Tangle - RE-RUN: A conversation with Andrew Yang

Episode Date: March 8, 2022

Original air date: Jan 7, 2022Still want the news? You can read today's newsletter here.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and produced by Trevor Eichhorn. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Hey everyone, Isaac here. I just want to let you guys know that we are going to be taking a little vacation this week. As many of you know, a few times a year, I take a week or two off from Tangle in order to recharge. I try to time these breaks around holidays or other quiet times in the news. That way, we aren't leaving you hanging on important stories. It just so happens that this is one of those times. Congress is on recess. the president is on vacation, we just had our only federal or statewide election of the month in Ohio, and there is very little legislative action happening this week. It's possible that in the next few days we do see Fulton County, Georgia

indict the former president Donald Trump, but otherwise it is expected to be a relatively quiet week. At the same time, on a personal note, this is great timing for a little break for me. The Tangle Team is just coming off the huge lift that was our first ever live event. We have a bunch of content around that coming out soon, so stay tuned. My wife's summer break is about to end before she goes back to law school, and this is one of the most popular vacation times of the year. To that end, I'm going to try to unplug and enjoy some family time in what is effectively my last week of summer break, though I haven't really taken a break until now. If you are a brand new listener, I apologize for the unfortunate timing.

However, in the interest of not going dark for a full week, we've decided to keep the content coming. Here on the podcast, we'll be posting some past editions. So we'll be running some reruns this week. And in the newsletter, we'll also be sending some reposts, some previously locked paywalled additions for paying subscribers that we're going to be unlocking and releasing in the newsletter Monday through Thursday. We'll also have some fresh content coming out on our YouTube channel this week. So keep an eye out for that. I hope you guys enjoy some of these reruns this week. And we'll be right back here with some fresh episodes on Monday of next week.

Have a great week. Peace. From executive producer, Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I am your host, Isaac Saul, and we are recording this podcast on Friday, December 17th. So as many of you know, I'm still in the long battle with COVID. The virus is running rampant here in New York City. I apologize for my own congested and raspy voice, but I was

not taking today off of work. And that is because I am super excited about our guest today, a man who probably needs less of an introduction than pretty much anybody else I've had on the podcast so far, Mr. Andrew Yang. Andrew, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me, Isaac. Yes, tangled indeed. It's a tough... I am in it, man. I feel for you. I had COVID. It sucks. Yeah. I'm good. I mean, I got the double vaccine and the booster, so it kind of feels like I have a cold or something. I'm good. Nice job, man. Way to take care of yourself.

So listen, man. I mean, there are so many places we could start, but obviously the last few years, you've been quite busy. You ran for president, ran for mayor of New York City. You're mainstreaming the idea of universal basic income. But my understanding and the reason I reached out to you to have you on today is that in the last few months, you've been working on a kind of new idea, a new path forward that I have to say, I mean, my audience is probably more interested in than just about any audience you'll find. So maybe you can start by just telling us a little bit about what you've been up to and what you're working on right now. Well, you know, certainly I love folks like you

who've been pounding the drum for a different approach to politics for independence. I'm going to guess when you talk about your audience, there are people who felt politically homeless. They have realized the duopoly is not working. They didn't feel themselves to be drawn to either party. Is that all fair? Is that accurate? I think that's pretty fair for a good chunk of my audience. Absolutely. I'm here to say you are correct. I figured this out over 2020. I was researching my book. I was trying to answer the most basic question, which is why do I feel so lousy about the future of the country? Like why? I mean,

at this point, I think if you went around, the majority of us probably feel lousy. And then you ask, okay, maybe it's because our politics are so messed up. And then I dug into why our politics are so messed up and that polarization is worse than ever. Political incentives reward extremism and behaviors that don't really solve any problems.

If you compromise, you get cast out. One of the two parties, I will say, is having a very, very tough go of it in terms of resisting authoritarianism and bad leadership. And there's some illiberalism on the other side, too. But I would say that they're facing different issues. And so I came to grips with this and was like, wow, we need to change this. Like this duopoly is killing us. It's going to destroy us. It's going to lead us to ruin. It's going to lead us to political violence and worse and dysfunction and the rest of it. So I concluded all this at the end of 2020. And so I had just run for president as a Democrat, but I concluded, well, you need to try and change this political dynamic. And there's no way to do that from within one of the major parties, in my opinion.

So I decided to run for mayor of New York City. And if I had won, I was going to declare myself an independent at the board party because I'd finished this manuscript at the end of 2020. So I run in 2021 and then I lose. And then I'm like, well, you know, like the plan was always to start the third party. And you either do that as the mayor of New York City or you do that as the well-known former presidential contender. And so one of the things that's interesting, Isaac, is I did not realize what rancor I would kick off by leaving the Democratic Party. It didn't really occur to me. I was like, well, I got to go try and solve this problem. And then you can't do as a Democrat. So I'm going to change my voter registration to independent. And then I thought, well, I guess I should put that out in the world and say, you know, I'm an independent now. And wow, like, did people

freaking throw rocks at me on Twitter and the like, and just accuse me of all sorts of nefarious things. Even though, if you read my letter of departure from the Democratic Party, it's completely like benign. Like, I don't insult anyone. I don't do it. It's just like, hey, guys, like, you know, benign like i don't insult anyone i don't do it it's just like hey guys like you know uh like uh i think there's another way to solve this problem but yeah i got called all sorts of uh like nasty things so went through that process and i have to say that process made me feel better about what i was doing because i was like okay there's something really messed up about the tribalism and the polarization where someone who not to toot my own horn, but, you know, I did some shit. You know what I mean? Like I,

I, you know, I mean, and so then, so people who know me, like, you know, and I did get notes from certain people I know in the democratic party that were just like, Hey, best of luck. Hope you can like, you know, make good things happen on the outside. But rank and file is just, you know, just assuming the worst motivations. It's very strange. I guess related to that, I mean, I want to ask you directly this. First of all, this third party that you're talking about created, you announced it as the forward party. You guys now have a website up.

There's, you know, some policy issues up on the site. Is your intention to be clear that you are going to run for president as a third party candidate in 2024? Is that where your mind is right now? My mind is on trying to help our democracy survive the next number of months. So when someone asked me flat, it's like, hey, Andrew, are you running for president 2024? I will honestly say that right now I am open and flexible as to what the best way to try and help preserve our democracy is. But I would make a poor choice to run for president in 2024, because I probably soak up slightly more energy from Dems than Republicans. And if your goal is to preserve democracy, you kind of want to make sure Trump loses if he is

the Republican nominee, which he probably will be. And so I would say that the data suggests that I'm not your best choice. But, you know, like, I'm open to doing anything under the sun. And that includes running if it's going to be helpful. I guess that the obvious question then is, you know, like I'm open to doing anything under the sun and that includes running if it's going to be helpful. I guess that the obvious question then is, you know, what are the defining issues going to be for the forward party is, is universal basic income, which became kind of your signature issue in the last two elections you ran in going to be a central tenet of what you guys are running on? Yeah, it is. I mean, if you look at our website, boardparty.com, check it out, please. We have a relatively spartan number of policies and principles, but one of them is universal basic income. And the goal is to advance that as well

as the other things like fact-based governance, which I suspect most people here can get behind, fact-based governance, which I suspect most people here can get behind, modern and effective government, which I'm going to suggest really has been missing. You have Democrats just being like, what are you talking about? It's like, oh, guys, come on. I mean, some of this stuff's not working so well. Republicans have become, you know, kind of anti-government. But I think that there needs to be a group of people that says, look, you need government to do certain things, but you actually want it to be done well and competently and efficiently and non-ideologically. Grace and tolerance. We don't think that we should be villainizing or demonizing our fellow Americans. So it has a number of principles that we hope can bring a lot of

reasonable people together under. Is your vision for this to give people an option besides the Democratic and Republican Party so it's no longer this sort of lesser of two evils or pick one binary type political duopoly? I mean, is that really what you're going for that you just want to shake up this status quo that we've all been living in for so long? Oh, we want to do a lot of things, Isaac. But you know, let's, let's fast forward to 12 months from now. It's December 2022. The world will be about to go insane because everyone's going to start obsessing about 2024. But let's imagine that there were a number of independents who ran for Senate or even someone who's currently a Democrat or Republican who decides to leave

their party to join the forward party. How many forwardist representatives or senators would you need to even influence or control policy? How many senators would you need? Maybe just one, depending upon the breakdown. Is it possible that there are one or two or three forward independent senators a year from now? Yeah, very much so. So the hope is that we can be a fulcrum, a fulcrum of reasonableness that helps get things done, but also reduces the polarization. And to your point, that people can go to the ballot box and have meaningful real choice, because right now, most Americans don't have any meaningful choice in these elections. And we have to start letting people know that, yeah, you know, when people beat you up over not

voting, and like, obviously, my vote doesn't matter where I am, because I'm in one of the 83% of districts where it's either safely Democratic or safely Republican. And so to the extent there's any activity, it's in the primary. But like a lot of these primaries aren't particularly competitive. So my paying attention like really doesn't make that much sense. And the incentives for the individual candidate or incumbent in particular, it's like all I have to do is keep myself from getting primaried among the 10 to 15% most extreme people in my district and then I win.

So I'll act like a little bit more of a zealot or a jackass or whatever, or just like duck certain questions. Our democracy is structurally broken and most of us know it on some level. And so we're checking out. So what you have to do is restore it by switching to nonpartisan open primaries, which would be a game changer, and then have candidates decide to be a ranked choice voting.

Now, that sounds nearly impossible and very dramatic. But if enough of us get together, we can make it happen in a handful of the 24 states that allow ballot initiatives like Alaska, where they made this conversion. So the vision is to change the process and then make it so that there is a forward party candidate or, you know, name your favorite third party, libertarian, green, whatever the hell, you know, we just want there to be more dynamism and real choice. But the forward party is the way to get there. So I guess one of the things I'm interested in specifically with ranked choice

voting, I mean, this is a policy proposal that like you just alluded to, we've seen has started to be implemented in certain places. We have it in New York City, Alaska passed this ballot initiative. How do you think it's going so far? And why do you think ranked choice voting is a better system than what we have now? Let's use Alaska as the best example. So Senator Murkowski is the only Republican senator who voted to impeach Trump, who's also up for reelection next year. So that's rare. Her approval rating among Alaskan Republicans is now 6%. So they noticed and they didn't like it. But she has a chance because she doesn't have to go through just a party primary.

It's open to everyone. And then you choose among the candidates via ranked choice voting. So ranked voting tends to reward people that have broad appeal, that aren't as polarizing, you have to try and be on 51% of people's ballots. So in that context, someone like Senator Murkowski has a shot and maybe even a better shot than a Trump-supported candidate who 35% of people love, but 55% of people really don't like. Now, right now in the Republican primary, that Trumpian candidate wins nine times out of 10. So right choice voting in some ways is a complement to these nonpartisan open primaries, because you want a process where you can have people run and not be spoilers

and have even multiple people from the same party run and not have them crowd each other out. I imagine at this point, you know, I think of senators like Lisa Murkowski, you are probably starting to try and recruit and tap some people on the shoulder to join your party. I wonder how is that process going and what's the reception been like so far? Did you get the package in the mail, Isaac? I did not get that package. The secret knock, the secret handshake. We are having conversation. I just had a conversation I did not get that package. got, you know, double digits in his last run. So the odds of that happening, you know, pretty high. So that there are people reaching out to us who want to work with us, they're incoming volunteers every day. So it's really an exciting time for us,

in part because of the folks that listen to you, Isaac. So you are a leader, and you've been passionate about this stuff for a long time, longer than me. I was like a relatively anonymous Democrat just hanging out until pretty recently. But people like you realize like, hey, the system's messed up. This isn't working. There's something really doctrinaire and dogmatic going on. We could use a little bit more independent thought. So I've loved the people I've met in this realm and a lot of them are coming to the forward party and saying let's work together and and that's one of the things about this group is that we tend to be mission driven we tend to be not super conventionally political like in the world of politics it'd be like oh this person's doing this like fuck them you know like like I'm doing this but in this world it's like oh someone else wants to join the wilderness and build

civilization. Let's do it. So I feel like I came into the camp holding something of a torch. And then now we're like, oh, yeah, let's build out from here. One of the implications of what you're doing, at least in my eyes, is that from where you're sitting, you understand that there are flaws and positives, I guess, in both of our major political parties right now, and that you don't want to be stuffed in to one box. You don't want voters to have to be stuffed into one box. So I guess I have two questions for you. I mean, I'm going to ask this about both parties, but we'll start with the easy one for you, I think, which is the Democratic Party. And I'm wondering what you think Democrats are doing really well right now. I mean,

what do you like about what you see on the Democratic side? Well, my favorite thing that they've done, and they did do it, was the child tax credit, lifted 3.8 million kids out of poverty, helped 62 million Americans directly. And then I'm sure another, you know, 50 million indirectly. So here is the big problem is that most people don't know they did it. If you survey, even the recipients of the child tax credit and said, Hey, you know, who made this happen? I saw a survey that says something like 30% of people knew it was the democrats um so in my mind uh it's a messaging problem and i i've said for months that every 15th of the month when the child tax credit checks went out to again 62 million people just have an event on the white house lawn have every democratic member

of congress who signed it which by the way is of them, just have an event being like, hey, guys, like that check. That was us. And then have like a family there being like, what does this mean to you? And they're like heating oil, school supplies, whatever. So they did something. And but they didn't quite take credit for it. And then now it may be stalled. Hopefully some version of it will pass again.

Now it may be stalled. Hopefully some version of it will pass again. The latest is that Senator Joe Manchin from West Virginia is saying he wants it to be funded for longer, which on one hand, I kind of love because I'm like, yeah, more child tax credit for longer. Let's do it. But people are concerned that they may crowd out other parts of the bill, which might delay things. So the child tax credit is my favorite thing that the Dems did. So I guess on the other side, then I'm curious, I mean, you've referenced the Republican Party right now in so far in this interview, just in terms of the things that they're doing that really concern you. But I'm wondering if you see things on the other side

that you like that maybe you want to pull from or bring into your forward party? on the other side that you like that maybe you want to pull from or bring into your forward party? Well, there are a lot of things I agree with Republicans on generally. You know, they tend to be pro small business, which I am. They tend to be mindful of like the effect of various measures on economic growth. They tend to be somewhat pro militarymilitary and um uh no i actually i hesitate on that because you know it's been a mixed bag on uh taking care of veterans and the rest of it i mean i don't believe just like cramming money into the military is is the way there's a ton of ton of waste there as you can tell i'm um you know hemming and hawing a little bit on the military bent stuff. But neither party really has a monopoly on ideas, good or bad, at this point. And if you look at

something like the child tax credit, this was something that a Republican Senator Mitt Romney has supported for a long time. So I think that if you were to sit down a moderate Republican and a moderate Democrat, they could agree on a lot of things. And that's where I am on a lot of these issues. Yeah, that makes sense to me. I mean, I guess in a broader context, I'd be curious to hear how you think Joe Biden's presidency is going so far. I mean, one of the things he made a staple of his candidacy was that he was going to work across the aisle. He was going to try and bring the country together. I think a lot of people would say he's sort of coming up short, whether it's his fault or not.

But I'd love to hear your perspective about where things are or how you're viewing this presidency so far. I think that they are struggling because mainly there are things that are out of their control. And, you know, are they doing everything they can with the hand that they have? Debatable. So what's like the list of things that are dogging Joe Biden right now? Number one has to be inflation. Is that something that they caused? Number one has to be inflation. Is that something that they caused? In my opinion, not really. You know, there are going to be supply chain issues and massive pent up demand issues almost no matter what. Are they doing everything they can to this loss of confidence in the Biden administration. Was that their fault? Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu,

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You know, it's like decision to leave, right, execution, shoddy, explanation of shoddy, execution, shoddy again. So, you know, like, could you look at it and say, well, there's no good way to exit that situation? Yes. But like, they clearly screwed up the their estimation of the timeline. COVID is the granddaddy of them all. And the public's just losing patience and energy with this. And, you know, and Democrats were winning on two issues, COVID and Trump. were winning on two issues, COVID and Trump. And then now COVID's a loser and Trump can't blame him for everything and makes you look silly in my opinion. But even though, again, I think Trump's a major threat and he's coming in 24 and I'm gonna do everything in my power

to try and keep him from bringing us into the authoritarian era, which I do think would happen. So, you know, Trump bad, but it's like, like the bind that Democrats are in right now is like the Democrats are the establishment. They're the institutions. And oh, by the way,

most of us are getting sick and tired of the establishment and the institutions. And then when they're there being like, no, no, it's going well, it's going well. You're like, no, it's not. And then they, they're like, oh, well, I can't say it's not going well because I'm it. You know, it was something like Bill Maher said where he said the only idea of voters can hold consistently is throw the bums out.

And so guess what? You're the bums now. So, you know, here we are. Yeah. I think it's going to be tough for the Dems though, to win next year in November. I think they lose. And then if they lose the house minimum, they're not going to have any legislative victories. What the heck are they going to run on in 23, 24? It's going to be a shit show in my opinion. Yeah. I mean, the case that I've made is, I mean, in my opinion, it's clear as day that for the last nearly two decades, you know, the country has been, every election has been a change election, you know, from Obama in 2008, to keeping him there in 2012, because he was running against the most establishment Republicans you could find,

to Trump being the big change in 2016, to 28 midterms being the change from Trump to 2020 being the change from Trump. And now you're seeing Democrats just start to drop like flies because everybody wants change from the Democrats. So, you know, I buy that from Bill Maher. I mean, I think that is really true about the American voter today. I don't want to talk about Trump, but I do want to ask you just because I think it's relevant. I mean, when you were running in 2020, one of the sort of weird little enigmas of your campaign, of which there were many, I watched it with a lot of joy as it happened, was that you got a lot of weird kind of unusual, unexpected support from some people who might otherwise be Trump voters. I mean, there were all sorts of profiles and writing about this. For whatever reason, your sort of genuine, straightforward talk about the party and the country and being down to earth resonated with a lot of people who also liked the way Trump approached the country. And I'm wondering, you know, I hear you talk about him now. How do you address those Trump supporters who might also whose ear you might also have?

I mean, what do you say to them? Why do you think he's such a threat? Why do you feel that it's so necessary to keep him out of office in 2024? Yeah, I'm sympathetic to people who voted for Trump because of this change impulse you're describing. And I talked to a lot of my supporters who were former trump supporters and and they really just wanted to drain the swamp and get an outsider into washington um they think the system's rigged and then they saw in me it's like oh also uh outside of

washington um you know wants to shake things up like i get behind this too if you just want someone to come in and shake things up you know like Yang would have done that. And they started to connect with me as a human being, which I was very grateful for. So again, if you were to simplify things, but it's pretty accurate, it's like, you know, the Democrats are like the establishment and the apologists for the institutions. And then Trump is the big middle finger of the institutions, like I'm going gonna come in and um you know uh break things and drain the swamp uh which one is yang closer to you know and it depends upon your point of view it's like well like you know i consider myself less of a maniac than trump um but i but i'm definitely an outsider i would have uh shaken things up there would have been a lot of people

in dc that would have been like what the the fuck if I were president? And so there were enough people who liked that being like, yeah, like I'm into Yang. And plus, you know, Yang seems to want to help me and, you know, send money out and do some things that seem positive. So, you know, if you're a Trump supporter, and you're in the fuck you, fuck the man, fuck the establishment mode, I get it. They kind of deserve fucking at this point. But do you think that President Trump is really going to make your life better and solve the problems?

On that one, I'm fairly negative. I mean, he's going to show up and settle scores and grind axes and just generally be a dickhead. That's probably what's going to go down. Yeah, that is a believable foretelling of the future, in my opinion. I want to pivot briefly. I mean, one of the things that caught my eye when I looked at the Forward Party website was that you had an entire section dedicated to cryptocurrency on the site.

I'll do my journalist disclosure here by just saying that I've sort of been, people say, in the crypto space for five or six years. I like to say before it was cool. Yeah, that's before it was cool, man. Congrats. Made a nice little buck off buying Ethereum when I didn't understand how it worked in like 2014 or something and Bitcoin and whatever. But I have to say, I mean, seven years later, whatever it's been, you know, aside from trading it as an asset, like a stock or something,

I'm still seeing very few real world applications of crypto or the blockchain in ways that seem effective to me. And I'd love to hear a little bit about your vision for how you think crypto or the blockchain might operate in a forward party or Andrew Yang government and sort of what your thinking is there? Yeah, there are a lot of parallels between the forward party and crypto where with crypto, you have this upstart utilizing

a new technology to try and challenge the existing banks and financial institutions. With the forward party, it's, you's the aging, creaking duopoly, and you have this new upstart movement trying to circumvent and disrupt it. I'm with you that we need more real-life applications of blockchain in particular. We talk a big game about trying to alleviate poverty and distribute value in a more democratic, egalitarian way that's not through the banks. And we need to make that happen in communities around the country to demonstrate what we can do. And I'm happy to say that there are folks I know who are working on DAOs that are tackling social problems to demonstrate that this technology can change the real world.

It's overdue, to your point. I mean, but I think the energy is building up for it right now. And I've had those conversations. And it's exciting. Hopefully, we'll be able to live up to that promise. And hopefully we'll be able to live up to that promise. One of the, I would say right now, probably major issues for the Democratic Party to address is immigration. It's, I think, an issue that Republicans win on in most elections.

They definitely make it a priority. When you look at the kinds of issues Americans prioritize, it's pretty consistently up there with things like healthcare and the economy and now COVID. And Democrats seem to have a very straightforward platform on things like COVID and things like the economy and things like healthcare. I wonder what you think a forward party immigration system looks like. I mean, how do you view where we are as a country with that right now? So I'm going to speak for myself and the forward party hasn't established an official platform, but I think we're where most Americans are,

which is we think there should be immigration. We think it's very appropriate to have a rational approach that prioritizes letting people in that have certain skills or education levels that you know are going to result in higher competitiveness. I will say personally, I think it's asinine that we educate people from other parts of the world and then send them off to compete with us. I mean, what the hell is that about? You know what I mean? Like Mitt Romney said, to staple a green card to their diplomas and keep them around if they want to be here because a lot of them would stay. to staple a green card to their diplomas and keep them around if they want to be here, because a lot of them would stay. I think most Americans agree that we need an actual border that is enforced and try our best to know who's trying to come into the country and have a system

where the people you want to come in are able to come in and the people you don't want to come in are unable to. And this goes back back to confident execution it's like right now you have a border that is very leaky slash poorly enforced and and so everyone's looking up and frustrated in certain parts of the country and and you know and then you have ideological arguments but meanwhile like this the the reality continues to change uh you know, in communities that are close to the border, like on a daily basis. So yeah, like, I mean, again, I'm not, I'm not sure what the process is through which the forward party is going to end up adopting, like approaches to immigration, but that's where I personally am. And I think that's where most Americans are. Do you feel like right now where

we are, and I'm, I'm, I'm just, you know, I'm thinking about these major issues that are facing America. And I hate to bring up another one that feels hopeless at times, but I mean, it seems like climate change is something that your forward party is going to have some kind of agenda on. And I know you actually spoke pretty passionately about it when you were on the trail as a Democratic candidate for president. What can we do? I mean, where are we? It feels it's one of those issues to me that feels pretty hopeless. And I'm curious, you know, I guess how you envision fixing it. And our best hope is massive innovation and when i sat down with elon musk he persuaded me not that i needed much persuading um that solar is just scratching

the surface of the level of energy that we can draw which makes sense when you think about it because it's like oh wait a minute all life comes from that there's like a lot of energy uh hitting the surface of the earth all the time. So if we continue to innovate in that direction is our best hope. Now, the tough thing is that the U.S. is about 15% of emissions and pollution. So even if we were to go whole hog in a better direction, are we still going to see rising sea levels and increasing frequency of natural disasters and a bunch of other things. Yes, we are. And I got beaten up on the debate stage out after the debate stage where I said, hey, we should start moving people to higher ground. And then everyone was like, oh, defeatist, like, you know, like, why don't you just fight climate change? And I'm just like, hey, guys,

I don't know if you noticed, but that's like, so that's where I am. It's like, it's, it's bleak. It's going to be rough. We should be making massive investments in that direction while also just trying to mitigate the harm because the harm is coming. It's here. Yeah, it certainly feels that way. You know, I'm curious now where you are in your political career after these runs. I mean, you tried pretty much two of the hardest things anybody can do when becoming president and winning a mayor race in New York City. Now it seems like you're trying the next hardest thing anybody can do, which is create a successful third party. Oh, thank you for noticing, Isaac. I appreciate this. Hey, I have to say it's one of the things I probably admire most about your career and your

path is that, I mean, I live in New York City. There's nothing more brutal than a mayoral race here. I mean, you were getting trashed for calling the wrong place a bodega. I mean, there's just pretty much the most unforgiving political grounds there are. For the record, that was a bodega. I will make sure I tweet that out. That's a great quote. But, you know, I'm just wondering, like, who are the people around you, I guess, the people you've met on your political path that you feel like are simpatico with some of the stuff you're trying to do? I imagine, you know, we've been talking so much about all the things that are broken and the people that suck. I would love to hear about some politicians that you met on the Democratic trail, maybe some members of Congress,

even, you know, Republicans, conservatives, independents you're talking to. Are there some names out there that come to mind when you think about people who you feel like are doing this right, whose work you admire and you want to sort of bring into this future political party of yours? Well, first, I'll talk about some of the figures I really liked, who are the genuine article. Being around Bernie Sanders, dude's just a genuine messenger. You know, he is exactly who he says he is in the sense that it's like, hey, I'm like the New England socialist here to like, you know, try and make things better. You know, he was sincere. Cory Booker is a really good dude. I always enjoyed hanging out with him. In terms of people that I think are aligned with the forward party, I sat down with Justin Amash

recently. He was a libertarian and he and I agree on a lot of things. I talked to Adam Kinzinger, who's a Republican, and he voted for impeachment. He's a patriot, a military veteran. I like him a lot. There are a lot of people in that latter vein who are principled patriots, don't like Trump. They've been Republicans, but they're looking for another path or home. And I think a lot of them are joining the forward party. So we're, we're coming up on our time limit here. And I think before we go, I'm interested in just some of the near term future for you. I mean,

Americans are obviously going to be coming to your heating, your call now to come join this party that you're working on? Join the forward party. The water's fine. Ooh, you feel that? Did you dip your toe in? Ooh, that feels good. Yeah. What can we expect from you in these next few months? I mean, what are you, what are we planning to see? What are you planning to roll out? What's on the agenda for you guys? We have some really exciting announcements coming up. We're going to start backing some candidates. We're going to start teaming up with different people. I referenced before, there's a candidate who's looking at running statewide in a particular state, and I don't

think he's going to be alone. I think we're going to have a bunch of people. The revolution is on. Let's do it. It's so fun. And I will say that it's an historic opportunity because the duopoly is just so clearly crumbling. Even after the results in Virginia last month, I got a bunch of people reaching out to me being like, okay shit's not working. Yang, you're on. What you're saying, you've been talking since. I had to believe it was possible. But now it's not that I think it's going to be easy, but now I think it's necessary. That's the kind of message I got from tons of people. There are so many people that want this. this, the single biggest obstacle is just doubt or inertia, where the duopoly will just say, can't be done, can't be done. And everyone's looking around like, can it be done? And the

answer is, yeah, it can be done. Because now more than ever, so many Americans want change, to your point. And the question is, what version of change are we going to present to them? Are we going to just present to them this kind of reflexive, nasty, violent change? Are we going to present to them like real structural, deep, lowercase d democratic representative change? So I really try to avoid political prognostication. It's one of the things about punditry these days that I really hate is people pretending they can see into the future. But to have a little bit of fun, about a week ago, I did this subscribers only edition in my newsletter where I made 19 predictions about the future of politics in America. And one of the predictions

I made was that in the 2024 presidential race, and this was before I came across the forward party and before I reached out to you, I predicted that a third party candidate would carry the largest percentage of the popular vote since Ross Perot in 1996. You got 8.4% of the vote. Oh, he got 19.3. Right. I think he got 19.3 in one run. And then I think he had a second run where it was less than that. Yeah, that's probably right. I want to know what you think the odds are of a third party candidate picking up a chunk of the vote as sizable as a Ross Perot in the near future of a presidential election.

I mean, do you think we are close enough to this desire to break out and have somebody really make that kind of influence on a race? Oh, yeah, 100%. So, I mean, heck, the desire is higher now than it was in 92 when Ross Perot got 19.3%. If you had Trump versus Biden, and then you had another reasonable candidate, I think that reasonable candidate starts out with 20 to 25% off the bat. I happen to know an independent billionaire candidate who pulled himself in 2020 and had himself at 25%. And we've gotten more fed up since then. So if you made that bet, I agree with you. Does that independent candidate have a name by chance?

It rhymes with Stark Dubin. Well, it rhymes with Stark Dubin. Okay, got it. I will say his name has popped up quite a bit in terms of the third party political candidacy runs. That's very interesting. Related to that, I mean, do you see a Joe Biden run in 2024? Do you think he's going to come back for a second term? I think he does because his vice president pulls five points worse than him. And then after that, you have to go to an open primary or, you know, party primary. And then who the hell knows what happens? You're going to seem fractious and weird and divided while Trump's coming up the other side. So I think health permitting, they go with Joe. Do you have any kind of working relationship with the Biden administration or any contact with them these days? I've got contacts up and down the administration, but I haven't talked to Joe since he took office. And I'd like Joe's person's number that if I ever wanted to call, I could. But it's like, I'm not going to go try and bug the president. Yeah. Well, I don't know. Sometimes everybody's there working the inside, working the outside.

You should know we are working some stuff on the inside, but it's not, you know, it's not like, like Oval Office type stuff. Got it. All right. Well, listen, Andrew, I appreciate the time. Before I let you go, I mean, you know, most people by now probably have your Twitter handle, but where should folks go if they want to keep up with some of the stuff you're working on and all that? Hey, guys, let's make the changes that you've wanted to see. We can do it. We have to do it because this next three years is the time. So go to forwardparty.com, sign up for the newsletter, donate two bucks, just as a sign that you think. Donate $3 because that's the number of political parties we need. The worst number of parties is one. The second worst is two. And what would be exponentially better is three. So it's forwardparty.com. You can find me at andreoyang.com. But happy holidays and let's make some changes. It's just math as a political candidate I've heard say many times before. Andrew Yang, thank you so much for the time.

I appreciate it. Let's do it again sometime soon Yeah, stay Tangled Thanks Isaac Our newsletter is written by Isaac Saul Edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady Ari Weitzman And produced in conjunction with Tangled's social media manager Magdalena Bokova

Who also helped create our logo The podcast is edited by Trevor Eichhorn, and music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. For more from Tangle, subscribe to our newsletter or check out our content archives at www.readtangle.com. Thanks for watching! Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.

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