I'm Andrew Yang.

Today is April 4, 2019.

February 25, 2020.

[piano music]

I'm 44.

I'm 45.

Took a taxi with several staffers.

I walked to set with one staffer.

I'm running for President to try and make this country

something I'm proud to pass along to my children.

I believed by running for President, I could wake us up

to the real situation we're in

and then activate real solutions.

Well, the Internet has me at 14% and so I would use

the Internet as the arbiter of collective wisdom.

I can categorically say that the odds of my winning

the Democratic nomination are zero.

[laughs]

I have 214 thousand followers on Twitter.

I have 1.2 million Twitter followers.

At least several times a day minimum.

Now that we're back more in the swing of things,

I probably check it once every hour or two.

Definitely.

I think everyone has trolls on Twitter.

Most of the people who follow me seem very very positive,

but I'm sure I do.

Most of the time, I don't respond

unless it seems like they have genuine reason,

objections or confusion.

Yeah, there was a period when I would engage with people

who had negative comments.

I found myself doing less and less of that over time

because it didn't necessarily seem like a good use of time.

I'm going to guess there are probably millions of results.

Well, I think that would be a miscount

because there are a lot of Andrew Yangs,

and so any search would probably be over-inclusive.

Apparently there are 192 million Google results for me now.

Most of them were nice, I think.

[laughs]

I don't know.

There are probably some mean ones in there.

So I think that the two biggest celebrities

that have donated publicly have been Nicholas Cage

and Rivers Cuomo of Weezer.

I'm fans of both of theirs

so that was actually a lot of fun.

[laughs]

Wow, so Dave Chappelle clearly.

I was endorsed by Elon Musk so thank you Elon.

Donald Glover, Ken Jeong, Terri Hatcher,

Dane Dehaan, Anita Baker.

When Jeremy Lin was on the Nets, I actually met him

when he was on the Nets.

He and I have many friends in common.

I haven't talked to him about the Yang 2020 campaign.

After his season ends, we're gonna get him in the Yang Gang.

Did Jeremy Lin ever make it to the Yang Gang?

That's a good question.

I gotta find Jeremy and ask him, so maybe not officially.

John Lennon's son, Ken Jeong,

Martin Luther King the third, Arianna Huffington.

There are some others though, this is not the greatest list.

Whoopi Goldberg, Ryan Reynolds,

AOC, Judd Apatow, Aubrey Plaza.

I haven't met all these people,

but it's certainly very flattering

to be followed by some of them.

[laughs]

Dysfunctional, polarized.

And behind the times.

And behind-the-curve.

And behind-the-curve is hyphenated, so that's one word.

Because of the polarization,

we can't take any significant action

and the government is able to do less and less.

Our economy is transforming in fundamental ways

that are leaving more and more Americans behind

and we're not even talking about it,

much less addressing it.

There was a high school student in Central Iowa

who said that he has classmates

that they're already addicted to opioids.

It stuck with me, it's like what do you do about that?

And that question from that 18 year old in Iowa

led me to conclude that we should decriminalize opioids.

There's so many moments that have stuck with me

in my campaign.

Had moms crying in my arms

because their sons passed away from opioids.

Also had people crying tears of joy

talking about how my campaign helped bring them

out of a depression.

So it's like humanity turned up where you'd see

the best and worst of human experience

on any given day.

I certainly remember the gun violence event

and it was a mom telling a story about how her twin

three year olds, I believe, were shot in front of her

and then one of them died.

And I have two boys myself who are four and seven,

which were about the same age.

But yeah, I'll remember that forever

because that story is not something you forget.

"Why are you away so much?"

That happened.

"I like your bus."

That was exciting.

"Yang Gang", they liked that.

They like some of the Yang Gang music.

One of them liked the slogan mat.

So they said a lot of fun stuff.

Well, one of them, the older one,

was looking at the list of all the Presidents,

and then he said, "Who's going to be the 46th President?"

And then I said, "No one knows."

And then he looked at me and he said,

"You should be the 46th President."

Yeah, yeah, definitely not where he is now.

[laughs]

Well, when I stopped on the street,

the number one question is "Are you Andrew Yang?"

I've always admired Teddy Roosevelt a great deal.

I think Teddy was a very principled leader

and I am his great great granddaughter's godfather.

I was a big Barack Obama fan.

I mean, I was an honorary ambassador in his administration

and so he was the first person I think of in that regard.

I received a phone call from Barack Obama last week

and he's always been a real role model on many levels.

The 3000 person rally in San Francisco about two weeks ago.

Well, the Presidential Debates, I think were watched

by something like 17 million people,

so I guess that would be the largest number.

Definitely the Joe Rogan Experience.

Let's just say I was not getting stopped

on the street pre Joe Rogan.

But post Joe Rogan, it happened an awful lot.

Oh, I've been interviewed by so many incredible people.

But I think most people would have to say

it was my appearance with Joe Rogan.

Certainly it would be making the DNC Primary Debates

and then having CNN give us a Town Hall.

People don't like to bust out the credit card

and be like, "I'm gonna give five, 10, 20, 25 bucks."

SO the fact that 425 thousand or so Americans did that

is clearly our biggest accomplishment.

I saw one in Iowa.

I haven't seen one in the wild, where I was just driving

from place to place and I passed a yard sign.

When I was campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire, every day,

so thank you Yang Gang.

Now, not very much though.

That doesn't bother me.

I mean, it rhymes.

When I hear the term Yang Gang, I think of all

the incredible people who I've met on the trail

and have supported me in the campaign,

so I love the Yang Gang.

It's impossible for me not to then love the term Yang Gang.

I did meet him, I met him in South Carolina.

He came up with the acronym Make America Think Harder

for MATH, and there were actually other suggestions

for what MATH could stand for.

Make America Truly Happy was one.

I've been listening to a lot of Florence and the Machine

for whatever reason.

I've been listening to a lot of Imagine Dragons lately

because I've become friends with the guitarist.

"How Soon Is Now" by The Smiths.

I have 130 thousand Instagram followers.

I have 577 thousand Instagram followers.

So my most liked Instagram photo is an animated me

celebrating qualifying for the DNC Primary Debates.

My most liked photo on Instagram is a thank you video

from me and Evelyn to everyone who supported the campaign.

Someone suggested that we prepare some script

and then I said, "I don't think that's gonna work.

"I think I should just speak from the heart."

So it was a very difficult message to record.

One is the one I'm in now, which is media mode.

Number two is campaign mode,

which is when you're in Iowa or New Hampshire.

So you're in someone's home or a diner,

you can be talking to five or 10 people or 50 people.

And then, number three is rally mode.

Well, so keep in mind, I've been off the trail now

for two weeks, so I've been trying to remind my kids

what I look like and whatnot.

So there's definitely been some more Dad mode

that's been chasing around the kids and going on a hike

with them and stuff like that.

Is there still rally mode inside of me?

Yeah, very much so.

But for now, it's Dad mode, which I have to admit,

is a lot of fun.

My wife's doing great, happily.

Unfortunately, she and my kids are getting a little too used

to daddy not being around.

I think she's glad that I'm off the trail on some levels,

even though she was 100% campaigning

right alongside me down the stretch.

I'm so proud of her that she's become such this voice

for progress and reflecting the experience

of so many people and women in particular.

But yeah, in some ways, this campaign has really empowered

our family in ways that you never could have predicted

so I'm happy to say she's doing great.

I see them whenever I'm home,

which is approximately 40% of the time.

Now I see them a lot, happily.

I'm not traveling as much now that I'm off the trail,

so I wouldn't say I see them every day

because I'm still traveling a little bit

but I see them most days now, which is a treat, a delight.

They're totally bored of anything Dad related

that's not Dad in person,

so Dad on TV is not a thing for them.

That debate is not their speed,

they have Baby Shark on or something.

Maybe 10 or 11 days.

Probably two weeks.

I have breakfast, then I bring my oldest son to school.

I go to the office if there's nothing going on

but more often than not, I'll go to a media interview.

Have media interviews and meetings and calls

all day if I'm here in New York.

I might get home around dinner time.

Hopefully, I'm there to watch the kids go to sleep.

Then I have a little bit of time with my wife

at the end of the day.

If I am going to exercise or go to the gym,

it would probably be late at night.

Campaign life, you're scheduled down

to the five or 10 minutes.

Whereas now, I can have a whole 15, 20 minutes

where I'm just kind of milling around,

going from place to place.

I also don't have an entourage around me now,

which is actually quite delightful.

Who needs five people around you all the time?

Not this guy.

[laughs]

Sure, sometimes.

You feel like a lot of people that are relying on you

and you need to make a good impression at every new stop

because most people have never seen or heard you before.

There was a lot of pressure because opportunities

don't come around like this all the time.

There's someone that left the campaign early on