Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / Andrew Yang: How to Move FORWARD, Create a Democracy That Works For Us, Media's Role In Dividing Us + Bold New Ideas That Make Sense

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Andrew Yang: How to Move FORWARD, Create a Democracy That Works For Us, Media's Role In Dividing Us + Bold New Ideas That Make Sense · QUESTION EVERYTHING

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Speaker 1: The following podcast is a dear media production.
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Speaker 2: How do I ask my boss for a raise?
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Speaker 3: Every Tuesday, Big things.
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Speaker 4: Happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever, pretty strong.
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Speaker 4: I'm Danielle Robe, and each week my guests and I
1:00
Speaker 4: have conversations that put a new spin on pretty This
1:06
Speaker 4: is pretty smart. Andrew Yang ran for president of the
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Speaker 4: United States in twenty twenty as a Democratic candidate. Shortly after,
1:16
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty one, he ran for mayor of New York.
1:20
Speaker 4: Before that, he was an American businessman, entrepreneur, an attorney.
1:28
Speaker 4: If you ask Andrew, he'll tell you humbly, he's just
1:32
Speaker 4: a guy. I have to disagree with him on that
1:34
Speaker 4: one phrase. I find him to be pretty remarkable, and
1:38
Speaker 4: I have since his presidential run. He presented creative solutions
1:43
Speaker 4: and was the only candidate talking about universal basic income,
1:47
Speaker 4: where he proposed to give every American one thousand dollars
1:50
Speaker 4: a month. Quite literally, anything tech related or the rise
1:54
Speaker 4: of automation, which determines the future of jobs and financial
1:57
Speaker 4: health in America, and mental health. He wanted to have
2:01
Speaker 4: a White House psychologist. Andrew Yang is driven by human
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Speaker 4: centered politics and most distinctly, in my mind, pragmatic solutions.
2:11
Speaker 4: You know, in therapy and in research, you'll often hear
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Speaker 4: the phrase the presenting problem is not the real problem.
2:18
Speaker 4: In my mind, That's why people are often so discouraged
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Speaker 4: by politics. Nowadays, we keep putting a band aid on
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Speaker 4: issues instead of fixing the foundational ones. Andrew Yang is
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Speaker 4: trying earnestly and persistently to fix the system, one that
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Speaker 4: he says is broken and simply does not work for people.
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Speaker 4: I agree with him fullheartedly. People are being let down
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Speaker 4: and instead of solving problems, we just point fingers. But
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Speaker 4: Andrew Yang gives me hope. He really does. He is
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Speaker 4: continuing to push forward with solutions that will stretch your
2:54
Speaker 4: idea of what is possible. For instance, what if we
2:57
Speaker 4: start taxing robots, so if we completely change how primary
3:02
Speaker 4: elections are carried out. What if there was a way
3:04
Speaker 4: to take big money out of politics. What if we
3:07
Speaker 4: got rid of our two party system he's trying. He
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Speaker 4: just launched a third party, the Forward Party, the same
3:14
Speaker 4: title as his recent book, Forward, in which he lays
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Speaker 4: out how he believes we can piece this country back together.
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Speaker 4: And as he says, turn the clock forward today. I'm
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Speaker 4: really excited for us to look forward with him. So, Andrew,
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Speaker 4: you are driven by human centered politics. I'm driven by
3:36
Speaker 4: human centered interviews. So while we are going to talk
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Speaker 4: politics a little bit, I'm really really excited to just
3:42
Speaker 4: get to know Andrew Yang the human a little bit more.
3:45
Speaker 4: And I want to start sort of at the beginning.
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Speaker 4: I heard that when you told your parents you were
3:49
Speaker 4: launching a campaign to run for president, your mom said,
3:53
Speaker 4: that's nice, very relatable.
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Speaker 1: My parents didn't think it was for real for a while,
3:58
Speaker 1: but they said they I did think it was for real.
4:01
Speaker 1: They weren't too happy about it. My mom was worried
4:03
Speaker 1: about my safety and my family of life because we
4:07
Speaker 1: have two young kids, and you know, I mean, I
4:10
Speaker 1: guess that's what moms or grandmoms would think. When I
4:13
Speaker 1: went back to Taiwan to visit my extended family, including
4:17
Speaker 1: my parents, right before I declared my campaign, I told
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Speaker 1: them all I was running for president, and they just
4:24
Speaker 1: reacted like it was like past the salt, like no
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Speaker 1: one cared, in part because I don't think anyone understood
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Speaker 1: what it meant that, you know, it was just sort
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Speaker 1: of like, oh, my son says he's running for president.
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Speaker 1: Because I was such an anonymous dude at that time,
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Speaker 1: you know, it was just a guy.
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Speaker 4: You're still just a guy except for your ultra famous
4:44
Speaker 4: Is it weird when people come up to you or
4:46
Speaker 4: what's your relationship with that fame? Like now, I.
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Speaker 1: Genuinely don't think about it very much until someone comes
4:52
Speaker 1: up to me and it's like, hey, are you Andrew Yang,
4:53
Speaker 1: and I get a stop or whatever. I'm like sure,
4:55
Speaker 1: and then that's a very positive interaction. So I'd say
4:57
Speaker 1: ninety nine percent of the interactions take that form. I mean,
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Speaker 1: I guess I should be a little bit more mindful,
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Speaker 1: and maybe I'm just really, really self absorbed Danielle, where
5:09
Speaker 1: it just does not occur to me that anyone knows
5:11
Speaker 1: who the heck.
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Speaker 4: I am actually. After reading your book, my best guess
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Speaker 4: is you are one of the only politicians that are
5:19
Speaker 4: not self absorbed. But we'll get into that. One of
5:22
Speaker 4: the things as you were running that really touched me
5:24
Speaker 4: was your dad's story. And I know you've told it
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Speaker 4: a bunch of times, but in thinking about how he
5:29
Speaker 4: grew up on a peanut farm, in a house without
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Speaker 4: a floor, and in one generation his son was running
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Speaker 4: for president, I kept thinking that could only happen in America.
5:40
Speaker 4: And while so much is wrong, still so much seems
5:44
Speaker 4: to be right to that extent. How did your parents
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Speaker 4: upbringing inform your campaign and your values.
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Speaker 1: I did not realize the environment my dad grew up
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Speaker 1: in until I was maybe nineteen or twenty, and I
5:56
Speaker 1: went back to Taiwan and visited the island, and I
5:59
Speaker 1: was with my parents, and we were driving from the
6:01
Speaker 1: northern end of the island to the southern end, And
6:03
Speaker 1: then we got off the highway and my dad was like, hey,
6:06
Speaker 1: you want to see the farm where I grew up?
6:07
Speaker 1: And I was like sure, And now it does have
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Speaker 1: a floor, like they'd put in a floor at some point.
6:12
Speaker 1: But it's just like my dad where he didn't even
6:14
Speaker 1: tell his relatives that he was coming and he hadn't
6:17
Speaker 1: been there like twenty years or something like. So is
6:19
Speaker 1: this ridiculous? Like my dad's a terrible, terrible correspondent, shall
6:24
Speaker 1: we say so? So I saw the village and it
6:29
Speaker 1: was so endearing where they were shocked to have my
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Speaker 1: dad and his americanized son stroll in, and then they
6:38
Speaker 1: were giving me peanuts and whatnot because it's a peanut
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Speaker 1: farm and that was like the main like the main
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Speaker 1: hospitality you would extend. Saying that, I was like, oh
6:48
Speaker 1: my gosh. My dad got from the freaking farm to
6:51
Speaker 1: the States where he got his PhD in physics and
6:54
Speaker 1: invented things for IBM and GE. And when I was
6:57
Speaker 1: a kid, I was like, hey, how must you get
6:58
Speaker 1: when you get a patent? And he told me, you know,
7:01
Speaker 1: five hundred bucks and I was like, that doesn't seem
7:03
Speaker 1: like a very good deal. And then he said, well,
7:05
Speaker 1: I also get a salary so I can feed house
7:08
Speaker 1: and clothing and your brother. So you know, you don't
7:12
Speaker 1: really understand it until you're a bit older. But certainly
7:17
Speaker 1: the fact that my parents came so far made me
7:19
Speaker 1: think that I should try to do something too. I'm
7:23
Speaker 1: not sure if other children of immigrants feel this, but
7:25
Speaker 1: you're like, wow, my parents made it from A to
7:28
Speaker 1: whatever a letter P, so I should go from P
7:32
Speaker 1: to X, Y or Z or at least, I you know,
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Speaker 1: I think I should try. Though. What's interesting, Danielle' is
7:39
Speaker 1: that that's not really the messages you get from your parents.
7:41
Speaker 1: My parents just get good grades to get a good job,
7:43
Speaker 1: and then they thought I was all set when I
7:45
Speaker 1: had a good job, and then I was like, yeah,
7:47
Speaker 1: this job's not cool, and like I went off to
7:49
Speaker 1: try and build something, which failed. But yeah, like, you know,
7:53
Speaker 1: see how hard my parents worked. I just thought, if
7:55
Speaker 1: you work really hard, should be able to make something happen.
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Speaker 1: And I'm a deep love and appreciation for this country.
8:00
Speaker 1: I think that it is something that we've lost or
8:04
Speaker 1: gotten away from where it seems like a lot of
8:06
Speaker 1: the political discussion right now is about whether America is
8:11
Speaker 1: irredeemable or awesome or something like that, you know. And
8:14
Speaker 1: I think most people think that America's great place that
8:18
Speaker 1: has some problems like that's and anytime you question whether
8:23
Speaker 1: it's a great place, I think of all the people
8:25
Speaker 1: that are still trying to come here.
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Speaker 4: I was wondering if there was a moment that sort
8:29
Speaker 4: of catapulted your decision to run for president. Was it
8:34
Speaker 4: a slow burn or did something happen.
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Speaker 1: I read a book by I named Andy Stern that
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Speaker 1: was written in twenty fifteen. It was called Raising the Floor,
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Speaker 1: and it was about universal basic income. It was very
8:45
Speaker 1: compelling to me because he was a labor guy saying
8:48
Speaker 1: that we're gonna automate the jobs away, so we should
8:51
Speaker 1: move to universal bask income. And at the end of
8:53
Speaker 1: his book, Danielle, you can look this up. You can
8:55
Speaker 1: buy a copy of the book, it says someone should
8:57
Speaker 1: run for a president on universal basic income and twenty fifteen.
9:01
Speaker 1: And so I read his book and was like, yeah,
9:03
Speaker 1: he's right, someone to totally do that. And then after
9:05
Speaker 1: Trump won, I thought I'm going to do this. So
9:09
Speaker 1: the key point as to the runner don't run decision
9:15
Speaker 1: was having lunch with Andy Stern a Sechuan restaurant, not
9:19
Speaker 1: like a Chancy one in New York City in Chelsea
9:22
Speaker 1: when I sit with him and I asked him, so,
9:25
Speaker 1: I read your book, is anyone actually going to run
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Speaker 1: for president on universal basic income as you champion? And
9:32
Speaker 1: he was like, no, of course not. And then I
9:35
Speaker 1: said I will do it then, And so that that
9:38
Speaker 1: was decision point for me, Danielle, where I was saying
9:41
Speaker 1: to my wife and anyone else, it's like, well, well,
9:43
Speaker 1: you know, if I have lunch with Andy Stern, because
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Speaker 1: I figure if anyone was going to run for president
9:47
Speaker 1: universal basic income, he would know because he'd literally written
9:50
Speaker 1: the book about universal basic income saying some much should
9:52
Speaker 1: run on this. So that was an approximately March of
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Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, that lunch, and then after that I said, okay,
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Speaker 1: I'm doing this thing. And when I asked Andy too,
10:03
Speaker 1: because I wanted him to support me, I said, so,
10:05
Speaker 1: Andy was the first thing that someone should do if
10:07
Speaker 1: they're going to run for president because he's a very,
10:09
Speaker 1: very seasoned figure. He ran the biggest labor union in
10:13
Speaker 1: the country, the Seiuh Wow, And so he said to me, well,
10:16
Speaker 1: you should figure out how to raise a few hundred
10:19
Speaker 1: thousand dollars from friends and family, and I wanted to
10:22
Speaker 1: demonstrate to him that I was serious, because you know,
10:25
Speaker 1: I thought him supporting me would be positive. So I
10:28
Speaker 1: then reached out, you know, a day or two later,
10:31
Speaker 1: with a spreadsheet of being like, here two hundred people
10:34
Speaker 1: that I think I can get to give me, you know,
10:36
Speaker 1: a thousand dollars or more, you know, just sort of
10:38
Speaker 1: demonstrating that, you know, I was capable of this. But
10:41
Speaker 1: what was interesting is that Andy immediately recognized in me
10:45
Speaker 1: that I was kind of like a builder entrepreneur type
10:48
Speaker 1: because he'd run organizations, and so he respected the fact
10:52
Speaker 1: that I'd started to run a nonprofit myself. Some people
10:55
Speaker 1: don't understand what that entails. Andy knew what that meant,
10:58
Speaker 1: and so he took it serious from the beginning, though
11:02
Speaker 1: I will say he later told me it's like, hey,
11:05
Speaker 1: you know, you surpassed my wildest expectations. So he was
11:08
Speaker 1: in the camp of people that I think was like
11:10
Speaker 1: kind of muting the you know, skepticism, but he so
11:14
Speaker 1: he was supportive early on that that was the point
11:18
Speaker 1: when I knew I was going to do it.
11:20
Speaker 4: There was there's something that I called the dead rat problem.
11:23
Speaker 4: I have a a friend who's an attorney, and she
11:26
Speaker 4: went to her first day at her law firm after
11:28
Speaker 4: law school, and they all the partners sat the first
11:31
Speaker 4: years down and they said, do not come to us
11:34
Speaker 4: and point out a dead rat in the corner unless
11:37
Speaker 4: you're going to also tell us how you're going to
11:39
Speaker 4: clean it up. And the story you just told me
11:43
Speaker 4: is I think a unique example of somebody who sees
11:48
Speaker 4: a problem and says I'm going to fix it. It's so rare,
11:52
Speaker 4: especially nowadays. What in you constantly thinks I'm going to
11:57
Speaker 4: fix this problem because you did it in business too.
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Speaker 1: Maybe it is the child of immigrants thing where you
12:03
Speaker 1: get trained like no one's going to do it unless
12:06
Speaker 1: you do it. I think a lot of it was
12:09
Speaker 1: that i'd been an entrepreneur. And to your point, Daniel,
12:14
Speaker 1: most people fall into a couple of camps where this
12:16
Speaker 1: is concerned. Number one is they wouldn't have the wherewithal
12:19
Speaker 1: to start a you know, an organization or a presidential camp.
12:23
Speaker 1: That's a knock on people. I mean it's like an
12:25
Speaker 1: incredibly heavy lift, like you would need to have a
12:28
Speaker 1: lot of confidence or resources, or experience or a network
12:33
Speaker 1: or something like that. In order to just raise your
12:35
Speaker 1: hand and say I'm going to run for mayor I'm
12:37
Speaker 1: gonna run for congress or like whatever it is. And
12:39
Speaker 1: then the people that reach a certain degree of success
12:43
Speaker 1: often are being driven very very specific directions because of
12:47
Speaker 1: the way they achieved that success, you know what I mean. Like,
12:49
Speaker 1: let's say that you were a world famous TV personally
12:53
Speaker 1: and then you thought, maybe I'll run for office or something.
12:56
Speaker 1: But the fact is the TV network's gonna pay millions
12:59
Speaker 1: of dollars just doing after what you're doing, the like,
13:02
Speaker 1: am I really going to throw this all away to
13:05
Speaker 1: do this thing that's going to be very high So
13:07
Speaker 1: you wind up with the vast majority of people not
13:10
Speaker 1: in position to just drop everything examining to solve this problem.
13:13
Speaker 1: I had an unusual profile where I actually had the ability,
13:17
Speaker 1: I thought to do something important and impactful, and I
13:23
Speaker 1: was relatively in my case, I'd started a nonprofit and
13:27
Speaker 1: you know, ran it and was getting eventually like a
13:30
Speaker 1: salary from the nonprofit. But when I decided to move on,
13:34
Speaker 1: then it was like, Okay, I will run for president
13:37
Speaker 1: and do this thing. I know it sounds funny saying
13:38
Speaker 1: I'll run for president, but if you have these phases
13:43
Speaker 1: of your career in a particular way. I tend to
13:46
Speaker 1: think of my career my time in multi year projects.
13:51
Speaker 1: So I ran a company for six years, six and
13:55
Speaker 1: a half years, and then I started ran a nonprofit
13:57
Speaker 1: for six and a half years, and then I and
14:00
Speaker 1: for president for three years essentially, And so I had
14:03
Speaker 1: to be able to make a calculation that, oh, I'm
14:06
Speaker 1: going to spend three years doing this, and I can
14:08
Speaker 1: bear that risk, you know, I can accept time without
14:12
Speaker 1: a salary or whatever it happens to be. And that's
14:14
Speaker 1: just a very very narrow band of humans right now,
14:17
Speaker 1: you know, like the vast majority of people will be
14:19
Speaker 1: in either one category or the other. I wish there
14:22
Speaker 1: were more people just walking around. When some is totally idle,
14:26
Speaker 1: that's when I think they're going to do something interesting,
14:28
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Maybe there are people listening
14:29
Speaker 1: to this that that resemble it. You know, because like
14:32
Speaker 1: as soon as the world discovers you, when you're doing
14:35
Speaker 1: something very very productive, the problem is you're you're not
14:38
Speaker 1: going to put it down and do something else.
14:41
Speaker 4: Well said, I've never thought about it that way. What
14:44
Speaker 4: is something that nobody tells you about running for president?
14:46
Speaker 4: What was shocking once you got onto that stage.
14:49
Speaker 1: So the thing that shocked me was just how ego
14:52
Speaker 1: wrenching and personal at all was where early on in
14:55
Speaker 1: the campaign no one wanted to give us time of day.
14:58
Speaker 1: I'd have friends host events and even listening to a
15:01
Speaker 1: close friend of yours introduce you and say, hey, I
15:03
Speaker 1: don't think he really has a shot, but let's be
15:06
Speaker 1: nice to him. He's trying to get some good ideas out,
15:08
Speaker 1: like like like this is literally like good friends of
15:09
Speaker 1: mine who are actually sticking their neck out for me.
15:13
Speaker 1: And they were the good ones. Danielle, Wow, you know
15:15
Speaker 1: I have very very good friends who just refused to
15:17
Speaker 1: lift a finger, and you know, and yeah, like I'm
15:20
Speaker 1: not friends with some of those people frankly, because you know,
15:22
Speaker 1: life is short. I mean I'm like a fairly like
15:27
Speaker 1: graceful dude where it's like I don't hold it against
15:30
Speaker 1: you know, virtually anyone if you like, they decide I
15:32
Speaker 1: wasn't right for them or whatnot, but that you know,
15:34
Speaker 1: it changes your relationships. So I think that's the thing
15:36
Speaker 1: that surprised me.
15:38
Speaker 4: Zach shared a quote with me of yours that he
15:41
Speaker 4: really loved. He said that you say every time you
15:43
Speaker 4: try something new, you lose some friends and you gain
15:46
Speaker 4: some new ones.
15:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true. I did not realize the extent to
15:50
Speaker 1: which that would be true on the presidential.
15:53
Speaker 4: You know, you mentioned some of the other presidential candidates.
15:56
Speaker 4: What was the most surprising thing about each of the
15:59
Speaker 4: top Democratic presidential candidates that you learned from backstage conversations
16:05
Speaker 4: at the debate?
16:06
Speaker 1: So the candidates were barely warm to me to different degrees.
16:11
Speaker 1: Bernie genuinely liked me. I could tell, well, I could
16:14
Speaker 1: not tell. And then eventually he just said to a
16:16
Speaker 1: journalist randomly, was like, I like Andrew. And then I
16:19
Speaker 1: saw this story. And then the next time I saw him,
16:21
Speaker 1: I was like, hey, Bernie, thank you for saying something
16:23
Speaker 1: nice about me the reporter. And he was like, of
16:24
Speaker 1: course I liked you, Andrew. You've got a lot of
16:26
Speaker 1: good ideas. And then we got into another debate stage
16:29
Speaker 1: one time, and then after our exchange, he came up
16:33
Speaker 1: to me during the TV break and was like, nice work, Andrew.
16:36
Speaker 1: He like, Bernie was like kind of you know, like
16:39
Speaker 1: a cranky uncle, but generally benevolent one. I mean, I
16:43
Speaker 1: supported Bernie in twenty sixteen. I don't know if people
16:45
Speaker 1: know that, I mean, I was public about that. Whatever.
16:48
Speaker 1: Other candidates, you know, they really do kind of reflect
16:52
Speaker 1: who they seem to be on camera. Elizabeth Warren is
16:56
Speaker 1: a Wonukee law professor who genuinely read my book. Pete
17:00
Speaker 1: is this earnest midwesterner. His husband is delightful chest. It's
17:06
Speaker 1: a really good dude. What else can I say about
17:08
Speaker 1: the candidates? They really are what they seemed like. Joe
17:13
Speaker 1: Biden in particular, Joe was very very gregarious and warm
17:17
Speaker 1: toward me early on, at a time when you did
17:21
Speaker 1: not have to be. And so because of that, I
17:24
Speaker 1: always had a warmth for Joe, because I used to
17:28
Speaker 1: joke with people, and you could tell a lot about
17:30
Speaker 1: a political figure based upon how they reacted to Andrew
17:33
Speaker 1: Gang in the early days. There was some other and
17:37
Speaker 1: this is actually true. None of the front runners fall
17:39
Speaker 1: in this category, but a couple of like the more
17:41
Speaker 1: marginal candidates had like a real negativity towards me early on.
17:46
Speaker 1: It was like who the heck is this guy? Kind
17:47
Speaker 1: of thing. But all the front runners. Maybe that that's
17:50
Speaker 1: what makes maybe there's more confident or generous or better politicians.
17:55
Speaker 1: But the front runners were always really good to me
17:58
Speaker 1: and really, you know, like I think gave that off
18:03
Speaker 1: more or less to each other as well, at least
18:05
Speaker 1: in the observations I had of everyone interacting.
18:09
Speaker 4: It's funny when people ask me about my favorite interviews,
18:12
Speaker 4: the same goes. I think the more successful or more
18:16
Speaker 4: famous that people are, the kinder more open they are, Like,
18:21
Speaker 4: it's the reality stars that are that give me a
18:23
Speaker 4: tough time. It's really an interesting thing. So I previously
18:27
Speaker 4: worked in legacy media, like very very aware that the
18:30
Speaker 4: stories that are told are partly the stories that the
18:34
Speaker 4: candidates share and in large part the story that the
18:38
Speaker 4: media portrays. What do you think that the media got
18:41
Speaker 4: wrong about you?
18:43
Speaker 1: Well, first, I think the media got wrong that I
18:46
Speaker 1: was there, because there's a lee when the media get wrong.
18:52
Speaker 1: It's like I was there and should be treated like
18:57
Speaker 1: any other candidate, if for no other reason. That there
19:00
Speaker 1: were a lot of Americas that kept behind me. And
19:02
Speaker 1: I say this in my book you probably saw, but
19:05
Speaker 1: when they were dismissing someone like Mary and Williamson, I
19:09
Speaker 1: just thought to myself, didn't Marian Williams get like, you know,
19:12
Speaker 1: one hundred two hundred thousand Americans to donate to her
19:15
Speaker 1: like that, doesn't that mean something like, you know, doesn't
19:18
Speaker 1: that then give her the right to be able to
19:22
Speaker 1: address the American people because a lot of Americans want
19:24
Speaker 1: to hear from her. But even like that, there was
19:26
Speaker 1: a lot of a selective exposure that various networks would
19:31
Speaker 1: give people. I thought the guiltiest network of this was MSNBC.
19:35
Speaker 1: Like MSNBC really seemed to just be playing favorites and
19:38
Speaker 1: totally dismissing some candidates, myself among them. I mean, a
19:41
Speaker 1: producer later came out an MSNBC and said, hey, there
19:44
Speaker 1: was a list of candidates I was given, never an interview,
19:46
Speaker 1: and you were one of them, and there was no
19:49
Speaker 1: reasoning given.
19:50
Speaker 4: That's so strange considering they were so left leaning and
19:54
Speaker 4: you were a Democratic candidate.
19:56
Speaker 1: MSNBC is the most fake left leaning thing in the world,
19:59
Speaker 1: in my opinion. And you know, it's like they talk
20:03
Speaker 1: about very very specific things that I see as distractions, honestly.
20:08
Speaker 1: But when it came to burn Sanders that they were
20:10
Speaker 1: sandbagging him right and left, you know, in sixteen, very blatant.
20:14
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty, pretty blatant again. So you know, I mean,
20:19
Speaker 1: you can take that for what it's worth.
20:22
Speaker 4: What did running for president and running for mayor of
20:25
Speaker 4: New York teach you about yourself?
20:27
Speaker 1: Well, the main thing it taught me how lucky I
20:29
Speaker 1: am to be married to my wife Emlin. I mean,
20:31
Speaker 1: that's what she's had to put up with someone. I
20:36
Speaker 1: think the main thing I learned is that I was
20:39
Speaker 1: capable of certain types of performances or stretching myself because
20:43
Speaker 1: you know, you start running for president and there's a
20:45
Speaker 1: process and a climb. I'll tell you something. I don't
20:48
Speaker 1: know if this is my book, but like we show
20:50
Speaker 1: up to the first presidential debate. I've had zero practice
20:53
Speaker 1: for said debate, and my schedule has just been like
20:56
Speaker 1: just doo dooo do It's like, oh, here's a debate.
20:58
Speaker 1: And then and I was definitely one of the parties
21:00
Speaker 1: guilty of this, which is I was like whatever, you know,
21:02
Speaker 1: it's like I've done debates before, I've been on TV before.
21:05
Speaker 1: It's going to be the same stuff. It was something different,
21:07
Speaker 1: and so that first of you know, it wasn't a
21:09
Speaker 1: great night for another reasons. And so there was like
21:13
Speaker 1: this growth process where it's like okay, so like what
21:17
Speaker 1: is this thing? It's a presidential debate, I guess we
21:21
Speaker 1: should prepare for the second one, and so we started preparing,
21:25
Speaker 1: and so I had a degree of self belief where
21:28
Speaker 1: I was like, well, I'll be able to figure out
21:29
Speaker 1: when I need to figure out. But there was a
21:31
Speaker 1: real growth process, you know, being on stage the second time,
21:35
Speaker 1: the third time, the fourth time, the fifth time, and
21:36
Speaker 1: on and on. And that played out in different ways
21:40
Speaker 1: in different areas. One example, I'll give and I absolutely
21:45
Speaker 1: hated remote cable hits and was terrible at them. I
21:49
Speaker 1: was awkward. I'd just be staring at the camera and like,
21:51
Speaker 1: you know, it was not winning. And I got better.
21:57
Speaker 1: And the thing that blew my mind, Danielle, was that
21:59
Speaker 1: after during my campaign ended, CNN calls me up and
22:02
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, you want to come on and talk
22:04
Speaker 1: about the race and the rest of it. And I
22:06
Speaker 1: thought to myself, it's like, I hated those hits and
22:09
Speaker 1: was terrible at them, and now you're asking me to
22:11
Speaker 1: do them, so maybe I'm not that terrible at them.
22:15
Speaker 1: Like that, there was like a growth process that I
22:19
Speaker 1: had underestimated. I did a book talk the other night
22:22
Speaker 1: and it was forty five minutes long, and it was
22:26
Speaker 1: something like a cross between a political event, a book talk,
22:29
Speaker 1: and a comedic performance. The whole thing was so weird
22:34
Speaker 1: and wild, and that's the kind of thing that never
22:36
Speaker 1: would have happened at the beginning of the campaign.
22:38
Speaker 4: Right, you got way more comfortable. That's wonderful. You say
22:42
Speaker 4: that running for president actually requires qualities that would make
22:45
Speaker 4: a terrible leader. So you wrote you function on a party.
22:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally.
22:50
Speaker 4: It made me laugh. You write you function on appearance.
22:53
Speaker 4: Appearance becomes your role, Empathy becomes optional or even unhelpful,
22:58
Speaker 4: and leadership becomes the appear of leadership. I'm about to
23:03
Speaker 4: ask you a really open ended question, so go for it,
23:07
Speaker 4: however you see fit. But I just kept thinking, how
23:12
Speaker 4: did we get here? Like, how is someone like Marjorie
23:16
Speaker 4: Taylor Green in office? How did the political divide become
23:20
Speaker 4: so cavernous? I don't remember it being like this when
23:23
Speaker 4: I was growing up.
23:25
Speaker 1: It's new, it's new and worse. I'm happy to or
23:29
Speaker 1: unhappy to say so. I've now learned about our political history.
23:34
Speaker 1: The two party system originated in approximately, you know, the
23:38
Speaker 1: eighteen sixties, so we've had it for one hundred and
23:41
Speaker 1: six years. So it's been with us a while. But
23:43
Speaker 1: the two parties were more or less ideologically indistinguishable until
23:46
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, so we've had fifty years of the
23:49
Speaker 1: two parties kind of going like this over time. And
23:53
Speaker 1: then in the eighties they got rid of something called
23:55
Speaker 1: the fairness doctrine, and then cable news came about. So
23:59
Speaker 1: if you think back, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, they're all relatively
24:03
Speaker 1: recent additions to the media landscape. They came about in
24:07
Speaker 1: the nineties essentially, so we've had thirty years of the
24:12
Speaker 1: two parties diverging and then the media landscape also diverging.
24:15
Speaker 1: You and I are maybe old enough to remember when
24:18
Speaker 1: there were just three relatively indistinguishable news broadcasts and you
24:22
Speaker 1: were just like, am I gonna choose Tom Brokaw, Peter
24:25
Speaker 1: Jennings or whoever the third You know what I mean.
24:27
Speaker 1: It's like, it's like the same stuff, but now it's
24:29
Speaker 1: splinter and then the Internet and social media have splintered
24:31
Speaker 1: it further. So you have these political incentives where people
24:35
Speaker 1: are rewarded for catering to the ten to twenty percent
24:38
Speaker 1: most extreme on either side, and then media organizations were
24:41
Speaker 1: the same incentives, and then you look up and think, like,
24:43
Speaker 1: how did it get so bad. And to your point
24:45
Speaker 1: about someone like Marjorie Taylor Green is being in congress
24:49
Speaker 1: where in each congressional district eighty three percent of them
24:54
Speaker 1: are either very blue or very red. So if you
24:56
Speaker 1: win the nomination, you win. And one product of that
24:59
Speaker 1: is that if you are a very extreme candidate in
25:03
Speaker 1: today's Republican party, you probably have a better chance of winning,
25:06
Speaker 1: not a worse chance, and then you easily beat whatever
25:10
Speaker 1: Democrat comes up. So in that landscape, then we're rewarding
25:16
Speaker 1: those kinds of figures. And if you come up in
25:18
Speaker 1: your collegial and pleasant and rational, the press will never
25:24
Speaker 1: give you time of day. Local press is disappearing anyway,
25:27
Speaker 1: So all of the incentives then are towards the extremes,
25:30
Speaker 1: which is why, by the way, we feel so negatively
25:33
Speaker 1: about the future of the country, and why I have
25:36
Speaker 1: decided to take matters into my own hands as per usual,
25:39
Speaker 1: and try to start a unifying, independent political movement to
25:43
Speaker 1: try to break up the polarization of the Duopita. And
25:47
Speaker 1: the big thing I want to convey to people is
25:50
Speaker 1: that the parties are made up, because really in the
25:52
Speaker 1: constitution about the parties, this is like made themselves up.
25:57
Speaker 1: And then we're sharing power back and forth for one
25:59
Speaker 1: and again they were like the same types of people
26:03
Speaker 1: for a century. They only diverged into what we see
26:07
Speaker 1: now in the last thirty years or so. So what
26:12
Speaker 1: is the path forward. Either we're going to let this
26:14
Speaker 1: doopoly tear us apart, reduce us to civil war two
26:18
Speaker 1: point zero and violence and strife, or we're going to
26:21
Speaker 1: change the incentives of our political system to reward people
26:24
Speaker 1: for being more reasonable, rational, cooperative. And the way to
26:29
Speaker 1: do that is to make it so it's not the
26:31
Speaker 1: most extreme tend to fifteen percent on either side electing
26:35
Speaker 1: eighty three percent or representatives, but instead fifty one percent
26:39
Speaker 1: of the voters in each district, and in that environment,
26:41
Speaker 1: someone like Margory Taylor Green probably does not win.
26:45
Speaker 4: Okay, so you mentioned the big breakup. I've been dumped before.
26:50
Speaker 4: It was not fun, but you were the dumpy. You
26:53
Speaker 4: dumped the Democratic Party. You now have the Forward Party.
26:58
Speaker 4: What are your big goals like? How would you describe
27:01
Speaker 4: the party's core values?
27:03
Speaker 1: The mission of the Ford Party is to enable the
27:07
Speaker 1: Ford Party to exist. What I mean by that right now,
27:12
Speaker 1: if you are an independent party, you get suppressed and
27:16
Speaker 1: exclude it from most races because of the dynamics of
27:20
Speaker 1: the two party system. This is their secret sauce. It
27:24
Speaker 1: turns out that sixty two percent of Americans one an
27:26
Speaker 1: alternative to the duopoly. But we keep being told can't
27:29
Speaker 1: have it, can't have it, And the main thing they'll
27:31
Speaker 1: say is like, oh, you're going to screw it up
27:33
Speaker 1: for one side or the other. Typically in this environment,
27:36
Speaker 1: I'll be like, oh, you're going to help the Republicans win,
27:38
Speaker 1: so don't do anything. So the first big step we
27:43
Speaker 1: have to take is to change the mechanics of our
27:47
Speaker 1: election so that you can vote for whomever you want
27:50
Speaker 1: and there is no spoiler effect. Now that sounds really difficult,
27:54
Speaker 1: but it's actually super easy. Alaska already did it where
27:57
Speaker 1: they switched from closed party primaries to open nonpartisan primary
28:02
Speaker 1: so anyone can vote for anyone and then you decide
28:05
Speaker 1: who wins via ranked choice voting, which means you can
28:07
Speaker 1: vote for whoever you want. You can rank the independent first,
28:11
Speaker 1: the Democrat second, you know, the Republican maybe not at all,
28:14
Speaker 1: to know who you are, and then not worry about
28:17
Speaker 1: somehow hurting the major party by voting for the independent first.
28:23
Speaker 1: So the Forward party has to try and fight for
28:27
Speaker 1: open primaries and ranked choice voting in different states around
28:29
Speaker 1: the country. And the magic is that all of this
28:32
Speaker 1: is determined at the state level. You don't have to
28:34
Speaker 1: get an Act of Congress, which we all know would
28:36
Speaker 1: be next to impossible. If enough of us get together
28:39
Speaker 1: and make this change in about half of the states
28:41
Speaker 1: around the country, just like they did in Alaska, and
28:44
Speaker 1: then you would see independent political movements sprout up very
28:48
Speaker 1: quickly because they can't be blocked out by the party
28:51
Speaker 1: primary system.
28:52
Speaker 4: Tell me if I'm wrong, But it also sounds like
28:55
Speaker 4: you wouldn't need as much money to run for office.
28:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right too, because right now, in order to
29:02
Speaker 1: run for office, how does it work in real life?
29:05
Speaker 1: You have to go and say, hey, I'm going to
29:07
Speaker 1: run as a Democratic Republican whichever party is kind of
29:09
Speaker 1: dominant in your area. And then everyone's gonna look at
29:12
Speaker 1: you and be like, well, if you're gonna run as
29:13
Speaker 1: a Democrat, who we have this other Democrat who's been
29:16
Speaker 1: climbing the ladder for a long time and they've got
29:18
Speaker 1: a million bucks? Do you have a million bucks? And
29:20
Speaker 1: then you'd be like no, they'd be like, well, then
29:22
Speaker 1: you know we're not gonna support you shouldn't run. Now,
29:25
Speaker 1: in this world of open primaries, you could be like, well,
29:28
Speaker 1: I'm going to run. I don't have a million bucks,
29:29
Speaker 1: but I can bug my friends and maybe get ten,
29:31
Speaker 1: twenty thirty thousand bucks, and then no one can stop you,
29:34
Speaker 1: because you know, it's just a democracy and there's no
29:38
Speaker 1: party boss, there's no one with a million bucks trying
29:40
Speaker 1: to bully you. Just do what you want, and then
29:43
Speaker 1: if you get enough people behind you, even if it's
29:47
Speaker 1: around just a single issue. Let's say you know that
29:51
Speaker 1: this past number of years hadn't happened, You're going to
29:53
Speaker 1: champion a universal based income, and ten percent of the
29:56
Speaker 1: people in your deck loved it. Even if the other
29:59
Speaker 1: person wasn't warmed initially, they would probably listen to you
30:04
Speaker 1: because they're like, oh, I watch your ten percent. In
30:07
Speaker 1: an environment where you had different people who were able
30:10
Speaker 1: to run on different platforms, this is a way you
30:12
Speaker 1: can mainstream new ideas very quickly. I hope this is
30:15
Speaker 1: exciting to people. It's funny that the Forward Party's main
30:19
Speaker 1: move is to try and fix the mechanics, because I'm
30:22
Speaker 1: just a really practical dude. I'm just like, well, you know,
30:24
Speaker 1: I could talk about all these other things with the
30:26
Speaker 1: fact is that you don't change the primary system to
30:30
Speaker 1: open primaries, then you know they're going to keep suppressing us.
30:34
Speaker 1: So if you have enough of us get together and
30:36
Speaker 1: say enough stuff. Dopolies not working. No one likes these parties.
30:40
Speaker 1: It's all made up there. They legitimately are suppressing you know,
30:44
Speaker 1: eighty percent plus of the American people. I don't that
30:49
Speaker 1: sounds extreme, but they really are. They right now ten
30:51
Speaker 1: percent of Americans like eighty three percent of our representatives,
30:54
Speaker 1: which leaves the rest of us being like what just happened.
30:56
Speaker 1: So that's the first task of the Forward Party. Get
30:58
Speaker 1: everyone together and just past ballot initiatives in states or
31:03
Speaker 1: country and cities around the country, so that we actually
31:06
Speaker 1: have a say in who our elected representatives are. And
31:10
Speaker 1: it's not just party insiders telling us.
31:11
Speaker 4: What's what I've heard? You say that you're not particularly
31:15
Speaker 4: interested in running for office again, So where does that
31:19
Speaker 4: leave you? What role would you play?
31:21
Speaker 1: Well? Right now, I want to elevate candidates who are
31:24
Speaker 1: running in the right way throughout the country in twenty
31:27
Speaker 1: twenty two. I haven't ruled anything out. You know, if
31:31
Speaker 1: I do run again. It probably won't be in this
31:34
Speaker 1: coming cycle, but the country is in bad shape, and
31:39
Speaker 1: because of folks who supported me this last number of years,
31:44
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm in a relatively narrow band of
31:46
Speaker 1: Americans who might be able to do something positive. It's
31:49
Speaker 1: a very very strange time. It's really messed up that
31:52
Speaker 1: there's like a giant leadership vacuum in this country. It'sar
31:55
Speaker 1: I think it's because of how powerful our market dynamics
31:59
Speaker 1: have become, where the media incentives and the political incentives
32:02
Speaker 1: are so strong that like the people that succeed within
32:04
Speaker 1: them aren't really people that are going against the green
32:08
Speaker 1: on the time. They're kind of just you know, telling
32:11
Speaker 1: people what they want to hear and you know get yet.
32:14
Speaker 1: So I do feel a real responsibility to try and
32:18
Speaker 1: do something positive, and that could include running for office again.
32:22
Speaker 1: Right now, it's party building, right now, it's forward party building.
32:25
Speaker 1: One of the tenets I want to express about board
32:28
Speaker 1: party is grace and tolerance I think is missing our
32:31
Speaker 1: politics today. You can disagree with me about whatever, but
32:34
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that one of us is worth any
32:37
Speaker 1: less than the other person, you know what I mean.
32:39
Speaker 1: And that's a lot of what's missing in American life.
32:42
Speaker 4: When you ran, you talk so openly about mental health.
32:45
Speaker 4: You said that we should have a White House psychologist.
32:49
Speaker 4: You were talking about AI and job automation, like things
32:54
Speaker 4: that really truly affect people day to day, and politicians
32:58
Speaker 4: often talk about discussing what affect Americans day to day,
33:02
Speaker 4: but they don't actually do it. How come you were
33:06
Speaker 4: the only candidate who was truly infusing humanity into politics, Like,
33:12
Speaker 4: how come no one else got that?
33:14
Speaker 1: I think most of it, Danielle, is because I was
33:17
Speaker 1: just a guy running for president, and so I would
33:20
Speaker 1: convey the things that were on my mind or on
33:22
Speaker 1: the minds of people that I talked to, whereas most
33:25
Speaker 1: other candidates have teams consultants who will sit with them
33:29
Speaker 1: and say, Okay, here's this interest group and here's what
33:32
Speaker 1: they care about. Here's this interest group, and here's what
33:35
Speaker 1: they care about.
33:36
Speaker 4: Yeah.
33:36
Speaker 1: Now, in my case, if I were to say mental
33:39
Speaker 1: health issues are core and no, caregivers should be valued
33:44
Speaker 1: appropriately and whatnot, some of these interest groups are not
33:47
Speaker 1: very visible caregivers. I'll use me example caregivers. I mean,
33:51
Speaker 1: there are a lot of caregivers, but for whatever reason,
33:53
Speaker 1: they're not like a potent political voice. Because of that,
33:56
Speaker 1: the consultants might not think about them. I think I
34:00
Speaker 1: talked about issues in a different way because I was
34:03
Speaker 1: basing them upon what I felt was important to families
34:07
Speaker 1: and Americans I've met or in my own life, you know,
34:11
Speaker 1: because certainly my family's had different types of issues and struggles.
34:16
Speaker 1: But most politicians don't operate that way. A twenty reason
34:20
Speaker 1: why campaign caught fires that people sensed I was a
34:23
Speaker 1: human being talking about it from like a fairly normal place.
34:28
Speaker 4: In your interviews. When I would watch you, I felt
34:33
Speaker 4: I felt included. You always spoke about every single marginalized group.
34:39
Speaker 4: You did a really great job of, I think, making
34:41
Speaker 4: people feel like you were their candidate, no matter who
34:45
Speaker 4: they were.
34:46
Speaker 1: You know, I'll tell you a story that made me
34:48
Speaker 1: very proud. I was on my book tour and I
34:50
Speaker 1: went to Des Moines, Iowa, mainly because I wanted to
34:52
Speaker 1: go back to Iowa, because you know, I'd spent so
34:54
Speaker 1: much time there. And this waitress had come to the
34:58
Speaker 1: event and thank you for caring about people like me,
35:02
Speaker 1: and she had taken off of work to come to
35:04
Speaker 1: this event and whatnot. And she said, the only people
35:07
Speaker 1: that I felt cared people like me were you and Bernie,
35:10
Speaker 1: and so I just wanted to thank you and also
35:12
Speaker 1: thank you for coming back. And that sort of thing
35:14
Speaker 1: made me feel really really good, great because that motivation
35:21
Speaker 1: actually shone through you know, like I I'm not much
35:25
Speaker 1: of a careerist. You know, it's like this is a
35:27
Speaker 1: highly irrational way to try and advance, you know, oneself.
35:31
Speaker 1: I mean, it's one reason why my Asian parents weren't
35:33
Speaker 1: pumped about it initially like that. But I think I
35:38
Speaker 1: can help people. There are times when I feel like
35:41
Speaker 1: the last few years in public life have really helped
35:44
Speaker 1: a lot of people. I mean, we helped advance cash relief,
35:47
Speaker 1: universal basic in comes now up to sixty five percent
35:49
Speaker 1: approval rating, which was not nowhere near that level when
35:52
Speaker 1: I was running. It was at twenty seven percent. So
35:54
Speaker 1: I joked, I didn't have been sixty five percent back then.
35:57
Speaker 1: You know, how I might be president.
35:59
Speaker 4: You might have been a lie ahead of your time.
36:01
Speaker 1: It's just that, you know, Unfortunately, the problems just keep
36:04
Speaker 1: getting nastier and freer simultaneously.
36:08
Speaker 4: One of those problems is definitely lack of regulation around tech.
36:14
Speaker 4: In Hillary Clinton's last book, somebody asked her what the
36:17
Speaker 4: largest issue, with all of her insider knowledge in years
36:20
Speaker 4: in Washington, what the largest issue facing America was. And
36:23
Speaker 4: she said, we are so behind in tech regulation that
36:26
Speaker 4: I don't know how Washington will catch up. And then
36:29
Speaker 4: I read that you said that social media is an
36:32
Speaker 4: existential threat moving forward and people in Washington are behind.
36:38
Speaker 4: I feel sort of dumb, asking, but what is the threat?
36:40
Speaker 4: Is it cybersecurity?
36:43
Speaker 1: It's a complete disintegration of public trust and thoughts like
36:48
Speaker 1: non functioning democracy that no one has any faith in,
36:52
Speaker 1: which probably sounds pretty close to where we are. Cybersecurity
36:56
Speaker 1: is part of it because there are a lot of
36:57
Speaker 1: foreign actors that are in there and messing with us.
37:00
Speaker 1: I'd say a related threat is that we are losing
37:04
Speaker 1: our minds in social media is significant reason why seeing
37:08
Speaker 1: record levels of anxiety and depression, particularly among young people,
37:11
Speaker 1: particularly among teenage girls, that are hand in hand with
37:16
Speaker 1: social media use. They're making two hundred billion dollars a
37:19
Speaker 1: year off of selling and selling our data. So a
37:22
Speaker 1: mat of society of rats and amaze just kind of
37:25
Speaker 1: you know, being driven interacted in different ways, maybe by
37:29
Speaker 1: foreign actors, maybe by whoever has the most money, you know.
37:34
Speaker 1: And then you imagine that this country is to solve
37:37
Speaker 1: its problems high functioning democracy harder and harder because of
37:41
Speaker 1: the stirring of reality. Really a lot of people right
37:45
Speaker 1: now we're seeing it with different aspects of the pandemic
37:49
Speaker 1: in this time, or vote totals or whatever. It's like
37:51
Speaker 1: you can argue for any set of facts. We're very,
37:53
Speaker 1: very close at this point, Danielle to look, there's a
37:57
Speaker 1: video of my doing something terrible, Like I do something
38:00
Speaker 1: that would make me completely reprehensible as a human being.
38:03
Speaker 1: I could just show up the next day and I
38:05
Speaker 1: didn't do it. That wasn't me like that, And then
38:08
Speaker 1: people and then like some people I'm comforious to joke
38:11
Speaker 1: about where he was like I shoot someone on Fifth
38:14
Speaker 1: Avenue and it'd be fine. And we thought about, like
38:17
Speaker 1: the kidding is he not kidding? I mean, part of
38:19
Speaker 1: it is because we're entering a realm of deep fakes,
38:23
Speaker 1: where you can have doctored videos and AI enabled synthetic
38:29
Speaker 1: videos that will make it so that if I do
38:32
Speaker 1: do something terrible, I can just be like, you know,
38:33
Speaker 1: it's fake. And in that environment, how can you have
38:38
Speaker 1: a functioning electorate or functioning seed. It's next to impossible.
38:42
Speaker 4: So I'm a millennial. I'm thirty, and I have a
38:46
Speaker 4: significant amount of peers who have said that they really
38:51
Speaker 4: think about not having children because of the state of
38:53
Speaker 4: the world and where they feel like it's heading. When
38:58
Speaker 4: I talk to my dad, who is the reason I
39:00
Speaker 4: like politics, He's a brilliant mind. He's like every generation
39:04
Speaker 4: feels that way to some extent, and you just have
39:08
Speaker 4: to like move humanity forward. You can't think like that.
39:12
Speaker 4: What is your message for younger generations who are having
39:15
Speaker 4: trouble staying optimistic?
39:18
Speaker 1: First, I get it, and when I talk to young people,
39:20
Speaker 1: I apologize sometimes and I say, if I were you,
39:23
Speaker 1: I'd be either or sad because we've left you such
39:27
Speaker 1: a fiasco, such a mess. It's deeply immoral. I'm going
39:31
Speaker 1: to suggest that the duo has failed your generation in particular,
39:35
Speaker 1: and that if you want better results in the future,
39:39
Speaker 1: you probably need something different, a different set of rules,
39:42
Speaker 1: a different type of politics, the politics that maybe enables
39:45
Speaker 1: your generation to meaningfully take over in the right timeframe,
39:49
Speaker 1: as opposed to having seventy and eighty year olds running
39:52
Speaker 1: things until the day they die and then pass it
39:54
Speaker 1: to the sixty five year old behind them. I mean,
39:56
Speaker 1: you know, the fact that DC is on a five
40:00
Speaker 1: year thirty year tape delay is catastrophic in a time
40:04
Speaker 1: when technology is changing everything and climate changing the rest
40:08
Speaker 1: of it. So if you're a young person, first, I'm sorry,
40:11
Speaker 1: and you should be pissed off. It's reprehensible what we
40:14
Speaker 1: have left you all. So that out of the way.
40:17
Speaker 1: The second thing, though, is that you can be clear
40:21
Speaker 1: eyed about the state of the world and still choose
40:24
Speaker 1: to be positive and live your life within that context.
40:27
Speaker 1: And that can include bringing children in, that can include
40:31
Speaker 1: starting new organizations or movements or companies. The world needs
40:36
Speaker 1: that very very badly. And I put myself in this
40:40
Speaker 1: category though you know, I'm obviously a bit older than
40:43
Speaker 1: Gen X, and all that is that I have a
40:46
Speaker 1: very very clear view of just how nasty the future
40:49
Speaker 1: could be. But I still approach every day with a
40:53
Speaker 1: sense of optimism and possibility. And you know, I'm a
40:57
Speaker 1: parent and would never change anything about that set of experiences,
41:01
Speaker 1: even though some of it has definitely not been easy.
41:03
Speaker 1: So that would be my message to young people is like, look,
41:06
Speaker 1: things are going to get rough, but we need you
41:10
Speaker 1: and we need you to live your lives and that
41:13
Speaker 1: can very much include having families, bringing new awesome people
41:16
Speaker 1: in the world. Don't you want there to be more
41:19
Speaker 1: awesome people in the world, And who's going to make
41:21
Speaker 1: that happen him, not for you. You know, if you
41:23
Speaker 1: don't have kids, then you're gonna be left with people
41:25
Speaker 1: who are not as awesome as you. Whyn't just you know, like,
41:29
Speaker 1: have some kids and admit yourself to making sure they're happy, healthy, productive,
41:33
Speaker 1: live up to the values you'd want. So I do
41:36
Speaker 1: your dad on this, and of course your dad looking
41:38
Speaker 1: at you, Danielle's like super proud and everything else.
41:41
Speaker 4: Oh no, he's like your mom. He doesn't care. The
41:44
Speaker 4: first person he ever cared about me interviewing was you.
41:47
Speaker 4: So it was a win for me today. Thank you.
41:51
Speaker 1: Oh at least I could do. But yeah, it's possible
41:54
Speaker 1: still to be You seem very optimistic, Danielle. So yeah,
41:58
Speaker 1: I think you and I are probably alik because I
42:00
Speaker 1: also said you're not exactly, you know, delusional about the future.
42:06
Speaker 1: I'm not.
42:06
Speaker 4: But I think you have a much deeper understanding of
42:09
Speaker 4: the technological potential consequences that I need to learn more about.
42:14
Speaker 4: Because when you say grim it makes me think AI
42:16
Speaker 4: robots take over the world.
42:18
Speaker 1: Well. I wrote about this in my last book, The
42:21
Speaker 1: War and Normal People, very optimistic title. But Google's AI
42:27
Speaker 1: could replace the two million plus Americans who answer a
42:30
Speaker 1: phone for a living pretty quickly. So a lot of
42:33
Speaker 1: the AI scenarios people talk about are you know, terminator
42:38
Speaker 1: dystopian like the AI possess around. I'm more concerned with
42:42
Speaker 1: just Americans showing up to the office and being like, oh,
42:45
Speaker 1: you know, like don't need you anymore, and that playing
42:47
Speaker 1: out over and over again. I think that's the nearest
42:50
Speaker 1: term thing to be concerned about.
42:53
Speaker 4: And that's where you BI comes in.
42:56
Speaker 1: And so that's where you be. I can't that's right.
42:59
Speaker 4: I actually had a friend to who does virtual reality,
43:02
Speaker 4: and he was saying, if we do end up having
43:05
Speaker 4: a class of people that are unemployed, if they have UBI,
43:10
Speaker 4: it could potentially turn into a cultural artistic renaissance also,
43:15
Speaker 4: which is sort of interesting to think about.
43:17
Speaker 1: Oh, that's really the upside scenario. I used to joke
43:21
Speaker 1: with my team that we have to fight for an
43:24
Speaker 1: era of bad poetry.
43:29
Speaker 4: I love that. Okay, I do a little rapid fire
43:31
Speaker 4: before you leave me. So, what is your all time
43:35
Speaker 4: favorite meme about yourself? Or your campaign.
43:38
Speaker 1: Wow, there were so many, I think there were. There
43:45
Speaker 1: was like one of me riding around the fire breathing
43:48
Speaker 1: dragon that stuck with me because I was like a
43:52
Speaker 1: role playing game nerd growing up Andrew Yang on the
43:55
Speaker 1: back of a dragon. Good fun.
43:57
Speaker 4: Who do you look up to or admire?
44:01
Speaker 1: You know, the first people I came to mind from
44:02
Speaker 1: me or my family members, whether that's Ellen, who I
44:05
Speaker 1: buy every day for what she does for us as
44:09
Speaker 1: a family, my parents for everything they did immigrating to
44:12
Speaker 1: this three. But there are some authors and writers I
44:15
Speaker 1: look up to a lot. I'll tell you to tell
44:16
Speaker 1: you someone who's thinking influenced mine a great deal and
44:20
Speaker 1: still does. Jonathan Height is an NYU social psychologist. He
44:24
Speaker 1: wrote a book called The Righteous Mind about why good
44:26
Speaker 1: people disagree on politics that I still use literally just
44:32
Speaker 1: about every day of my life. So Jonathan Height The
44:35
Speaker 1: Righteous Mind, and now he and I become friends, and
44:38
Speaker 1: our wives are now friends, and so that's like a
44:41
Speaker 1: really great feeling where there's like a thinker that you
44:44
Speaker 1: admire and then you know they hang out with you.
44:47
Speaker 1: It's like a good feeling.
44:48
Speaker 4: He gave you such a great quote for your book too.
44:51
Speaker 4: I loved that. Who is your favorite president?
44:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, I meant a lot to favorite president. So here's
44:57
Speaker 1: a little known fact about me. But I am Teddyo's
45:00
Speaker 1: great great granddaughter's godfather, and so I am a big
45:05
Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelt fan. He was that conservationist, fought back against
45:10
Speaker 1: corporate forces of his time. I'm a big Teddy Roosevelt fan.
45:15
Speaker 1: Plus I have some kind of very very distant relative
45:18
Speaker 1: with the family.
45:19
Speaker 4: That is a really fun fact. I hope that's on
45:21
Speaker 4: your Wikipedia.
45:22
Speaker 1: I hope so too. Hey, someone added you can check
45:25
Speaker 1: it at it. I have no idea.
45:26
Speaker 4: If it's there, I'm going if you see it, it's
45:28
Speaker 4: gonna be me. I added it. Who did you end
45:31
Speaker 4: up voting for for mayor of New York?
45:34
Speaker 1: Wow? You know I haven't publicly disclosed this, and I
45:38
Speaker 1: guess I'll maintain ambiguity. But let's just say that I
45:43
Speaker 1: was happy to be an independent heading into the voting
45:46
Speaker 1: booth because I felt like I could vote for whomever,
45:49
Speaker 1: regardless of party affiliation.
45:51
Speaker 4: Cool, you're going to be written about in the history books.
45:55
Speaker 4: What do you want your legacy to be?
45:58
Speaker 1: I want my legacy to be that I helped us
46:01
Speaker 1: understand what listening to us economically and culturally and advanced
46:06
Speaker 1: the end of poverty in our time, and that I
46:10
Speaker 1: helped pick us up to the fact that a two
46:13
Speaker 1: party system makes no sense in a time when you
46:18
Speaker 1: have polarization rising literally to civil war levels, and that
46:23
Speaker 1: I helped usher in an arab of a genuinely multi party, vibrant,
46:28
Speaker 1: dynamic democratic system that enabled news of you.
46:32
Speaker 5: To emerge and enable different types of people to run,
46:35
Speaker 5: that gave different people of a voice so that it
46:38
Speaker 5: actually restored and rejuvenated trust in our government and our democracy,
46:43
Speaker 5: and less to dramatic new steps that will never happen.
46:46
Speaker 1: With puppily never happened, like a lot of the problems
46:50
Speaker 1: that we are frustrated by in terms of climate engine
46:53
Speaker 1: some of the tech issues you and izecrib, we will
46:56
Speaker 1: never get them under control with our government looking the
46:58
Speaker 1: way it does. This is one of the biggest hits
47:01
Speaker 1: I had anyels that I thought the problem was that
47:04
Speaker 1: we had never heard of universal basic income, and that
47:06
Speaker 1: if we just heard of universal basic income, then we'd
47:09
Speaker 1: all get behind it and it would pass. And so
47:11
Speaker 1: now it's up to sixty five percent approval rating and think, okay,
47:15
Speaker 1: problem solved, right, But of course it's not solved. We
47:18
Speaker 1: won't have it. And it turns out that our government
47:20
Speaker 1: doesn't really care what we think. You know, most of
47:23
Speaker 1: us want us to do more about my change that's
47:26
Speaker 1: not happening. Most of us want no lower drug prices
47:29
Speaker 1: that may not be happening. So then I realized that
47:32
Speaker 1: our system is not to actually care about us or
47:36
Speaker 1: answer to us. And so I hope my legacy is
47:41
Speaker 1: transformation of our politicalism that actually makes it responsive to
47:44
Speaker 1: both us, the people of this country, and the real
47:47
Speaker 1: needs of our time. That would be an awesome, awesome legacy.
47:52
Speaker 1: But that's right on my mission in life.
47:55
Speaker 4: I do a pretty smart question every week. So I
47:59
Speaker 4: have fifty two cards tell me when to stop now? Ooh,
48:04
Speaker 4: I like this one for you. What would younger you
48:08
Speaker 4: not believe about your life today?
48:10
Speaker 1: Younger of me wouldn't believe anything about my life today.
48:12
Speaker 1: My life now is crazy, like I'm having a conversations
48:17
Speaker 1: with you, like treating me like I'm special. When I
48:21
Speaker 1: was younger, I just wanted to do something that I
48:26
Speaker 1: could be proud of living and whatnot. So what do
48:28
Speaker 1: I not believe? The main thing really is ellen? Like
48:32
Speaker 1: if younger me were to see Ellen, You'd be like,
48:35
Speaker 1: be so happy. He'd be like, I can't believe that,
48:37
Speaker 1: you know, you married this person, had a family with her,
48:40
Speaker 1: and she you knows, your companion and soulmate and everything.
48:45
Speaker 1: Because when I was younger, I really struggled with relationships
48:49
Speaker 1: in particular. I took things very seriously, and so if
48:53
Speaker 1: a woman didn't like me, I would go brute about
48:56
Speaker 1: it for like a long time. I'd be all hope.
48:58
Speaker 1: And so seeing, you know, seeing things work with Evelyn
49:02
Speaker 1: would have made younger me very very happy. That was
49:05
Speaker 1: like one of the main things was weighing me down
49:07
Speaker 1: when I was younger. I was imagining, you know, trying
49:10
Speaker 1: to find a partnering.
49:13
Speaker 4: Yeah, life is so much about support, and it sounds
49:16
Speaker 4: like she's a pretty incredible support system.
49:20
Speaker 1: It's I really see my life before Evelyn. Are you
49:23
Speaker 1: know after Evelyn before I was I don't know. I mean,
49:27
Speaker 1: it really is a total change in your like day
49:32
Speaker 1: to day experiencing of the world. I wish it for everybody,
49:36
Speaker 1: you know, I wish ever find someone that they're excited
49:40
Speaker 1: to spend their lives with. It's something I'm incredibly grateful for.
49:44
Speaker 4: All right, last question, what is the smartest decision you've
49:47
Speaker 4: ever made.
49:48
Speaker 1: The smartest decision I ever made was to leave my
49:51
Speaker 1: job as a lawyer, which was a very rash, youthful
49:54
Speaker 1: decision at the time, but everything so I had left
49:58
Speaker 1: a company that did not work. It was sad, and
50:01
Speaker 1: then I got more development and seasoning and end up
50:05
Speaker 1: the head of vacation company. But none of it happens
50:08
Speaker 1: without walking away that job. It just made me much
50:12
Speaker 1: more independent and less reliable. People thought, like my parents
50:18
Speaker 1: were very sad when I left that job because it's
50:19
Speaker 1: a good job and that they lied to people about
50:22
Speaker 1: doing for years afterward They're like, oh, you know, Andy's
50:26
Speaker 1: a lawyer, And I was like, so that was it
50:28
Speaker 1: kind of a while ago. It was like one thing
50:33
Speaker 1: that I used to jump about for years afterwards. That
50:36
Speaker 1: like quitting is an underrated skill or quitting is underrated decision.
50:41
Speaker 1: People say like stick with stick with it, and I
50:43
Speaker 1: read like certain things you would definitely stick with, like
50:45
Speaker 1: if you feel strongly about it and you want to
50:47
Speaker 1: make your current it, like stick with it and stick
50:48
Speaker 1: with it. But then other times you probably should not
50:52
Speaker 1: be dating that guy or doing that job or whatever.
50:55
Speaker 1: It is, you know, like maybe it's just not right
50:58
Speaker 1: for you, and so one of the tough things is
51:00
Speaker 1: figuring out which is which. So for me, leaving that
51:05
Speaker 1: job was I think the best decision I ever made
51:08
Speaker 1: led to everything afterwards. It really liberated me and it
51:12
Speaker 1: made me more capable of doing things regardless of what
51:15
Speaker 1: other people thought. My parents, you know, I love my
51:17
Speaker 1: parents and death, but the fact that you know, disapproved
51:20
Speaker 1: of I think a majority of my decisions at this
51:22
Speaker 1: point that's been has been really really valuable, you know,
51:29
Speaker 1: to be able to look myself in the mirror and
51:31
Speaker 1: say this is why I'm doing it, and this is
51:33
Speaker 1: why I believe enough of it that I'm going to
51:35
Speaker 1: put my awnto it.
51:37
Speaker 4: Awesome, Thank you, Andrew, I really really appreciate your time.
52:00
Speaker 4: All right, today is a good day. To have a
52:01
Speaker 4: good day. I'll see you an excell mhm.