 Look at my masterpiece. Are you a good politician? A Washington Post opinion piece that you wrote about a year and a half ago. I wasn't going to use the math, but yeah, I'm going to... You said boba. Now we're at Xingfu Tang, boba. Is that a Taiwanese thing? We first interviewed Andrew Yang three years ago. Nobody knew who he was, and he had just announced his campaign for U.S. president. Fast forward three years later, and Yang has been through a roller coaster of ups and downs, but is still viewed as one of the smartest innovative voices in American politics. We're in the East Village today to talk about his new third party, what he's learned from running a national and local election, and where America's headed. This is not an endorsement, but you're going to want to hear what he says. Welcome everybody to a very, very special episode. I don't even know what more I need to say with us today. We have former presidential candidate. We have former New York mayoral candidate. He's an author. He's a podcaster joining us today, guys. Andrew Yang. Thank you. It's great to be here. Andrew, here we are three years later. We were in the East Village at Ho Foods. This is pre-Rogan, pre-everything. Yeah, 3.2 years later. How much things have changed, and stay the same. We are actually in front of Xing Futang right now, which is the number one boba chain in the world. I've had it before, and it is Tom Notch. I think I might even get a chance to make some boba myself, which would be the first time for me. Guys, we got a lot more to talk about. Let's go in to Xing Futang and get some boba. But here's Xing Futang. They don't make boba just the regular old-school way. They actually stir-fried the boba in brown sugar right there. Oh, my gosh. Want to get in there? Yes, I do. Yeah, I ran on universal boba income. Andrew, we had this joke, and I know it's kind of a hacky joke, but we thought that your third political party was just going to be called a boba tea party. Wow. You know, I hate to say this, but in a number of years, this arm that's doing the stirring, going to be a robot. Come on, we know. It's going to be like this robot freaking walk story. So speaking of that, I have a couple questions about this third party called the Ford Party. It sounds really cool. I read about it at the end of your book. A lot of people have some initial criticism. When that rumor came out a few weeks ago, they were like, oh, my gosh, it's going to take votes away from the Democrats, and it's going to only help the Republican Party. Or this is hype so that Andrew Yan can sell more books and all this stuff. Is there any way you can respond to that criticism? Well, first, you can join the Ford Party if you're a registered Democrat or a registered Republican or an independent. This is a non-partisan, tri-partisan movement to try and bring the country back together. We had talked a long time ago about Whole Foods, and you have expressed that same sentiment. You're like, I'm not going to be like losing sleep over if I don't win president. But at some point, because the process is so grueling, do you have to say to yourself, I got a chance at winning this just to keep doing the training? You have thousands of people, in our case, hundreds of thousands of people supporting you. You get that energy every day. And so then there really isn't much you can do, except to try and respond to and even enhance and augment that energy. Andrew Yang, does this make sense for you to have the $13? Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa. Is this politically against what you stand for? Either way. Andrew Yang approves of going for oil, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Is this relatively a true statement? My ancestors are very much from Taiwan, and they go back a ways. Can we get you to say a few phrases in Mandarin? 现在我们在新铺堂和伯伯 Hey! Cheers, guys. Punching the straw through the gold foil made me feel like a baller. So flavor inclusion plus baller feeling. You are not the first Asian politician because I don't want to take away from other people who have dedicated their life to politics. But you're the only person who's sort of had that modern mix of celebrity, politician, actual thinker, substance with the flash. What have you learned? I mean, there's so many levels on a macro, mid, micro, to dissect this. By the numbers, Asian Americans are the most underrepresented. And there's a cycle, unfortunately, where we're underrepresented, people aren't talking to us or investing in our communities politically, and then we're not voting or donating or running for office at the right level. So which of these can we change most easily? We can change our own behavior, which is voting. But this is one of the big points that I'm trying to make to folks is that in a high functioning America, Asian Americans will do better because if people are whole and not turning on each other and there's less violence, then Asian Americans will be able to help create opportunities for ourselves, our kids, other people. If America disintegrates, which it is doing right now, and if you're wondering, America is disintegrating right now, it's structurally falling apart. The columns have cracked. In a disintegrating America, Asian Americans will be among the first to get kicked to the curb. And you can see that there's potentially a rising cold war or worse between the US and China. And you know that Chinese Americans are gonna end up getting victimized if tensions go up. And you also know that most Americans don't really distinguish that powerfully between Chinese Americans and other types of Asian Americans. In the US, you have this fixed duopoly. And this fixed duopoly is really an accident. Like the founding fathers would have been shocked that we ever allowed this to happen. And the fact that it's happening to this level has actually gotten something called political stress up to civil war levels. Is it, we have to be extreme moderates then? Or does that even make any sense? Like that logically sounds like a cool tagline, but actually in my mind, I'm like, logically actually that isn't even. Yeah, is it being a raging moderate? Is it being a raging centrist? If you look at the numbers, about half of Americans say they're independents. About a quarter say they're Democrats and a quarter say they're Republicans. So the issue with the half or so who say they're independents is that most of them aren't that political. You know, they're just like chilling and watching sports. It's like, you know. You just don't want to feel it. Or just maybe making jokes on Reddit about how F'd up everything. Yeah, and that's a rational approach. You know what I mean? Like if you become really engaged politically, it's very depressing. And disheartening sometimes. It's one of the things I want to provide is some positive and optimistic and even fun political energy where it's like, look, things are fucked up. Here's a way we can fix it. We can create this vibrant middle ground where reasonable people can come together and say, look, I don't hate my fellow Americans. You know, I may disagree with you on something, but like I agree with you on the fundamentals of what makes us Americans and human and everything else. Like people look at me and the forward party, which again is nonpartisan, bipartisan, anyone can join. And they're like, oh, you're gonna have a hard time getting whatever, 51% of people on board. But in a polarized country, if you get the middle 10%, you actually become the sole decision maker. And you're seeing it right now in Congress where who's the most powerful person in the Senate? Joe Manchin, because he's the 50th vote on the Democratic side, the Democrat in West Virginia. So if the forward party winds up with even like a sliver of its support, either in legislatures or in various elections, we actually can decide the whole thing. The parties, are they called forwarders, forward ints, forward ats, forwardians? What's the term for these people who are part of the forward party? Right now, it's forward party member. But again, you can be a registered Democrat and it's a, you're a forward Democrat. You can be a registered Republican, you're a forward Republican. You can be a forward independent. But right now it's forward party members. We'll work on it. We'll work on it. Forwarders, forwarders. Forwarders sounds like explored. All right, we gotta switch gears. We gotta go into another spot. I got a whole new set of questions, but real quick, I got a really funny joke for you that I saw on YouTube that compared you to a Bitcoin. Are you ready for this? Yeah, please. They said Andrew Yang is like a Bitcoin because number one, the establishment doesn't like him. Check so far. Number two, most people for whatever reason just can't help to think about China when they see him. That's a joke. That's a joke. And then number three was that no matter how many losses or flood he takes, he just keeps coming back and he's not going away. I will definitely take the third, the first, sure, the second. Do I think of China when I see Bitcoin? All right, man, let's go get some food. You're welcome. Hey, brother, thank you. I got it, yeah. Appreciate you. We gotta get some food, but I gotta ask you, Andrew, before we get on to our next questions is have you had a jenbing before? Yes. Have you ever made a jenbing? No, I have not. Well, let's see if you can. We're here at jenbing shop over on St. Mark. Hey, what's up, everybody? Hey. What's up, you guys? We're at jenbing with Andrew Yang. You just saw him make shing fu tang boba. You saw him stirring the fresh pearls with double brown sugar. You saw him drink molten gold. Yeah. Bro, we got you working today. From a $13 boba to a $13 jenbing. And we're going to put them in the hot seat. Got some hot questions. Andrew, we are making one of the most Chinese things on planet Earth right now, while I got some interesting questions about being Chinese or of Chinese ethnic descent. What should we feel right now as Asian Americans? I guess specifically Chinese Americans about, I guess, the Cold War. It's like a 2021 Cold War between America and China. Any recommendations or thoughts on it? The single biggest flash point that people are concerned about is Taiwan. We're in a world where the US and China are going to be great powers, number one and two, in some order, really for the rest of our lifetimes. And traditionally, that has led to tension and conflicts. Our goal as Asian Americans, in my mind, should be to try and navigate this time so that there isn't open conflict between US and China. Because if that does happen, Asian Americans are obviously again going to throw under the bus. But it's going to be terrible for the world. I mean, you can't make progress on climate change without US and China working together. You can't make progress on AI without US and China working together. There is a sense that the US approaches the world with a sense of moral superiority that I think a lot of the rest of the world now like doesn't really believe. How hard is it to balance being pro-America while at the same time not being anti anything else? Like, how do you balance that? Because you were going to take the very pro-America route, right? But it's like, how do you make a Jan Bing while answering this question? How do you make a Jan Bing while answering this question? Yeah, I got the hang of it. I'm going to say that the most pro-America figures are anti other people. And how do you do this very reasonable approach, like you said, but it's just never been seen before where you're pro-America but not like hating or wishing for the downfall of other people? I love this country. I owe this country everything. It's given my family and me the sort of life that my parents could only have dreamt of. I think there's a way to make things work for the US in a way that doesn't somehow make things worth the rest of the world. And I want to be that kind of bridge builder. I want to do things that are universal, really. And that could be universal basic income here in the United States. They could be universal vaccines around the world, which in my opinion, we really should be doing, particularly because right now, to the extent we have vaccines, a lot of Americans are taking them. So at this point, we might as well start distributing them around the world. I mean, there are things we should do. That should be the case that we're making is around universalism. I'm essentially the assistant in the GenBank maker. I've got the master maker here who's made, how many GenBanks have you made successfully? Successfully? I mean, 100,000, right at least. I can't count, but there's been a few ugly ones. Well, I think that I may be contributing to your next ugly one. Yeah, as long as it looks like a circus. Yeah, are you a fairness candidate? I am a fairness candidate. I got a tough Asian question, and this is about a Washington Post opinion piece that you wrote about a year and a half ago. It was not well received by a lot of people. Amongst a certain crowd, it seemed like you might have lost some Asian support with it. Was there anything else? Like, can you clarify what you were trying to say or what you would add on to it as far as that piece goes? Yeah, it was actually very much around what we were talking about earlier, where Asian-Americans aren't as involved politically. And so I said that, look, we should be donating, volunteering, voting at higher levels. I take our American-ness as given. I think some people thought that I was somehow making our American-ness conditional. Our American-ness is bone deep. But there are some things we can do that would be helpful to both our community and other people in this country. And I was asking people to do more of them. Have you broken the bamboo ceiling for Asians and politics, or did you hit the bamboo ceiling? Because you did get maybe farther than a lot of people thought, but you didn't ultimately make it super close. I woke up a lot of Asian-Americans to the possibility that we can lead at the highest levels of this country. And I remember vividly walking off the debate stage in Miami after the first presidential debate. And even I said, who's the Asian guy next to Joe? You know what I mean? And so that was like the goal, is to get an Asian guy up there on that stage. You know, I think that a lot of Asian-Americans looked up and said, wait a minute, we can think bigger, we can act bigger. So I'm thrilled that people think I might have activated Asian-American political awareness at a higher level, but that's not been my main goal. Right, right, right. That was a byproduct of what you were trying to do. A lot of people doubted whether my running for president was wise or sensible. And I was like, look, just getting me out of the debate stage is a win. And it's relatively cheap to do it, like in the scheme of things, like that was a pitch I made to some Asian donors who didn't see the possibilities. Well, you were pitching how cheap it was. So you were like, hey guys, it's a good deal if I get on the stage. Trust me, you run a business, I know you get the numbers guys. I did, I did say that. You're like, Andrew Yang is a good deal. Real quick, you were talking about you and Joe Biden next to each other on the debate stage. Is it true you've turned down a pretty high ranking position in the White House? Well, we talked to the administration. I ended up abbreviating those talks saying, look, I'm gonna try and do good here in New York City. I've still got a lot of friends in the administration. They're doing the best they can, but our system isn't really set up to help them succeed. You're riding a rusty bicycle. That's one way of looking at it. And then everyone's like, why aren't you going 100 miles an hour on a rusty bicycle? And they were like, oh, because it's a piece of shit, but I can't really say that all the time. That's what's going on a lot of the time. All right, we got just Jim being wrapped up here, man. Look at my masterpiece. All I can say is that this is a little bit like other things in life where I'm somehow going to get credit for it even though I didn't have much to do with it. So you just planned it, you know? All right, you guys, we have secured the shing fu time. We got the Jim bings. Yeah, let's go ahead. Go for it. Take a bite if you want. Not fresh, delicious. You guys got to come. I was going to ask you, Andrew, what is your relationship with like Asian Hollywood? Cause I feel like there's so many high profile Asians in 2021 and they were like for you, someone against you, someone neutral. And then like, for example, like Eddie Huang was all over the place. Like he was like loving you and hating you like on Monday and Tuesday and back again. Is that a Taiwanese thing? Ha, ha, ha. Started campaigning, I was a certain way. And then deeper into the campaigns, I'm sure I'd evolved and grown in many respects. And part of it was just like, like, okay, you want to try and accomplish certain things. So what do you have to do to get there? And then what capacities do you need to grow or develop? So for me, that was around aspects of campaigning. But I still see myself very, very similarly. I will say though, I have a lot more responsibility I feel because I was not a terribly visible public figure until relatively recently. And there are not that many highly visible Asian Americans. And so I do feel a lot of responsibility and gratitude because I think I feel like I do need to represent because there aren't that many of us. And a lot of us that exist do know each other. That's true. I can speak as well to that. Like a lot of us know each other because they're so few. Andrew, we were talking a little bit about how there's so few Asians in the public eye. What do you think about the argument that I think some Asians have arrived to the point where they're so used to being like unheard of and unseen that they like started to just enjoy it? I get that feeling sometimes from Asians. You know what I mean? You know what? Yeah, what would have been great if everybody would have accepted us. But if we have to fight our way under the mainstream consciousness, I don't want to fight. I'd rather live my life. Yeah, you know what I mean? A lot of people say that. Like whether or not they would outwardly like articulate that or not, they feel that. Not us, but I'm saying. Yeah, totally. But what I would say to them is like, you do you, take yourself a million of the bank and then just take a chunk of that and then give it to an Asian American creative who's trying to do something. You're gonna change the narrative more directly. Yeah, and then you can chill out and do you, enjoy your life and do whatever. But then if someone does stick their neck out and just bankroll them a little bit, it's not gonna hurt you. You're barely gonna notice. Yeah, you're saying just use your means to support if you can't do anything else. Like we all have roles to play and it's not realistic for every Asian American to be like, I'm gonna, you know, become like the the face of this industry, right? Yeah, yeah, it's like. Were you at all caught off guard by how so many people out there it seems wanted progress to be perfect where you're a prominent face, you're getting out there, you're a genuine guy, maybe not everybody agrees with what you say or do, but I'm like, people are so mad almost like, man, if it's not my perfect candidate or they're not saying this and this, I don't even wanna see an Asian out there. That was some of the sense I got. Like, did that catch you off guard at all or did you feel that? Well, first I would never say that I represent everyone of any community in that, you know, we're a very diverse community. We're gonna disagree on all sorts of things. So, you know, that'd be number one. I do think that there is like a dynamic where right now we're not in an environment where if someone does something we disagree with, you'd be like, hey, I don't like that, but I like some other things about this person. So let me just like, you know, give them the benefit of the doubt or, you know, like wait for the next thing. That's not the environment we live in. Like the environment we live in is like, hey, I disagree with that. So, you know, I'm gonna respond very strongly to it. By the way, we are at 886 in the East Village, one of the best Taiwanese spots in planet Earth. I'm gonna bring Evelyn here because she's gonna be pissed when she sees this video and I was like, how was I not eating this food? I think they did an event for your presidential thing. Maybe that's why I love it so much. You got the sense, you're like, tastes like support. To put it plainly, man, do you think you're a good politician? And by politician, I mean like a player in this game. You know, there's so many things, you talk about it in your book that come with being a politician, the games you play, the theatrics behind it. I don't know how fond you are of the whole process, but are you a good politician or do you think you're just like a good celebrity, ideas man, a great philosopher, like a creative guy, like entrepreneur? Like what do you, what do you think? I'm motivated by trying to make positive things happen for people. I don't think we have unlimited time. I think we gotta go fast, but I'm not really driven by the same things that other politicians are driven by. You know, it's like, if I go with the rest of my life without holding an elective office, but I feel like I did some good shit, like I love that, you know? Like, there's part of me that might even prefer that because someone might look at my win-loss record or something and be like, huh, like it's below 500 or something like that. Well, it's actually not, it's actually zero. I wasn't gonna use the math, but yeah, I'm 0-2. No, but I know what you're saying. And you know what the funny thing is? But I was protecting to the end of the story. You know, and by the way, by the way, you can start 0-2 and then go win the series, by the way. It's happened in the NBA finals even. Some people are, their brain is like not orientated to think that way. And you know what I mean? Like you were saying the winning without winning and being this great ideas guy that sparks the mind and maybe like this or you're still able to affect policy without taking over the whole empire. Do you think some people are still like stuck in that binary or it's like, if you ain't winning these, it doesn't matter? And it's like, you're like, no, actually, you could totally influence and say great things by society without actually like winning 51. A couple of the people that supported me on the presidential ended up running for office and winning local office, which is something I'm incredibly proud of, you know, like they're in state houses and Congress, you know, trying to make- You helped spark their mind. Yeah, I mean, in some cases, you know, I helped lead them to run for office. Thank you, appreciate you. So let us get into some of your technician work because what you just said was a very smart, common sense implementation. What are some of your favorite things that you mentioned in there? Because I heard you talk about free YouTube premium. So you even get that detail to say we need to offer free YouTube premium real quick, like 20 seconds, what do you even mean about that? One of the reasons why social media is driving us crazy is because it's designed for us to maximize engagement in ad dollars. But there are some services we use that are subscription based that all of a sudden seem much more balanced and reasonable. So my plan is for the government just to pay for the ad revenues of essentially every American for our social media and turn everything ad free. It's a very, very small price, relatively speaking. The social media companies still get paid and then we just get to live our lives without ads. And guess what, you know where those ads would go? Those ads would end up going to like local newspaper because right now you're rewarding the more extreme voices because that's what's gonna drive the ad money. That's a good point, man. See me and Andrew are too moderate. That's why our YouTube channel has an experience that you might use to buy anything these guys advertise. And then their advertisers will be happy and then they'll be like, ooh, let's get the fun, bros. We got to talk about data rights. This is something that you have spoken about before but it's very important because every app, website, Google search, it's all data. They're probably listening to us. Obviously I open up my phone, sometimes there's an ad that is literally about what I was just talking about which is kind of creepy, I wish they wouldn't do that. But honestly, I'm not doing anything about it. So what about this data rights, man? What's going on? Our data is now worth at least $200 billion a year. And if you look at the market cap of Facebook or Google, a lot of that is on the backs of our data. We're not seeing a dime. It's making our mental health worse and it's also turning us all into rats in a maze where we're getting guided into certain decisions, buying or otherwise. And it's subverting our agency and free will. So my argument is that our data should still be ours even if we decide to loan it to you. And if we do loan it to you, then we should know what you're doing with it. And if you're making money off it, then we should get some of that money too. Is it hard, cause you pitched administrations or this administration on like a secretary of innovation or invention. And this is like a very like new kind of position. And is it hard to get those ideas through to an old structure because it seems like maybe like the older people in charge are going to like lose some of their power. Like, do you think that's part of it? I've been really disappointed that the Biden administration hasn't been trying to do more in terms of technology and innovation. They do have an Asian guy named Tim Wu who is a very, very senior policymaker in the administration who I like a lot. Tim Wu, if you look up his work, he's freaking brilliant and he's got the right agenda. Shouting out other Asian guys. I see it. Yeah, Tim's very, very strong. But I wish that they'd assigned a cabinet level role to this because the fact is technology is the tail wagging the dog right now. All right, Andrew, we got to wrap it up here. But what's, through all of this, you got climate change, you got the immigration controversy going on right now. You had the siege of the capital. You have all this stuff. What's a beacon of hope right now? I think more and more people are waking up to the fact that we're being pit against each other and they're sick of it. You know, they're sick of feeling bad about what's going on in the country. They want a source of optimism and joy. I think there's one reason why what you guys do is so important. I think there's something the Asian American community actually excels at because I was actually documenting with someone like who are the leading Asian American creators? You guys were on that list. But there tends to be like a real essence of humanity and optimism and universal things like food that people enjoy. That to me gives me hope. It's just that people can continue to sort of universalize the human condition and say that, look, we all love food. We all love our friends and family. You know, we all want a better life for ourselves. All right, well, man, Andrew, I got to say my statement is every time we get a chance to sit down and talk, it opens my mind. There's new ideas. Obviously me and Andrew are not political. I always know that you have got a lot more to say and a lot more great positive value to add to the system and the way that people run the system. So I guess like I'm reinvigorated in my mind. Oh, thank you, man. You guys invigorate me too. And support creatives, support Asian American creatives, and support good people who are just trying to make good things happen in the world. Thank you, man. Like I know obviously if you go on the internet, you can read a whole bunch of things about you people theorizing about your intentions and stuff, but we've known you for a few years and I know you as a super genuine guy. It doesn't seem like you are bent on being a billionaire right now. You're really trying to help. You're trying to present new, good ideas. You're trying to change the system. As long as my wife is willing to put up with me, I feel like I haven't gone too far wrong. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for watching that video. Big shout out to Andrew Yang for making time. I know you got a flight to catch. He has a new book called Forward Notes on the Future of Our Democracy. Read it. It's got some real world solutions. It talks about your experience campaigning. This man just ran for president and mayor of New York City. And he's an Asian dad. All right? So it's groundbreaking. And I'm sure over the next six months, over the next year, you're gonna be on a ton of different shows, but I think this is gonna be the only one where we ate this much authentic Asian food. All right, for sure. Have a good day. Bye, guys. Thank you, yo. Guys, Andrew Yang, everybody. Are you guys, thank you so much for watching that video. Make sure you let us know what you thought in the comment section below. Follow Andrew on social media, check out the book. Until next time, you guys, we're out. Peace.