Andrew Yang: Everything Is Going As We Hoped

Number one, would you try to end partisan politics and find space for compromise? Very much so, and I'm really proud of the fact that my campaign is drawing in disaffected Trump voters, independents, libertarians, as well as Democrats and progressives. We have to solve the problems that got Donald Trump elected in the first place, and we should not demonize or villainize someone for voting for Trump. And so my goal is to help bring the American people together and create a new way forward for all of us. And I think I'm distinctly qualified to do that because People sense that I'm not particularly partisan. I've got a non-ideological solutions-based approach. Our next question is, what would you do to help alleviate student loan debt? We're up to $1.6 trillion in student loan debt, and it's a crushing burden on our young people in particular, but it's not just young people who have student loan debt. So I would forgive the vast majority of student loan debt. You have to look up and say honestly, would we rather that our people are stuck in their parents' basements paying off loans for years, or do we want them out? Buying homes, starting families, and starting businesses, and it's obviously the latter. We had this kind of choice in the financial crisis where we had a choice between bailing out the banks or bailing out the mortgage holders, and we all know we bailed out the banks. This time we need to choose our people. So I would forgive a lot of the student loan debt. I would give everyone $1,000 a month starting at age 18, which also helps people in every circumstance, and then I would work with schools to get their costs down. Because college has gotten two and a half times more expensive in the last number of years and has not gotten two and a half times better. There has to be a different business model than just ratcheting up your prices every single year. My parents don't even have a basement, so that's not even an option for me. Sofa then. Sofa, great sofa. My last question is, would you work to legalize or decriminalize marijuana use? My gosh, did you see that picture of me in the dispensary? Many of our users might not have, so you gotta describe it. Well, you gotta go online. So it's me in a dispensary in a lab suit with a caption, say my name. So I'm for legalizing. Breaking Bad reference, I mean, if they're not cool enough to know that, then you don't belong on Snapchat. Or they're too young and Breaking Bad is for older people nowadays. They can access Breaking Bad, though it is adult content, you're right. So I'm for the federal legalization of marijuana. It's already legal in a number of states. It's a safer means of pain relief than prescription opiates in just about every case. And our administration of the drug laws is deeply uneven and racist. So we should legalize marijuana, still have regulations in place to prevent kids from getting access early or anything like that. And then I would pardon everyone who's in jail for a nonviolent marijuana-related crime on April 20th, 2021. But what we need- But we need to... What? Are you skeptical? No, no, it's just the date. They know. See, again, your Snapchat kids are hip enough to know. I'm not cool. We figured it out. So weed should be legal around the country. Most Americans agree that's the way we're heading and that's the way where that's what I would- Were you annoyed that you- Were you annoyed that Cory Booker got to be the one to ask Joe Biden if he was high when he came out against legalization? No, I thought that was a good moment for Cory and that's not really my style to- Even make a joke like that towards Joe, so I thought Cory had a good moment. Bolivia, what's your take on what's unfolding in Bolivia now? I mean, it's unfortunate. I mean, the question is whether free and fair elections will still be possible. And whether the socialists will be able to run a candidate in this new election. So we have to do our best to try and make it so that. The will of the people is actually being observed in Bolivia. And unfortunately, these sorts of situations, sometimes it's hard to tell whether there was widespread fraud or interference in the last election. We just have to do our best to try and make the next election as transparent as it can be. How would you work with other countries as it relates to data collection? And how would you work with other countries? No, I actually want to talk about this. So the World Data Organization is a must because right now we're developing different The technology ecosystem was particularly us in China. And so if you want to try and have some kind of international standard, then you need to have some international consensus. And so if you have the US, the EU, and Japan building a new set of protocols around how we treat our data, what standards are for artificial intelligence, what the proper regulations Then you can actually create pressure on other countries to say, look. If we're going to actually have our data be interoperable in exchange with other countries, particularly the major Western economies, then we would need to follow certain standards. Right now, China's trying to export its technology platforms to other countries, and it is not necessarily working that well, but it's starting to work. They've gotten some pickup from some Thank you. Developed, the developing countries that they have, you know, the kind of relationship where they can frankly just like push them and be like, hey, you're going to use our software now. It's So we have to create an international framework to try and bring other countries into the. The world community, in a way that actually respects our data rights and our privacy. And that's not going to happen if we're all in different information silos. We need to help create an international standard. So I am proposing the World Data Organization, which is patterned loosely after the World Trade Organization. But instead of talking about how you actually conduct your trade relationships, it's how you protect your data. How do you think How your technology interfaces with other systems. And this, to me, is one of the major challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. And it's not going to happen unless America leads on it. And that's what I plan to do. Thank you. Thank you. You've shown you have the staying power to be on the debate stage. You're likely going to make this important debate. Yeah. What do you have to do, though, to grow from there? Because you've shown you have a coalition. But in order to win this thing, you're going to have to build on it. What are you not doing right now that you need to be doing more? Well, I've always said that our plan is to grow and grow and grow and then peak at the right time. And if you dig into the data, most early state voters have not made up their minds. Even if they say they're voting for a particular candidate, they say they're open to changing their mind. And so we are right on schedule. You've seen us. keep gaining in the polls despite spending minimally on advertising until very, very recently. And thanks to the Yang Gang, we actually are one of the few campaigns that can put real resources to work in the early states. So everything is going exactly as we'd hoped. We are growing and growing and growing, both organically and soon with advertising support. And we're gonna peak when the voting starts. So you started the night by saying that, Started the night by saying you missed Beto, and on the debate stage you stood up for Tom Steyer, something that no one else on the debate stage did. You're kind of being the nice guy on the debate stage. Why did you miss Beto, and why put your neck out there for Steyer? Well. I miss Beto because I'm a human being, and Beto's a really good dude. He was next to me at the last debate, and I don't know if you remember, he was talking about legalizing weed, and I was like, yes, Beto, preach. I don't know if the network's caught it. We did. We did, yes. But more to the point, when I saw Beto, he was always kind and... Considerate and caring, just the way people perceive Beto to be in his public life, he's like that as an individual. And so if you're standing next to that person for debate after debate, and then the person disappears, then you're sad, I was just sad. And so I took a moment to say I miss Beto, cuz I genuinely missed him. I would like to have a skate off with Beto, I have not been online since the debate, so I'm not sure. In terms of Tom Steyer... They asked him a question about, hey, you think that money is what's wrong with politics and yet you're super rich and spending lots of money on stuff. Aren't you what's wrong? And I was like, come on. I mean, Tom's a billionaire that's spending money on fighting climate change and voting rights and trying to activate people. Like, you know, The system can be messed up and broken, which it is. Thank you very much. Without saying everyone who's spending money on anything is somehow nefarious or bad, because you have to look up and say, well, if there is a positive, benevolent billionaire who's spending money on trying to fight climate change, you can't be mad at that. And so I was just standing next to Tom being like, come on, that line of questioning is a little bit short-sighted and unfair to me. Can you hear me? In a way, it's trying to suggest that if you are really rich. Like, you should not spend money on anything, even things that might help move society forward. He thanked you on stage. Did he say anything off-camera or afterwards? You know, Tom and I have a good collegial relationship. Thank you very much. So he didn't say anything to me afterwards in terms of like overly effusive, but we just both congratulated each other on a good night. I saw Tom literally like two days ago. I'll probably see him two days from now. So, and Tom doesn't need me sticking up for him, honestly, like, you know, the dude's a billionaire, like, so, like, last I checked, like, you know, like, he's not going to lose any sleep over a hostile line of questioning on stage, but I just said what I felt at that moment because I thought that the line of questioning was. Short-sighted and a bit unfair.