bleeding, but I wanted to talk about like the debt bomb that we have, you know, we have about $1.6 trillion of student loan debt in America. On the, you know, I just want to know how you would go about resolving it. On one hand, you have many borrowers that just, that you just, you have many borrowers that just that you just you have a lot of borrowers who literally cannot pay it back and then on the other hand if you forgive it you're you know kind of screwing over people who did pay it back or paid tuition the

first time around so I just want to know how you would deal with that huge debt bomb that we have. Well thanks thanks for the call and the support. A lot of that money was taken out excessively under, you know, if not false pretenses, at least kind of exaggerated pretenses in the part of these universities. I had 100K and school owned it myself for a while. I used to call it my mistress because I'm really, really, really, a check and be like, I hope they're happy in the next town or wherever the money was going. But there is a fairness issue.

I also think it would be a great economic stimulus because the money that you forgive, it's going to get into getting spent a lot of these borrowers are on the younger side. You want them to be able to buy a home, raise a family, all of this other good stuff. So I'd be, if I were president right now, I'd be looking at much more aggressive, forgiveness forbearance. If you are gonna owe it, we can adjust the interest rate and make it so that it's something that you can actually pay.

And if there are other people that either didn't go to college or already paid off their debt, if there's some way that, you know, I either didn't go to college or already paid off their debt, you know, like if there is some way that we can say, look, we're not going to do exactly for you or doing for these folks who are debt holders, like I'd like to do that for you too, because, you know, like, you don't want to be unfair for folks who made different decisions. It's one reason why I, you know, I liked something that was broad and universal. But given the way the systems designed right now, if I were in Joe Biden's chair, I would

be much more aggressive about trying to get people out from one of these debt loads because it's stimulus. And like you said, a lot of these people are not going to be able to pay this money back. It's a lot of numbers right then. But what do you think about how much college cost of college is increased? So this is the thing that drives me not to. And this is something I would play at the fleet of Democrats. Because for Democrats, colleges can do no wrong.

Hospitals can do no wrong. And you look at them and be like, wait a minute, these hospital prices make zero cents. It's like, you know, you can drive 60 miles and the surgery is like 300 percent more or less. College just goes up and up. And if you look the returns on college, you know, the returns on college relative not going to college, okay,

you can still make the argument that college pays. So there are a lot of other factors in there. But the cost of college going up is a result primarily of them becoming really bloated bureaucracies. They've just hired like a good trillion administrators. If you ask people a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a good, a and then you pass that cost along to families and then the families who can't pay it, you know where they pass along too? Like the government, because they just turn around and be like, hey, the mass majority,

it says federal student loan debts, 1.6 trillion. Like that's out of the government. So there's no accountability. You have to go to universities and be like, you know, what are the things I was saying too? It's like, you look at Harvard, there down, it's like 30 billion or something like that. I actually argued it's like, like look instead of opening locations in Shanghai or Abu

Dhabi like open one in Ohio, no one in Michigan, you know, he got a freaking tax break to the tune of billions of dollars. It's like, you know, like, you know, let's like try and stimulate some some growth and activity here. Anyway, don't get me started. No, no, no, no, no, Democrats are not the ones who are. No, so, so Democrats what they do is that and this is one of the toxic things that we get. Finally at the end of the podcast you're driving me nuts. You just made a powerful point, but I got three minutes left with you. That was powerful right. Well, thank you.

I said it. But let us finish. No, he did, but the point is that's the messaging because even with this whole gas situation, right? Oh, look at how much money Exxon made. Well, look how much taxes you're charging in California. Correct. Why is Gai, why are we doing all these things?

So fine, I do think Exxon is to all say, guys, we're gonna take this much and do XYZ for gas. But hey, why don't we do something here? Why don't we draw, why don't all of us kind of figure out a way to make this work? If you want to start up and we're down to $10,000 in a bank account, you may come to me and say, Pat, you're taking a 300,000 dollar salary.

I'm taking 300. I can go, you're without salary, can you? Yes, let's do it. We own the company together. Fine, I got pain, you got pain. But it's only the business people and taxpayers take pain. It's only, it's not, let's all of us take a little bit

of the pain and figure this thing out. You made a very, you got me fired up right now. Yeah, what gets you the most fired up? I think that's what Pat wants to know. Is that what you want to know? No, no, no, I want to know because I've listened to him more than when he was on the campaign trail. I listened to his debates.

I think he's very necessary. An entrepreneur on the left that comes out and know where we need more stories like this. I agree. But I also think to create some momentum, you're going to need to do a little bit more of calling out rather than playing safe because playing and safe They're gonna destroy you playing safe. Trump came in here and play safe. He poked everybody there Then all of a sudden said shit. This guy's got some stuff. I think he needs to do a little bit more poking I may be wrong, but that's just my thing. He just poked something right here Yeah, if I can add on to it very very fast. It says, you know measure one. John. Do you have to do you have on us on the call?

Please text me. Go ahead. You have the student load debt. Set $136 billion is the private debt, which means that the public school debt's 147. I mean, I'm fine. 1.47. 1.47 trillion, which means that there is 10 times the student loan debt. If I went to university in Nebraska,, if I went to University of Nebraska, then if I went to Harvard, 10 times.

And so when Bernie Sanders says, let's forgive all the student loan debt, there's something to be said for the systems that have made it so unbearable and unpayable. But it's also basically what he's saying is, let's forgive ourselves. So that's the state systems that are running state universities

that are completely bloated, so to your point. And people like to poke out, oh, it's Harvard and the GAL, and it's all these things, well no that's not true the statistics showed that there's ten times student-learned out on state colleges and risen private colleges well I believe that because if you look at the Harvards and the L's of the world they're so rich that they actually can you know essentially take poor kids in and say don't worry we'll cover your

cost I don't know if you want a hundred years for a hundred years yeah Harvard can do that for one hundred years. A hundred percent of their students every year. They can take a hundred percent of their students. They have a not take a penny from them for one hundred years. They can do that. You know what they don't do. They don't actually expand their student body. You know, like if you had those level of resources, which they do, correct, then you'd want to do more good, expand, but they don't do that because it would reduce their selectivity and their prestige and the rest of it.

So they just go around, ginning up the endowment per student ratio. Instead of saying, look, let's get some more students in. We got a lot of people that I wanna talk to. Let's do one last one and wrap up. John, do you have anybody for us? Yes, we have Anas. Okay, Anas, what is on your mind, Anas?

Hello, Pa. How are you doing today? Hope you're doing well. God bless you. Happy to move on. Okay, so my first question, it's, it has to do with freedom of speech, basically, and hello. Yes, we can hear you go for it.

Yeah, so when it comes to the economic and economic freedom and political freedom when it comes to Israel, for example, the Republicans on the right, they censor pro-Palestine advocacy. That's number one. And when Palestinians they do business or when Palestinians advocate to do business, they not allow to do business with the government because they criticize Israel. And in my opinion, you have the right to criticize the Iran government. I don't mind that's your freedom of speech. But when it comes to Israeli crimes or Saudi crimes, to the eyes which you, I don't see you talking about it the same way how you talk about Iran or Turkey or Afghanistan. And in my opinion, this is my personal opinion,

I respect you as an individual, I respect your show, but I don't see the same criticism against the Israeli government. So my question to make it keep it short, how come the Israelis they could censor Palestinians and censor the American people? I get criticizing Israel, but it's okay for other governments to be criticized. Is this question for Andrew? Both of you. Both of you. Both of you.

Patrick has also had comments when it came to Israel. He was very pro-Israel when Israel was killing my people. And they were mass occurring us in guys are not too long ago. So I want to answer that question also. So and we've got the question. Andrew, what are your thoughts on that? Thank you, Pat, for having me on. Hannah, first of all, I appreciate the question

and you're always active listening. Whether we agree, disagree, the fact that you're always on here, we appreciate you being on your side. Andrew, what are you saying? I respect you because you, Allah, for your speech from both sides. That's why I'm always going to watch you. Mom, thank you you being on your side. Andrew, I respect you because you are a free and most people from both sides. That's why I'm always going to watch you. Mom, thank you.

I hope you succeed and I hope you, the value team it gets on the flat screens, hopefully. Appreciate you. God bless you Patrick and have a good day. I hope you've come to the building. You as well. Go ahead, Andrew. Yeah, it was a tragic situation, you know, last year.

And like just about, I mean, everyone just wants people to be able to peacefully coexist. I mean, when I was running for president, my stance was that there should be a two-state solution, which I still hold. And I think that that's something that a lot of people desire. And I wish it were something that was more achievable in addition to us wanting to be that way.

Certainly, I have many friends who are Israelis and Jewish, and I have friends who are Palestinian. And from, I think, a human perspective, we all just want people to be able to coexist peacefully. Yeah, and I would say the following, and to wrap up, on one end is the following. You're right. Hollywood is on by who?

Jewish community, I mean, that's what they own. They own Hollywood, but what has capitalism done? Capitalism's kind of opened it up where other companies are allowed to bring other stories in. Independently, what I would encourage you to do and not as the following. This is what I'm doing.

Okay, let me tell you what I'm doing. I had Oliver Stone here in this seat two weeks ago. Was it two weeks ago? Two or three weeks ago, right? And I saw Oliver Stone go to Russia and interview Putin. Multiple times. Multiple times over a four month period. He goes and does a documentary on Ukraine.

He goes and does a documentary on JFK. He goes and does a documentary on what, he's life mission was to bring attention to the things based on his experience of going to World War II, his father, all that other stuff. You have such fire behind this on us. My suggestion to you is team up with somebody, create a podcast, write about it, give your opinions out to bring guests in go make a ton of money, make documentaries, make short clips, get your voice hurt and let the right audience decide.

That's the great thing about America. Ain't nobody going to take your videos off if you want to talk about the Palestinian against Israel, let people decide. That's America for you. And some are going to say, you have no clue what the hell you're talking about. Some are going to say, I agree with you. And then we can have the debate. So that's my challenge to you.

Instead of doing a lot of the screamer, what you're doing, I want you to keep screaming, but I want you to make some money, use the money, produce the content, give your argument, team up with people that team up with you, and unless that argument be decided amongst the people. Anyways, but appreciate the calls from everybody. Andrew, this was a blast, having you on, man.

I really enjoyed it. Appreciate you for coming out. Appreciate the heck out of you. And again, I am here because this man offered Obama and Trump I million dollars to get together an event I was like that's the kind of American we need to get behind so I love it I'm looking forward to you. You willing to throw in on that? Create some momentum. Oh, yeah, I would throw in there for sure. Yeah Something tells me you at least give a thousand bucks a lot people, a lot of people would like to see that.

Andrew, any last projects for people that can follow you? What's the place to send them? Would you like us to send them to a book or your site for Forward Party? Yeah, so forwardparty.com, I wrote a book called Forward that's about this movement. If you want to try and move on from our corrosive politics of yesterday year, like we can do it together

and we have to do it together because without us, it's not going to get any better. There you go. The link is below in description as well as the chat box, as well as the comment section. Andrew, thanks for coming out folks. Tomorrow we will have with us Joe Jorgenson, Libertarian candidate who ran for president. Take care everybody. Bye bye, bye, bye, bye. Bye everyone. Entrepreneurs unite. Bye everyone. who ran for president. Take care everybody. Bye-bye, bye-bye, bye-bye. Bye everyone. Entrepreneurs unite. Bye everyone.