Andrew, how did you meet Zach and the rest of your early team?
I am profoundly grateful to everyone who joined the early team - imagine what the campaign looked like then. I’m sure it seemed quixotic so it took a special person to join and put their heart and soul into making the campaign what it is today.
Zach and I met through Venture for America. He worked at UBS in client philanthropy, and UBS supported Venture for America in its earliest days. Zach had started his own non-profit so we’d bonded over that. I was an advisor to his non-profit - Suit Up (volunteersuitup.com) - that helps schoolchildren learn about business. Zach is an entrepreneur and saw the potential for the campaign. He has a tougher job than I do on the campaign and I appreciate him every day.
I met other team members through Venture for America too. Muhan and Andrew Frawley. Matt I knew through Manhattan Prep. Carly heard me on Sam Harris. We’ve grown organically so now the campaign has all sorts of people. It’s been incredibly touching how many friends have come out to support me and my campaign, but I’ll always give the most credit to the folks who quit their jobs and threw in with the upstart campaign that seemed very unlikely in the beginning.
Hi Andrew, thanks for taking our questions.
While Asian Americans are the fastest growing and fourth largest racial group today, voting turnout continues to trend at a historically low rate.
How do you plan to engage with and mobilize the Asian American electorate without resorting to identity politics?
I'm excited to say that I think this is happening organically. But I am very happy to spend time with people in the Asian American community because I think activating our community politically is very important for the country and can be one of the positive impacts of my campaign.
Hey Chief, thank you so much for answering these questions! My question is regarding a topic that has been causing me more and more anxiety lately. The rampant human rights abuses of China. I know you've mentioned you want to work with them. But as we've known for over a decade and as the UN tribunal recently reported, china is holding millions of religious prisoners, Falung Gong and Uighur Muslims, captive in concentration camps and murdering them on demand to harvest their organs for profit. This is genocide. It is no exaggeration to compare their actions to those of the Nazis. Meanwhile the US has normal relations with them and they profit greatly off of access to our markets. I can't help but feel as an American that I'm tacitly supporting a genocide, and I'm disgusted.
As president, what specific steps will you take to force China to end this repugnant genocide?
Edit: While I really appreciated the answer, and I'm thrilled to have directly communicated with a politican I greatly admire and who I will definitely be voting for, I wish that it had included an unequivocal declaration that China is committing genocide and we intend to stop it. Having researched the Rwandan Genocide, it was painful to see US officials dance around that incredibly powerful word. Please Chief, put your foot down here and use the word that correctly describes their action. Millions of people in China are currently imprisoned without light, without hope, they need America to be the shining city on the hill that it was born to be.
China has two main priorities: maintaining robust economic growth and maintaining social/political order. The only way to influence their policies is to speak to one of these goals.
The United States has a key role in maintaining China's economic growth. The best way to improve their treatment of various groups is to make it clear that doing so is vital to maintaining their continued economic trajectory. It will take a combination of both sticks and carrots. To me, the US and China having at least some form of relationship will be crucial to address not just human rights issues but also climate change, AI, North Korea and other vital concerns. Managing the relationship will be one of my top priorities.
Would you please consider doing another Joe Rogan Experience appearance, but this time with Elon Musk?
Your appearance got something like 4M+ views while Elon's got 26M. The publicity would be huge!
Dual appearance - I like it!
Can you give us any information on how you plan to move up in the polls or any of your strategy? We're dying to know how you're gonna win.
We are going to do more of what has been working, some of the basic blocking and tackling, and then some fun unprecedented stuff. Can't spill the beans entirely here but we see the path and are going for it. Thanks to our supporters we have real resources to work with and I believe we will make more out of what we have than other campaigns.
Your tweet about 15 hour work weeks really resonated with me. We work too hard for too little and the profits go to the top.
In a Yang administration, will there be top-down pressure on companies to move in this direction? Or will the Freedom Dividend be enough to empower people to improve their situation?
We should help shorten the workweek and increase vacation time. The data shows that it would not decrease our productivity and right now we are growing increasingly stressed out and overworked. I would pursue ways to encourage this at the federal level though I would want to maintain the discretion of individual businessowners and workers in some environments. Basically, I think different people and different organizations have different needs. A startup is a very different workplace than a mature company or a government agency. It's not one-size-fits-all. But yes, I think we should move toward shorter workweeks and I think this could use a nudge from government as individual firms will always be pushing to maximize employee work hours.
Will the Freedom Dividend be tied to inflation or would it be left up to Congress to increase it?
Tied to CPI annually. :) .
Yang! The people have a right to know, what is your favorite anime and why??
Akira. I'm old school.
Hi Andrew,
Thanks for giving me hope in our politics and our country's future.
I wanted to ask you a question about pharmaceutical advertising. There are only two countries, the US and New Zealand, that allow direct to consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertising with product claims.
In an ideal world, consumers would be knowledgeable enough and information would flow freely enough such that this practice only added information for them to make more informed decisions. But in practice, there are many negative effects from this practice.
It is often a way for certain companies to manipulate audiences and maintain an entrenched advantage, moving medicine away from being evidence based.
This practice gives pharmaceutical companies undue influence over media companies as their biggest customers. Pharmaceutical companies even have a seat on media boards if I'm not mistaken.
It becomes an arms race and diverts money away from far more important things-- for instance, almost every top pharmaceutical company spends more on marketing than on R&D, sometimes by a factor of more than 2:1.
Would you disallow or regulate this practice?
I hate these drug promotion ads and will look to regulate or disallow them. I think they are bad for our public health. The doctors would probably love getting rid of them too. I would celebrate never having to hear a list of rancid side effects again and I know millions of Americans would join me.
When you become president what do you do if Congress, Mitch McConnell, or whoever tries to completely stonewall the freedom dividend?
When you imagine me winning in 2021 think about it - I will have won on the Freedom Dividend. Democrats will be exultant to have beaten Donald Trump. They will be looking to get money to families to make us stronger and healthier.
But the kicker is that Republicans, conservatives and libertarians don't hate the dividend. Alaska is a deep red state and their dividend was passed by a Republican governor. Conservatives don't dislike greater individual freedom and autonomy. Republicans will see that it benefits rural areas and red states on the interior disproportionately - places that have gotten bombed out by automation. Can you imagine their offices and phone lines? Plus we don't need 65% of Congress, we just need a majority. Cash is hard to demonize. The Freedom Dividend will be very hard to stop after I win.
Will you please do your own preview of a power point state of the nation presentation at some point in the democratic primary?
My vision for the American Scorecard is a topline measurement that then includes 8 - 12 submeasures that include:
GDP
Health and Life Expectancy
Mental Health
Substance Abuse and Deaths of Despair
Childhood Success Rates
Average Income and Affordability
Environmental Quality
Retirement Savings
Labor Force Participation and Engagement
Infrastructure
Homelessness
It would take some getting used to for Americans but a lot of it is establishing baselines and then directionality and improvement. Most Americans don't realize that our GDP is up to $20 trillion+, they just have a sense of whether it's getting better or worse. The same would be true of the Scorecard. A lot of it is channeling energy toward moving us in the right directions.
My vision for the American Scorecard is a topline measurement that then includes 8 - 12 submeasures that include:
GDP
Health and Life Expectancy
Mental Health
Substance Abuse and Deaths of Despair
Childhood Success Rates
Average Income and Affordability
Environmental Quality
Retirement Savings
Labor Force Participation and Engagement
Infrastructure
Homelessness
It would take some getting used to for Americans but a lot of it is establishing baselines and then directionality and improvement. Most Americans don't realize that our GDP is up to $20 trillion+, they just have a sense of whether it's getting better or worse. The same would be true of the Scorecard. A lot of it is channeling energy toward moving us in the right directions.
GDP, Headline Unemployment, and stock market prices are increasingly terrible and counterproductive measurements - the sooner we move on from them the better.
Can you talk a little bit about what your campaign is planning on investing in prior to Iowa to reach the older generation, and your untapped demographics, black voters, religious bible belt people etc.? I know you guys are running a super lean organization thats wildly successful for the money spent, and you have cash on hand - what are the investments you will be making to answer why i should continue sending you donations?
By the way you singlehandedly inspired myself and many others to actually care about politics again. Thank you so much for running, I'm sure it's not easy.
The traditional playbook in Iowa involves TV ads. It's a very efficient TV market - i.e. you target Des Moines and Iowa City and you can cover the state very cost-efficiently without a lot of excess. A lot of older voters watch TV.
We are not above doing the traditional things that have been proven to be effective in addition to some of the less traditional things. Part of it is timing. Would you throw TV ads up 3 - 4 months prior to voting? Or would you wait until voters are closer to an action point?
We will do some Yangian things in Iowa and some traditional things. I listen to the data and so does my team. Please trust that we will put the resources to work where we think we will get the most bang for our buck, and that the goal is to win.
Question: What do you say to people that agree with your policies and philosophy but think a vote for you would ultimately benefit the Republicans due to you not having enough support to take down Trump?
Ah, it's the primary. Throwing energy behind me will only help. I'm one of only 2 candidates in the field that 10% or more of Trump voters say they would support in the general which gives me a better chance to beat Trump in the general than just about any other candidate, and I'm beating him in head-to-head matchups by 8 points in swing states. If you're looking to ensure Trump's defeat I'm the best bet or one of the best bets.
One of the most common criticisms of a VAT, especially from the progressive wing of the party, is that it's regressive. Why wouldn't this negatively affect lower income Americans, and why you do believe it's the best way to pay for a UBI?
PS, thank you for existing and thank you Evelyn for allowing this campaign to happen!
A VAT is a very efficient tax that is used by just about every developed country in the world right now, including Denmark, Sweden, France and other countries that are regarded as super progressive.
It can be tailored to exempt - say - consumer staples and fall more heavily on luxury goods. The key is to give ourselves a way to benefit from the superefficiencies of the 21st century economy because our corporate tax system will not do it.
Super progressive countries use a VAT and then do all sorts of great things with it. We should do the same, including putting buying power directly into our hands.
Thank you and I think Evelyn every day I can!!
How are real estate sales affected by your proposed VAT?
Traditionally, residential real estate is exempted from it. Commercial real estate is also exempt if long-term. I like to follow what other countries have done successfully when appropriate.
Hey Andrew! What is your favorite National Park? What is your plan for public land and the National Parks Services?
Visited Yosemite and was blown away. Need to protect and preserve National Parks and public lands. It's one of the only things that we can promise our young people we've handed to them in the right way.
I would expand the US Forest Service because we need to do a much better job tending our forests in the era of climate change so they don't become tinder boxes. Not quite your question but related.
Hey Andrew!
I'm 35, and I've worked in call centers for about 10 years, and have been "automating the boring stuff" with code for the vast majority. I've seen people being replaced with code that I wrote directly, not by layoffs, but by natural attrition. I believe this is going to greatly impact my generation, along with the others coming into the workforce greatly.
How do you convey your message to older generations who don't necessarily care that they're going to be replaced because they will be retiring?
Thanks!
P. S. Can't wait for my sweet Math stickers!
Thank you very much for sharing your experience.
Older generations are struggling with retirement savings. I've met many seniors. They also have kids. I've found that people tend to care about issues that don't directly impact them if they feel like it will leave a mess for their children.
Thanks for the support, I love the MATH stickers too!
Andrew do you have prepared lines when you go into debates and interviews for what other candidates or moderators might say to you? Or do you stick to your talking points and improvise?
Also, I have a suggestion for the election-tampering question you'll undoubtedly get asked again:
"In addition to the hemisphere line, pivot completely and talk about how the US meddles in elections in our own country by partisan gerrymandering and purging people from voter rolls. Then you can pivot again anywhere you want depending on the flow of the interview — you can talk about democracy dollars or foreign influence of money like with the NRA or voter disenfranchisement."
Well, if there's an opener or closing statement then we prepare lines. Otherwise we have talking points that we use as appropriate and improvise. It's helpful if I get questions that are tied to past statements, as was the case with a federal jobs guarantee.
Love Democracy Dollars!
Andrew, I’ve looked into the numbers as well, and the elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss is how the Productivity-Wage gap isn’t due to corporations exploiting average workers, it’s actually just efficient markets in action. A chart I put together using BLS.gov data eludes to this fact: https://i.imgur.com/61QRLKL.png Just 2% of the workforce, concentrated in tech — computers, semi conductors, software mainly — is responsible for just about all of the productivity growth since 1980. 40% of the workforce, mainly retail and wholesale trade and restaurant workers, have seen hardly any gains in productivity since 1980.
Do you think it’s worth addressing this fact on a debate stage? I think many Americans are disillusioned by the gap in productivity and wages. Many are convinced it’s exploitive corporations, when the truth is a single computer scientist can produce more output than 100 warehouse workers. I think many Americans are preoccupied with low unemployment numbers, and don’t see that labor force participation is at its lowest level since 1980.
This feels a lot like the housing crash in 08. The numbers and facts are right in front of our eyes, but everyone seems to be ignoring this reality.
I've seen the same numbers and drawn similar conclusions. Will do my best to help people understand that we are in an era where productivity and human activity are not necessarily aligned, and that we should be cool with that. In many ways this is the key to the whole campaign.
Hi Andrew! As a conservative you seem like one of the only person on the other side of the aisle that is actually worth listening to and has concrete plans that I could see myself getting behind. I have heard from many other people on the right who could see voting for you. Do you think that the support from some Republicans hurts you as the it seems the Democratic party moves further to the left?
You would think that people from the other side of the aisle would be pumped to have bipartisan support for a candidate! It's a bad thing when people think that if someone else likes a candidate that means you shouldn't. I personally don't think that happens as much as one might think. Most people will make up their own minds and listen more to their friends and family than the commentariat. This is the campaign of common sense and I believe it will bring the country together.
It seems like anti-intellectualism has found a home in today's America, while the USA continues to fall in the worldwide education rankings. What is your plan to reverse this trend?
Make America Think Harder. :) .
do you value gun rights? I lean libertarian, I like you as a candidate in general but I tend to shy away from the democratic party due to its stance on guns
I think we need to make Americans safer and that there is an epidemic of gun violence that we should try to address at every link in the chain. I'm for a voluntary gun buyback and common sense gun safety laws that I think most Americans agree on.
The truth is that almost 2/3rds of gun deaths are suicides. This is an everyone problem. Gun owners have families too. We should be looking at everything from our families to our schools to our communities to our mental health and not just the last steps in the chain.
I hope that gives you a sense of where I am. I want to help make Americans safer and healthier. But I do value Americans' 2nd amendment rights and want to find areas of agreement.
I really appreciated your mini twitter warpath yesterday against the Automation deniers - both in the media and otherwise.
Can we expect this more aggressive version of you to be out there more ardently defending against the rampant misinformation campaigns against you from now on?
It upsets me when people take aim at facts for a particular agenda. I mean, let's have a data-driven discussion. The intellectual laziness in certain quarters has been deeply disappointing. There are times when I'll ignore it and times when I'll call it out. I'm confident that our message is getting out independently and thank everyone who has been making that happen day-in and day-out.
Any plans on improving American preventable chronic diseases (to lessen cost of M4All) such as obesity/diabetes, heart diseases through education/diet?
Any concern about American sugar/cola/fast food industry doing harm to American life expectancy?
[e.g. could we shift/educate people's to food cultures like healthy "whole" fast-food/ 7-11s in Japan; or shift our food economy towards that? Maybe Incentives big supermarket Walmart, 7/11, Costco to adjust like their Japanese counter-parts to Make Americans Truly Healthy--yes MATH pun intended]
I feel like so much of this is tied to the Freedom Dividend. If you are trying to feed your kids by any means necessary then hitting the fast food restaurant will become a routine, particularly because the kid likes it. If you put real resources and choices into our hands then people will become more discerning and choosy, and businesses will follow suit. The grocer will open in the urban neighborhood, the supply chain will shift, etc. There is a lot more to be done here. But a lot of it is giving people real agency and freedom to choose healthier food.
