Sunday School 12/29/19

Today, Andrew Yang was the only one of the 2020 Dems making the rounds in the classrooms, so his conversation with Jonathan Karl on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos gets my undivided attention today.

Our Sunday School Extra Credit will cover the discussion on Meet the Press about "our post-truth society" and the spread of information, misinformation, alternative facts, and the like. That's going to be fun, I'm sure!

But today, it's all about Andrew. Here's the clip Jonathan Karl played to open the segment, of Yang talking about money and diversity at the last debate.

Why am I the lone candidate of color on this stage? Fewer than 5% of Americans donate to political campaigns. Do you know what you need to donate to political campaigns? Disposable income. I guarantee if we had a Freedom Dividend of $1000 a month, I would not be the only candidate of color on this stage tonight. 

I remembered that from the debate, and how it made me stop and think. I've donated small amounts to three of the candidates - but I've never really thought about my ability to do that, or more importantly, about someone else's inability to do that. And, honestly, I'm curious about where the conversation's going to go.

Karl presented the clip as Yang "making his pitch for his universal basic income plan" and noted that  "a dozen governors, mayors and members of Congress have already dropped out."  His first question to Yang was on the meaning of his campaign slogan, "Not left, not right, but forward."

Well, Jon, to me it's clear the reason why Donald Trump is our president today is that we automated away four million manufacturing jobs that were primarily based in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Missouri and Iowa, the swing states he needed to win. And what we did to those jobs is what we are now going to do to the retail jobs, the call center jobs, the fast food jobs,  and eventually the truck driving jobs. 

He's right -- who among us hasn't started a call with pretty much any customer service department by going through a bunch of automated prompts before we ever get a chance to talk to a person? And, with the increasing minimum wages we're seeing at the state level, can you remember the last time you walked into a fast food place or Panera and didn't see "order here" kiosks? Or signs outside Dunkin' suggesting you order from your phone and have it ready when you get there?

Here's the last bit of his answer.

We have to have a way forward that works for all Americans independent of (their) political affiliation, so that's what we mean by not left, not right, forward. These problems are technological and apply to us all. 

Karl asked if what he means is that the major parties are too tied to ideology, too far left or right.  Yang pointed out that he was an 'ambassador' (little A, not big A) in the last administration, and added

...to me Democrats still have not asked themselves the hard questions as to how Donald Trump won in 2016 where if you look around the country, you see 30 percent of stores and malls closing. You see record high levels of stress, financial insecurity, student loan debt, even suicides and drug overdoses. These are the problems that voters talk to me about when I'm out there every single day.

And he hit on another of his key points, which I think Elizabeth Warren has added to her repertoire:

And the Democratic Party, unfortunately, is acting like Donald Trump is the cause of all of our problems. He's a symptom and we need to cure the underlying disease.

Karl moved to the details of the Freedom Dividend, which will give everyone over 18 who opts in $1000 a month, free to use however they want. And he wondered about the 'Math' of allowing a Jeff Bezos or a Donald Trump to get the Universal Basic Income (UBI).Yang thanked him for noticing the MATH tagline, which stands for 'Make America Think Harder.' And he explained that his UBI plan is modeled after what they've been doing in Alaska for nearly 40 years - the petroleum dividend that gives everyone in the state the same amount of money, no questions asked. That's what takes away the stigma and makes it truly universal, Yang explained. 

And back to Bezos?

And my way to pay for this is by taking a toll from every Amazon sale, every Google search, every Facebook ad. So we'd be getting hundreds of millions, even billions, from Jeff Bezos. So if we try and send him $1,000 a month to remind him he's an American, it's essentially immaterial. 

Turning to his newly released health care plan, Karl confessed to having some confusion about where Yang stands and played a couple of clips, one of the candidate and one of an unidentified woman, presumably a supporter. Both clips mentioned Medicare for All. His plan, Karl said, "does not call for Medicare for all. In fact, it doesn't even have a public option. So why the dissonance here?"

We need to move towards universal health care that's high quality and nearly cost free for Americans around the country. But reality is, we have millions of Americans who are on private insurance right now and taking those plans away from them very quickly would be untenable for many, many Americans. 

And he suggested the goal should not be to shut down private insurance, but instead

To me, the goal of the government has to be to demonstrate that we can out-compete private plans and then push them out of the market over time. And that's -- that's what we're proposing.

Karl pushed back, saying "...but-- again, I'm confused. Your ad is explicit. Your ad says, Medicare for all. Your plan is not Medicare for all. It's not even 'Medicare for some' because in your plan there -- there's not even a public option."

Our plan is to expand a universal health care system to all Americans. Medicare for All is not the name of a bill. Medicare for All -- is universal health care for all Americans. And that is our vision.

I give Jon Karl credit for pressing on this question, because it does seem confusing. He asked again, "But Medicare for All is Medicare for all, right? I mean --" 

Well, our -- our health care plan would be -- would be based on Medicare and expanding it over time to more and more Americans. You'd lower the eligibility age and then you make it widely accessible.

Karl gave up, saying he "didn't see that" in Yang's plan, but moved on to talk about Yang's campaign.

Reiterating that he's "been the surprise break-through candidate" and that no one expected him to still be in the race or on the stage for the last of the 2019 debates. But, he noted, Yang's yet to break 5% in the early-state polls, and wondered what he has to do "to actually break through to the next level?"

Yang was upbeat in his typically self-deprecating way, saying he loves being described as a "surprise break-through." He also noted it's been a while since there's been an early-state poll - over a month, he said, and so he

can't wait for some new polls to come out that show how much we're growing, how much the energy and enthusiasm and the crowds are getting bigger every time I go to any of the early states. I'm on my way to New Hampshire a little bit later today to celebrate New Year's Eve. And you're going to see, when the polls come out, we'll be at 5 percent or higher. I think significantly higher.

Moving to impeachment, Karl noted that Yang says no one ever asks him about that, and he's also said that Dems spend too much time talking about it. So, he asked Yang to confirm whether he supported impeaching Trump.

Yes, I do support the impeachment process, but voters don't ask me about impeachment, they ask me about health care and child care and education and climate change. And the fact is, we need 20 Republican senators to have a change of heart or a change of mind in order for impeachment to be successful.

So this strikes many Americans like a ballgame where you know what the score is going to be. And until that changes, to me, we need to be focused much more on presenting a new and positive vision that Americans will get excited about. That's how we win in 2020.

Karl tried to turn that into specifics, asking if Yang would advise Dems to "just forgo the Senate trial," noting that Trump's already been impeached and if, as Yang says, we already know the score in the Senate, why spend "the better part of a month, maybe longer" on a trial that Yang says voters don't care about.

Well, we -- we've impeached him. And if you're going to have the trial, you should make it happen as quickly and expediently as possible. I've already said that I think that the other candidates who are in the Senate, Senators Warren and Sanders and Booker and Bennett should feel free to continue their campaigns during the trial because the fact is, we have an election to win later this year and a case to make to the American people.

Karl noted that Yang has suggested he'd "be open to pardoning Donald Trump if (he) were elected" which is something I had not heard before. Karl asked if that was something Yang would do, and if any Democrat won in November, should a pardon be issued?

My focus is on solving the problems that got Donald Trump elected and moving the country forward. And if you look around the world, unfortunately, it's developing countries that have fallen into a pattern of the new president or the new leader prosecuting and sometimes imprisoning the former leader. That's not a precedent that’s been set here in the U.S., and to me, that's something that I would be interested in maintaining. It's not in the country's interest necessarily to look backwards. We need to look forwards.

Hitting this one more time, Karl wondered if Yang would "not want to proceed with prosecuting Donald Trump after he left office" and if he'd be open to a pardon, or if he thought Trump should be pardoned.

Well, we would have to see what the facts were. We’d have to see what the charges were and what the attorney general advises. But my interest is moving the country forward.

That's where they left it, but I did some digging to see what Yang had said about impeachment. Most information points back to the November debate; here's a little more on that from NBC News.

Andrew Yang said he does not think Trump should be facing criminal charges and would consider pardoning Trump if he were in fact prosecuted.

"We do not want to be a country that gets in the pattern of jailing past leaders," Yang said, adding that "there's a reason why Ford pardoned Nixon." 

"I'd actually go a step further and say not just, hey, it's up to my [Attorney General]. I would say that the country needs to start solving the problems on the ground and move forward."

"Would you consider a pardon then?" NBC News asked.

"I would," Yang said.

So - we opened with a clip about diversity and never talked about it again, and we closed with a conversation about pardoning Trump. Interesting way to bookend the interview.

See you around campus.