During a recent interview with WBUR’s On Point , Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang spoke about the election of Donald Trump and why he believes it’s a sign that America is becoming desperate in the face of an economy that is shifting due to the automation of jobs. The 44-year-old also highlighted that he is one of the only candidates that Trump has yet to address on Twitter.
“And the reason for that is that he’s a bully and he knows I’m better at the internet than he is,” he said, highlighting the internet-savvy nature of his following, the Yang Gang, and echoing previous comments he made during an interview with KRON4 News , as The Inquisitr reported.
“But I truly am his kryptonite. He even said in a rally in West Virginia a number of months ago, he said he can’t wait to run against the Democrats. The only thing he’s worried about is that some new figure comes out of nowhere, and I’m that figure. He runs most effectively against people that are part of the D.C. establishment, and I am not.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Yang spoke about his signature proposal: a universal basic income (UBI) of $1,000 per month for every American over the age of 18. He points to Thomas Paine, Martin Luther King Jr., and Milton Friedman, who have supported some form of UBI, as well as the purported benefits UBI would create, such as making society more rational and optimistic as a whole.
Andrew Yang doesn’t think immigrants are taking away job opportunities in the United States — robots are. https://t.co/eoOxQuID5p
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) September 5, 2019
As for how he plans to pay for UBI, Yang proposes a mechanism to give Americans a slice of “every Amazon sale, every Google search, every Facebook ad,” and “every robot truck mile.” According to Yang, this would generate billions of dollars in revenue and pay a large portion of his UBI — also known as the Freedom Dividend.
Per CNS News , Yang recently appeared on CNN’s climate change town hall in which he outlined his plans to address the pressing issue that hasn’t received much airtime thus far during the Democratic presidential debates. He spoke about his five-point plan to address climate change, including a constitutional amendment that makes it the responsibility of the U.S. government to protect the environment for future generations and stopping subsidies for the fossil fuel industry.
RealClear Politics reports that Yang is currently in sixth place in the Democratic presidential primary with 2.6 percent. In front of him are Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and Pete Buttigieg.
