Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba.

We're back doing an open. Andrew Yang is on the podcast.

Come on, I am the fact that we're getting like very fancy politicians on the show, the fact that he made it, the fact that a politician would talk to anyone in this room, it's truly a shocker.

I mean, I can't even imagine the interview coming up with Andrew Yang is so informative. Full disclosure. I was very nervous and I act really weird in the interview. I was stuttering. I was constantly fixing my hair. I was super unprofessional and a little hung over.

I think that you came up to Andrew Yang like this and will be on my podcast. And he was like, well, we have to help everyone.

You know, this was a charity.

Initiatives like, you know, the circus is suffering, I got to be honest with you.

So before I interviewed Andrew Yang, I couldn't sleep because I was nervous. And remember, I was out of sleeping pills.

Yes. And I took one of my dogs, gabapentin, which is like a dog sedative or like a pain medication. Sure. You want to say all this? Yeah, I'm saying it. I'm real. I don't lie to our fans. I tell them what's what. I'm not going to pretend to be perfect even though I come off that way. I know you think I'm perfect.

Yeah, I know. I know. I'm giving away all my secrets right now.

No, I took I got so nervous that I was going to fall asleep, so I took a little bit of like old Nyquil from when I was sick in January. And that Nyquil. I know. I love it. I can't believe it's legal.

And then I went into my dog's like medicine cabinet and took a gabapentin and the expiration date was like twenty seventeen. So I took like a weird old painkiller.

And I felt really odd during the interview. I bet you did.

Yeah. Plus being like kind of nervous and got his daughter and she said, is anybody else's spirit left their body.

My the only one who can see myself from above. Remember the producers after the interview I was like you guys. I think that was a disaster. I think I totally embarrassed myself, like I found myself stuttering. But usually when I think I'm moving slow or can't say something properly, I'm actually speaking it like a normal speed, even though in my head it sounds like I'm like in slow motion are like in quicksand. You listen back to it. I'm like, oh, no, I don't.

Yeah, like cause I'm like, oh my God, I can't remember this word. You're such an idiot. And then that's how it feels in my head. But I'm actually just talking in a lucid way is how it comes off. The pills part in helping with the pills certainly didn't help.

I just I should wait until this podcast.

It's do not take your dog drugs to wait on your prescription, which is Whitney's biggest fault. She does understand that you can't call pharmacy. I need my pills now, man. We can't just give you more pills. And she's like, understand? But I have to do. But I can't. But I'm Ty Ty.

And they were like, we gave you enough to last night. I lost all that I do sometimes Jotham or I had to take like one and a half one night because I'm be like, you can't self medicate. I'm just like we're in a pandemic. Can't we be a little flexible about these rules?

So I'm not going to, like, sue you. Let's just be cool about my favorite things.

Every time you're like, is my prescription ready? And I'm like, I don't think it's ready yet.

You go, fuck, I can't believe this is fucking I know you guys know me. Google me. You know I why I need this early. I'm going to tell them then it can you really quick.

It's just like now I can't sleep because my prescription is not ready. It's undoing the whole point of this drug. Yeah.

And now I'm panicking citing anxiety medication. But that's not ready. I'll just be like, hey, this is on you. If you don't give it to me, I'm going to take a Nyquil and it's my my dog's drug. So your call you just calm you.

You're going to stay on the phone me all night. So can you help me to sleep? If you won't give me my sleeping pills, you better learn how to whisper. I just like to try to guilt them and like appeal to their conscience. If you don't give this to me, I'm going to take some, like, old weird rosé.

We're medical professionals. This like heard of them.

Remember when we had to get my Prozac prescription and you said they were like on back order? Oh, yeah. I'm very I'm I have a lot of questions about like three different pharmacies.

And they were like, it's a shortage in L.A. And I was like, that's such an L.A. thing to say. There's a shortage of Prozac in Los Angeles, in the South.

They'd be like, we don't even know what that is like. Laying in the yard, trying to see what shape is that cloud. There's some moonshine at the yard sale down the street. What's your problem?

Why did you Brozak OK, anyway, we want you to get to Andrew Yang as soon as possible because I think the interview is super. Besides me being a little little groggy, he's super incisive and he seemed completely sober. That's a great way to lure listeners.

And we want you to get past this part as quick as possible.

Well, no, we just haven't done an open in so long and everyone wants to hear from Benton. We have a couple announcements to make, unfortunately. Because of this God damn invisible murderer called covid, the Houston and the House of Blues shows that were scheduled, I believe, in March are being canceled. I mean, they're canceling March shows. I always thought the invisible murder was a tooth fairy.

I think that that's so funny to me. And I can't explain why House of Blues show in Houston is canceled. However, if you're listening to this podcast, there's a very strong chance that we are going to do some outdoor shows in late September, early October on the East Coast, a couple in the Midwest. We're driving.

We're going to take a couple of flights safely, a tandem bike, whatever we have to stick. So check the website when you cumming's dot com. I'm also going to do text alerts. I know this is boring, annoying logistical stuff. I hate it as much as you do, but eight one eight two three nine seven five to seven. Text me, text me your questions, your comments, your dick pics, your bathroom pics. You know, I'll start a fight with her.

Honestly, a lot of people have they want to they they people want to challenge me about how shiny I am. A lot of people don't like my new look. They don't like my new blue light glasses. I don't know if you have notes about me or my personality critiques. Criticisms. Why do it publicly in the comments? I'm not going to look at those. Text me directly if you want to hurt my feelings, that's the way to really do it.

Yeah.

And if you have notes about me or my personality, hang out with my parents will agree with them. And also, if you see your shirts at a vintage store, you text that to me, text me the vintage store and I'll fuckin order it. A lot of you I've been doing that and I appreciate it. Quite frankly, you guys have become my stylist. I'll have the horse shirts and weird ass horse jewelry I wear. I get texted, people go, I saw this and thought of you and I went, Yeah, right, bitch.

I'm going to start blocking those people. A-one, a two three nine seven five to seven. You can text me, you put your city in. So what? I'm coming to your city and when there's updates during all this covid madness, I can say directly, hey, this show just happened. It's rescheduled. Here's the deal. You can you know, it's a drive in. It's a you know, we're doing a lot of work on grass, like the way you do a festival, like a picnic.

It's just like it's just like a better way to connect because sometimes, you know, social media, sometimes we don't get an algorithm, sometimes down the algorithm and you miss it and then you're mad.

Yeah. And then you're like, why the fuck did you come to my city? And I'm like, bitch, I was there last week. Stop. You muted me. You muted me because I was posting too many pink hair photos anyway. So those are a little just check the website. Oh, we have more logistics. Oh what.

We have new merch coming out next month.

You in the merch, me in the merch, you in the merch. Take it away. Technologized. Yeah but yeah we have new merch coming out next month. I'm working on new merch and it is I will say I kind of am a strong departure from what we've been doing. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. And it's a lot of fresh looks.

It's a lot of fresh looks and hot taglines. Yeah.

It's to lines, fresh, fresh, fresh looks. It's a lot of stuff you've been asking for. That's right. And a lot of stuff you you didn't know you wanted a lot of stuff frankly that might get you fired. A lot of things that will not work in the dress code of your business, a lot of stuff that'll help you leave. Subtle hints, a lot of stuff that you should never wear on a first date.

You may be the wild man, though.

The wild shirtless Whitney one on one. It's Whitney, one on one with is. There's wolves with merch on it. Wolves with blue eyeliner. We have fans coming, venton fans stuff line.

We're waiting on those. OK, but we do have four. We will have fans.

If you're watching, if you're listening, you're not gonna be able to see this bent. Do it.

Do the fan do it now. Hey.

Oh, it's so chilling. Bone chilling.

So satisfying. Any conversation.

I encourage you to see what Benton just did on YouTube. It's sexy.

It is so powerful. It I'm just saying what I suppose was written with you in that van and everyone should get a fan.

I have a theory, if any argument. You're just like, did you eat my sandwich with my name on it? Oh, yes, you did.

OK, I'm sorry. You're right. I did. You're right. I'm sorry. Exactly. Thank you. I just got this got heated and now you're cooling it down.

Oh, Mona. It's really triggered by the fan.

Mona is my dog who's now the panicking monologues, jokes, news. We are a serious news organization now. We are serious.

We are. I honestly believe that our news is the most truthful and scientifically correct. You guys are pitching names for our news segments. Very true news. Pretty good. Fairly news.

Not bad news. It's questionmark. Is this news any one news? Is this thing on news? Frank news? Because my dog's name is Frank and he always interrupts the news program and it is Frank news.

Turns out all those names were taken by the actual networks. So I believe we are the least biased news network out there at this point. Oh, we have to be. I was watching CNN the other day. Excuse me. See, Frank always has to participate in this.

I was watching CNN the other day and the anchor was reading the news and was sighing and rolling his eyes and actually relatable mood.

I know, but you can't you can't do that. You can't be like anyway. So this vote passed. Oh, God damn.

Republicans like you can't do that. You're a news anchor. You're another fire, I guess. Yeah. You're not allowed to roll your eyes. You don't mean it's almost like you're just eating Skittles, waiting for them to get to the point where they make that jerk off motion.

You know, when you have a conversation like I guess that law passed, I can blowhards just voted on it.

Think you can't do that. This is the new law. They like put things in quotes anyway. That law passed in the Senate.

You can be. Yeah. You can't do air quotes around things like it's I believe we are actually the most direct, nonbiased news source at this point. So give us the top what's our top story and bring it home. We're going to start off with this. Is this some hard hitting news, hard hitting news?

It's hard rock, hard news. But I like my news. Like I like my dick's rock hard. I like mine in picture form.

Lavender sales are up during the pandemic. People are buying more lavender to calm themselves and hopefully help fight off evils. The spirits, I guess this is where we're at as a society.

Like, honestly, I'm very worried that no one is going to take the vaccine because people are buying lavender as a medical remedy. We've gone back to witchcraft.

We've literally we've come full circle. Urban Outfitters won. They've won.

I'm I'm very concerned of where we're going in terms of putting our faith in Popery Popery and Krystal's like we're in a pandemic.

Let's focus on actual true science. Let's when the vaccine comes, you guys, please take it. Don't go. You know what? I already have that lavender bath oil. Why would I need an actual vaccine?

I whisper all my fears into a box.

Why would I need this vaccine when I've already got this salt lamp right here?

I lay in the moon every night. People can't touch me, you know.

It's just stress is the worst thing in the world on the immune system. You know, it's stressful paying eighteen dollars for lavender oil off.

It's most gross. It smells like a girl who invites you to Bible camp and then talk shit about her body in the prayer circle.

I can't relate to that very much. We should. Speaking of better health dotcom, you should log in very much like what that is.

I want to know what Erb keeps people to buy lavender away from me.

But weed. Oh, OK. I guess.

But I just I'm very concerned. Like, I know we're in peak stress. I know we're in peak anxiety, but I hope we still believe in science after all of this. Like, I think we're getting to sort of hokey wellness, you know, like I don't know if it's Instagram. I don't know what it is, but I'm just I just really hope you guys are taking care of your immune systems, eating while hydrating yourself instead of just using a dildo made of turquoise and thinking that's going to cure covid.

Listen, if Lavender worked, SAILIN would have been a lot different because they had actually the that's the thing. Lavender's been around for thousands of years and it has not done anything for the general vibe of humans.

It so I'm, I'm and I into this feel like news is this I feel some hate mail coming on.

I know this is a hot take. Did you just try to cancel lavender? I know. I just know a lot of people that are like super stressed out and super anxious and they don't take care of themselves and they eat crap and they don't exercise and they don't hydrate themselves. But I just got a fucking lavender in. I'm good. I'm carrying both courts and my bro. But what's the news about this? Was it we did it all so OK, because I sales are up.

Basically people are buying lavender because they're more stressed out. People understand that. The first thing we say, oh, do you think OK, because I'm confused because we were talking about less what else is on the docket?

Well, as you can tell, I didn't have last this year, so it's been a busy week. I recorded like three podcast this week.

So many days. I don't know. I did Joe Rogan this week.

I didn't have time to research what you probably tell and no one needs to, so.

That's right. Yeah. The news. I'll get to it.

The news you do the work, you tell us what's going on. I just hit my mouth on the money.

Well, you saw Britney Spears wants to end her conservatorship.

Begin with her dad. This is a very hot story, OK? And a lot of people want to free Britney, I feel like I'm going to get canceled after talking about this, but I I started falling on Instagram and it makes me very anxious and makes me very unsettled.

I was looking at them.

And the thing that really upset me, that made me think that she's either unhinged or something is very wrong, is that she did three separate posts on three separate days in the same shirt with the eco ecofriendly queen.

I'm just saying for some reason that to me made me think something was deeply wrong.

When she shaved her head, I was like, we all have bad days. We all want to just I felt the urge to do that before I get that. Smashed a car with umbrella. We've all seen our boyfriends get a text from an ex and thought about. We've all we've all been there. Listen to too many Adele songs. Yeah.

Smashing a car, but seeing her in the same top in three different photos in three different days, I was like, there's something wrong with this girl. There's something terribly, terribly wrong because that's something that's her dad.

That's Surmont. That's him like that's a that's something that only an aunt or a dad would do and made me think that he's in control of her. Yeah. That's why it's like this is my good shirt also.

Yes. But also I think he's I feel like he's doing her social media. No, I don't know. Any woman controls everything that is saying that would do that. Also her captions obviously written by a guy. There's like the heart emoji, the rose emoji, the panda panda emoji, like no women do that.

They're just like talking about she's just talking about colors like I love the color. No, but she's also so positive. It's like I'm so happy to be alive and my life is so great. Like no woman would ever write life is going great.

I just feel positive. I just don't know any women that would never white straight man is writing that clearly it's average white straight man that has access to a lot of money. It was like nothing's wrong. No woman would ever act like that.

And speaking of what her dad is doing, how can I get you on this program?

Me on one on conservatorship, on the conservatorship ship thing.

I get the point of it. I mean, the idea is to basically control her finances and I could benefit from that. We need someone to veto plaid shirt. Yeah. We need someone to come in and intervene in my wardrobe, in my captions, quite frankly, and manage my money. I mean, I when I first started making I get why they have this in place, it's to make sure she doesn't blow all of her money. Like when I first started making money, I just started like paying for like dogs, dental surgeries.

And I was like broke. So I get why they don't let people in their 20s have a lot of money we make would make.

If I had no one helping me manage my money, so many people would be dead and I would have like four elephants in my backyard.

I mean, someone does have to come in and make sure that creative's emotional people don't just have a blank check, but it shouldn't be your parents.

Imagine so buying your clothes now. But yeah, I'm just saying, like, there's Britney Spears and then there's Jay Paul, which is the other extreme.

Like someone needs to intervene on that. Oh my gosh. I just I am convinced that he is writing her captions because also the spacing is off. This is the kind of shit I notice.

It'll be like, hey, everybody, space, three exclamation points, another space and then a period. I'm like, this is a dad that drinks too much.

It's the dad with a holster. Yeah, this is it.

This is a dad that still has the Bluetooth in his ear just all the time. Even when he's not on the phone, he's making calls about her money and run things.

He wants to also look at who she follows.

She only follows people that dad's it's like pit bull, Mariah Carey, Kenny Loggins, like she doesn't even follow, like young celebrity.

It's just like professional golfers, baseball player, like totally like Tony Robbins. And like like it's just like Shania Twain.

She found Tommy Bahama. Yeah. Why is it so weird? She follows Margaritaville with everybody. Why don't you follow the Rainforest Cafe? This is a random follow.

You can tell her dad is fully controlling her life because they think he's controlled since 2008, which is the same time she reapplied that eyeliner. What is happening? I have to that I like.

I truly we're not like shaming her. We're not shaming her looks. She's an icon. A legend. I know. Of course we love her. But I truly believe that she is not allowed to go out or like go on the Internet because everything she it's very 90s, like everything that she wear, her makeup, like you never see her in, like the very forward fashion look that, for example, I have trademarked, like, blue eyeliner.

You never see true. You never see her doing hip cool stuff like that. But no, you never see her in like modern clothes.

She's still wearing stuff from her first tour. She's still there like recycling.

She's still wearing stuff from Bebe that I got dry humped in when I was 15. I mean, she's still wearing these midriff peasant tops. And this is how I know that she is not allowed like near things or to make decisions.

All of those peasant tops look real closely. Zoom in on that photos.

There's always like that ring, the hanger string that that they put on the store to keep it on the hanger that you cut off the second you get home, they aren't cut off. They're hanging out of his shirts, which means they don't let her around scissors.

They don't like he's they don't let her out knives.

There is no woman that would not cut off those hanger strings from a brand new top. It's the first thing you do when you get home.

Also, all these crop top peasant tops. That's all she's saying that she's trying to it's her daddy's buying her peasant chops to try to convince her that she's poor.

Yeah, just a lowly peasant. Yeah. It's like she's an icon. Why is she dressed like an extra in like the my my little house on the Prairie porn parody.

Oh, God, what is that is so sad, the chokers, the chokers straight from the very 90s, like she's always wearing to chokers and I'm convinced they're tracking devices, maybe they're like shock collars or something.

Who's wearing chokers? I mean, the kids, the kids these days. Yeah, but hers not they're not her choker. Hers are hundreds of plastic woven chokers. Yeah. Those are they were made in the same factory as slap bracelets, the ones that she has. It's all very 90s. They're not like the new cool chokers, like they're the ones we wore when we were like doing whippets at raves.

I mean when I was a kid, I knew that she I mean, I knew it was trouble. And she made that video where she was like, sometimes I brought my gym down. You know, I had two candles and one thing led to another.

I see her reading something. I feel like, yeah, well, she's like someone's holding up a whiteboard or like cards or something, and they're always coming from the top, the highest angle. They can't she's totally reading something. Yeah. Because if she could say what she wanted to, she'd be so kind.

As I brought my gym down, I had two candles and one thing led to another and I had to set myself on fire.

So my dad let me leave the house like it's like, what else could she say?

But she also says it was like no emotion. It's like it's almost like feels like, you know, I don't know.

She did she's like not allowed to have a personality. She's not like, I'm ready, I'm down. I'm going to it's like she's like anyway, I put my name down and I'm doing this thing and now I have to redo my gym anyway. So I'm going to show you my exercises. Like when she said she like a little robot.

I have two candles and one thing leads to another.

She said that fire also her. Can I tell you something? Now we're going on a tangent. Her exercises aren't even twenty twenty. She doesn't even have, like, new machines in there. She's on like she's like doing these like, you know, remember, you know, that thing that's all over Instagram of Jamie Lee Curtis and John Travolta doing those exercises. Her exercises are literally like calisthenics from the seventies, from like a video. It's almost like she's a catch.

The question is, is just spins around. Yeah. She's just she's like spinning and like doing like, weird exercises with like no way to know. She's like click there's. Yeah. There's no there's no like yoga ball. There's no like modern machinery like you look at the rocks gym and it looks like a bad ass like Gold's Gym. It's got like all the new stuff, like she doesn't even have that. She's like doing jumping jacks. I'm like, you know, there's newer exercises.

Yeah.

Why we help her. What are we going to do? I love here's what a devil's advocate girl. Devil's advocate. Britney, if you're listening, if you're a fan of the.

Oh also this is what we'll do. She doesn't follow a lot of people on Instagram. Let's do this. Britney, if you need help, follow me on Instagram.

Do you think she's allowed to listen to them because.

Well, someone might get to her. Let's look at this, because a lot of people say we said like they were like Britney, wear black if you need help, we're yellow.

Sure. Like eight days in a row. She wore yellow the next day, like, but that's a little bit could be coincidental. She always kind of wears yellow shell.

So I'm in a whole post about yellow. She she posted just the color yellow and then wrote how much she loves yellow in the caption.

That's wild.

That's wild. Yeah. So bring her free. If you follow us, we will get in the car, we will drive down there right now and Benton will fight your dad.

Oh. Knock on the door politely ask you to go get some ice cream with us. You will first reapply your eyeliner because that does it.

I know wet and wild, runny, teary drip when I see one. I mean, that that is that's a good description that I have cried and wet and wild a lot. That is not Narz. That is wet and wild make. Yeah. I mean she is not getting to makeup a cultural icon. I know, but here's what I'll say.

Devil's advocate, Britney Spears, little devil's advocate. If you've been in that weird ass marble bunker for the last, I don't know, twenty years, now is probably not the time to emerge.

Oh, Chris, I'm just saying, like maybe maybe even another six months.

The idea that she like is finally like, I'm free, I'm free. And she goes out and everyone's like, put on a fucking mask.

And she's like, Jesus, I'd rather go back to my fortress with my full year round Christmas tree is like the last time I was out here, I was bored eating Cheetos.

Barefoot looks so different. I like what happened. Why is everybody such an asshole? Yeah, we don't like Pepsi no more. Yeah, yeah. We're like, wash your hands bitch. Like it's your your coming. You're being freed at a weird time.

I think she's a Mennonite. Yeah.

Just like protests and riots everywhere.

Just like it's a lot. Anyway, I feel like we've talked a lot about Britney Spears. What else can we inform our fans with. So they they are up to date. What's next, Spanton.

I'm sorry I didn't write anything for any of this. I'm just winging it.

The next thing. Did you know what that flushing urinals can spread covid?

Yeah. No shit. Big question. Who's ever flushed a urinal? You've been in a men's bathroom. The. He's just on the floor. Whoever wrote this article has never been in a men's restroom, also high tech journalists are pointless. We don't need to line up beside each other and piss in a trough. You can pee in a toilet. It takes a little more work. You have to, like, work for something in your life that is the stupidest waste of space in a bathroom.

I hate a fucking urinal.

It is so weird that you guys are shoulder to shoulder with your dick. So it is such a weird choice. What do you need to talk about with your dick in your hand like that? Your friend, what are you doing?

So I'm kind of traumatic experiences in bathrooms, but hold on. I'm actually researching this because I'm a real journalist.

According to a report in the Physics of Fluids Journal, my memoir of all, the biggest takeaway is there's a journal called The Physics of Fluids.

I want to know what other fluids are in that. I would like to subscribe to this publication. This is already my favorite magazine. Researchers found a flushing urinal can blast covid particles two feet in the air, potentially infecting the unsuspecting urinal users. How I'm sorry, two feet in the air. Wouldn't have thought you'd have to be very short for the sea on the mouth. Like, how far does your nose how far does this back splash?

Once again, no one's ever urinal. It's on the floor. I am telling you, there's there's just piss all over men's bathroom. The urinal doesn't matter. You know what I hate about urinals?

That little brick that's in it, the air freshener. That's what it is. Yeah. That is so disgusting. You don't put air freshener in a toilet.

Because that doesn't sit there for days. So now experts are suggesting during the pandemic, people should wear face coverings in public restrooms. OK, well, years ago when I was hanging around in bathrooms wearing masks, everyone thought I was weird.

And look how that's changed. Look how that's changed. Look at me now. They also suggest that they sit down to pee, which like asking a dude to sit down to pee, is like like ask them to flush the urinal they're going to do when they're alone.

Do you guys sit down to pee? If I saw a guy sit down, I think he was taking a poo poo.

Well, what if they were just standing there just holding a little penis back pain in the toilet? Like, can you just sit down on a toilet and pee without, like, touching your penis or whatever? I mean, I think some people I think that depends on the size of your dick.

If you have a little pain, I think you'd like to take a little square toilet paper and put it between, like, the you know, it's like touching the rim of the toilet bowl.

No, you would make this like people don't like toilets now then thinking about it. Well, women toilets are very sexist to women. The way that you sit actually makes it so that you don't after you empty your entire bladder. So you actually supposed to either elevate your knees or lean forward as if you were like squatting in a hole like that is the only way to completely empty your bladder and make poo poo properly. So it's toilets are bad for women, but can men sit on them and pee?

I mean, you can not you definitely can do that. But I think that I think that baby I'm pretty sure your penis would like lay on the top of it a little bit or in it or they have the side of your penis, you have a giant dick.

But no, I'm saying I can't comment on that because I never think about my penis that much. But I'm sure there. Does your penis touch the toilet bowl producers?

I'm just saying, wouldn't it just go down or is this sexual harassment? Sorry, you guys, if you need to talk to your lawyer, I'll give you the number. But can I just. I have no power.

So, like, can you pee sitting down? You got to push your date, you have to hold, so then it would touch the little rim of the toilet bowl, right? No. How far forward are you you would you can't sit that far back on a toilet, can you? Yes. Use no toilet. No, not the edge of it. You just turn the whole toilet dumped. You just sit on the floor with your legs crossed.

If there was room, you have to push it back is my point.

Yes, OK. So when you sit down to pee, you got to kind of like touch your dick. You like to push it down. Interesting. I'm yeah, I wouldn't do that in front of your girlfriend, just FYI. Or anyone or anyone really don't watch. Yeah. One hundred percent of the. Really, men do a piece, they take a dump dump Ducros night, but so you have to hold your dog when you take a dump.

Oh God, you guys have to touch your dicks. What do you take? Shits. Oh, you mean you just put it what what is it like putty, you just put it down and then it just stays? Really? Because you know what it is, you know what I'm realizing girls don't get to see flaccid dicks that much. You guys are weird about it. Like you only want us to see it when they're rock hard like our nose.

So I don't know anything about the behavior of dicks when they're not hard.

Well, that was my point. You're for flaccid dick is like if you're if you're a shower and not a grower and your flaccidity is like hanging over your balls, then you can put it down there easily. If you have a little like grow or a penis, like a little knob that sits above your balls.

Yeah, I like those penises that are like, hey, I'm up here. They're like buttons.

They're just like it's like, they're like but they're like inside of you like hello. I like them like little mushrooms.

Like there's something things I think that this was not the point of this conversation.

This is the kind of news that people need to know. I did not know that I have lots of questions about dicks because I feel like I've spent so much time in relationships trying to, like, not look because guys get insecure about it or whatever.

So thank you for letting me ask these questions. I've learned a lot. One thing that I don't know if I have that much, I know you create a safe space.

I am a safe space. OK, next thing I'm sweating to I'm so hot we have to. I was embarrassing Yang. His first venture Yangs. Oh my gosh.

We just talk about dicks for in urinals for 20 minutes. And like smart people that want to hear Andrew Yang had to sit through that.

I'm sorry. Yeah. But you know, those people have dicks, maybe something. And the biggest thing, the last thing that we have to discuss is the bujon pool party. The bujon pool party. You know, the best way to celebrate and surviving a pandemic is start a new one.

That is crazy to me. That's a perfect joke. Banten thank you. I can't follow that.

I mean, having a pool party during a pandemic is like it's like bowling a shooter during a school shooting. You're just making it worse.

Like this is what caused the problem. I mean, they're celebrating not having any cases in like three months and in America, we're just we're just talking, celebrating. We have no reason to, but we're still fucking partying.

I mean, it's crazy. I would that Paul had to be sort of rubbing alcohol, right?

I don't know. I think it was. Would you get in the pool while you're in your own pool?

Yes, I do. I got in the pool the other day for photos for the gram. Would you go to this pool party if you were invited? Would you be this celebrity guests at the Luján pool party? What are they paying me?

A hospital visit?

No, I don't think I would. I generally don't like pool parties outside of pandemic's because all I can think about our pubes floating around in shorts and then going into my crevices. You think about genitals alone? I do, yeah, as a woman, you know, it's a trauma that's the trauma of a disaster like our ours is like a whole.

I mean, you really it's a whole you know, women's genitals are complex. I know there is an entry point for pretty much anything at any time.

We are it's a open there's an entry point in men's genitals all the time. I know.

But like a pubes not going to, like, go up in New York, dig some pissants or little in some or larger piglet's. Yeah, it's a business. It's the part you part of the little slut dick holes are different sizes.

Yeah I know that. I know my way around it. Dick call and I just want to bring it back to.

No, I'm just saying like when I'm in like because you always have to worry about getting like a UTI or yeast infection, you have to just think about it because you've got this like open, you know, campiness.

I don't know.

Infection's, I don't know, maybe Skinny's, but there's not we have a fuckin little hole going to use infection of holes.

I know you're a barrel.

I got I know we are Swiss cheese, so we have to I have to think about that stuff so I generally get too much chlorine can throw off your levels.

Like I don't even like going to pools if there's too much chlorine and too much sunshine to win.

Yeah. I never want my pussy to be too clean.

I'm sure it's part of the ecosystem. I good for the turtles really. You guys, I don't want the livestock in there to get balance wearing bathing suits.

They get you know, it's a bit dicey when is done is like an aquarium.

There's like a little rug. The chest in there is the moss, a full eagle. There's like sea monkeys like you don't even know like what are you describing it?

I'm just saying you have to think about this kind of stuff, you know, so I wouldn't go to that pool party before all this nightmare.

Well, I wouldn't go in there but make you feel better. And that's why we get and that's the newest guys.

Andrew Yang is next. I love him so, so much. You're going to learn so much from this. I tried to shut my your mouth a bit so that you guys could hear his amazing messages and thoughts and solutions.

Be sure to vote. Also, make sure you're registered to vote and you vote early if you can. Can you vote early now? I mean, can you have researched it? I hear a lot of people talk about voting at all. I know how to do that. But a vote on my Hollywood celebrity that tells Americans to vote, you don't make money. We have to save something or someone go register to vote on a change.

I mean, you are because I was like, I take responsibility. Whatever the voting situation is. I did it to start seeing the imagine song to help you. And I want to sing Queen of the Night. Lets me do what I started selling crystal water bottles.

At any point you flicking this candle smells like my.

I did call my e no.

I'm going to go. We have to leave Andrew Yang. Love you guys. Like subscribe don't ride elephants. Enjoy Andrew Yang. This podcast will make you smarter and more hopeful and you can impress people on your Zoome brunches.

Wendy Cummings dot com slash store for Mirch. Oh, that's right. Now take a break to talk about panties, pantaloon pantaloons, bloomers, Mandy.

They're truly the only underwear that I have at this point. I have no other underwear. Can I tell you something about Mandi's? You have to paint you too.

I went on a hike. A date hike. I'd like to think it was a date hike the other day. It's a big thing we do in L.A. and the underwear I chose to wear on my date hike as to not show any lines or get any weird swamp edge or any weird, sticky, embarrassing front wedges or back wedges or lines or anything picked my mon's.

And I got to say, I think of my mon's that are they're purple with like a teal line. They're like eggplant purple. Yeah, they're me. Lucky me. Undies.

Now you think just wearing those underwear. I got you a second.

Dangar I think it was the mayonnaise. It could have been my personality.

I mean, I don't know how else I could have, but I I'm honestly going to take this opportunity to say, why the hell haven't you ordered me more?

You have a subscription that come every month. I know, but are you do you have multiple subscription to that?

Yeah, I kind of do my I have a problem with this company. Can we buy more at once.

Can you know, I never checked but I bet you can't. Surely you like.

I would. My only problem with this is I only get one. No you told me because I just recently bought the undershirts and the socks.

Two oh socks are solid job so soft and they don't. I love because they don't. You know, when you're like walking around and you have the, the lower I'm getting choked up talking about my knees.

They're beautiful when socks, you know, when they can sneak down into your shoes. Never did. They never do they like sneak down and then they're halfway in your shoe.

Why are you wearing knee high socks. Because I am a sexy person. Because that's what sexy people do. Play a lot of tennis.

I, I'm a Catholic schoolgirl camgirl now so.

And you guys know that I tend to not read copy because I want to be authentic and from the heart. And these undies have captured my heart, me undies. I'm obsessed but we do need to talk about some actual details so you know where to purchase them.

I mean, the thing that I love about them the most is that I'm not someone who like you like like fun underwear, like you're into the print in the pattern. Do. Yeah. All that stuff. I don't like that. And I have thought they have classic, just classic colors.

If you're just like, you know me just you do black eyed you just the black, grey, red, white.

And then one called Goblin Green which I feel like maybe a read. I kind of love that Robin Blue or something that I love.

I love that there's a you know, it's just it's like I don't know. I just feel like we're spending I'm taking like a whole new look at my, like, undergarments now that it's all I mean, I walk around my underwear all day now because we don't have we don't get to go anywhere.

They have one D now to. Oh really. I mean, why don't you give me one of them, those shopping one D on this show. That'll be I'll never wear anything else.

It's also like I'm not even joking. They feel like velvety like. Like like. What do they feel like, Velvet? I don't know. They're even tough with they're made it up. I came I here we should read that at some point.

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No brainer, especially because they have one hundred percent satisfaction guaranteed. That makes sense. And people will complain about everything for one hundred percent of the consumers to like something. That means they have to be doubly amazing, because I feel like these days people will take any opportunity and say they don't like something and people will send anything to your house nowadays, like you can get anything just delivered to you.

And so this is one of those companies where when you start, when you see that, you see the one hundred percent and it comes to your door, you're like, no, I need it.

No, I have to be honest with you. My day starts with how my underwear feels. If you put on a pair of underwear and you're like, oh my. But like, oh, God, you know what I mean? It just sets the tone for your entire day. I'm happy you quit wearing burlap underwear.

I stop wearing the barb wire thong. And so, like, it's just you put them on and you're like, boom. They're like tight, they fit.

You know, what I like about the elastic doesn't try to stretch.

You know, after you have underwear for a little while, they start getting like baggy and weird and like shorts. Yeah, basketball. They become like a kerchief. And so I started using half of my old underwear is like mask's at this point because they don't even fit anymore.

Really tight underwear so long. It's something we have a fetish. I know. So to get your fifteen percent off your first pair and free shipping, I'm not that real.

I don't just read the ads, OK? I lose the product. I'm not a hacky phony. Better help, OK? I don't know about you, but I'm tired of carrying crystals in my bra and better help is really a fix that I save so much time now.

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It's it's a it's a superhero crossover event. Whitney Cummings, Andrew Young together at last. And we're just talking like I feel like I've known Whitney for years because she worked with a close friend of mine and I've been a huge fan. So thank you. This conversation feels long overdue, long overdue.

And I've been such a fan ever since. You know, I've obviously read your books, but I heard you on Rogan.

And I got to be honest with you, Andrew, I grew up in Washington, DC. I grew up around politicians. I sort of born very cynical about politicians hearing you and Joe Rogan was such a breath of fresh air, the fact that a someone running for president could even talk for three hours without seeming like they're full of shit or disingenuous. Like, I just I am such a big fan of yours and thank you.

That was the runner up for my slogan.

Andrew Young, not full of shit they were dealing with, like peak cynicism.

Right now, when it comes to politics, wouldn't you agree on the fact that you grew up in DC? DC is a very institutional town and I feel like and this is hopefully not anything not controversial. I feel like you went to a school that also is kind of stealth institutional in the form of Penn.

Like it's very practical, but they all become bankers and consultants discouraged because it's like I don't follow politics super closely because it ends up depressing me and I get to adrenalized and addicted to it. It's almost like a like a sports depressing.

I can get depressed, but people like you have reenergized me and make me feel hopeful and positive about the future. But when you start learning, like, you know how campaigns are run, how much money is involved, it makes you start to feel hopeless and helpless.

Well, what's fun with me is I ran for president and learned a lot, and now I'm starting to figure out just how fucked up the system is and how to fuck it up.

So what of my new that's going to be your next presidential slogan and fuck America? Well, hopefully we end up getting Trump out and then there is less of a sense that we're all feeling now. But the problems in our system are structural in terms of the incentives that legislators have and the corporate interests, the rest of it, which I think most people know something about. But one thing people do not know about is there is this entire professional consultant class that wraps itself around any candidate, and those incentives are also not positive.

So my goal right now is to figure out everything I've seen in terms of how the software of our political system is leading us. And that's one of the reasons why people like you very, very smart, engage people have washed their hands of politics. It's not irrational to wash your hands of politics because it's so infuriating and everything seems so ineffective. One of the big fears I have is that politics has become this drama of characters rising and falling, but none of the real problems get solved.

Right, right, right, right, right. And the problems are monumental. Like I was concerned about them even before the pandemic and now they're. Worse than most people even realize, I'm genuinely terrified for what happens if we don't do something very differently in the next number of days, terrified about.

We'll talk about automation in a second, but terrified for the environment, for mass riots. Like what is the main thing you're afraid of?

I'm afraid that the way of life for millions, tens of millions of Americans is disintegrating in real time. And we put a bit of a stopper in that through the enhanced unemployment benefits and the other stimulus programs that went through the end of July. But then they ended. And right now we're talking in August, like the deterioration in August is real time. I'm friends with a guy who runs a company that processes all of the financial information for over two million gig and contract workers.

So in other words, he's got like a dashboard of the financial situations of millions of Americans and he can see it in real time. And he told me that he can see he saw what happened when the jobs got lost.

In the spring, but their incomes stayed OK because of the unemployment benefits in August, and then he said it's all crashing down right now and the number of temp gig and jobs, temp gig and contract jobs that are available on this.

Millions of jobs platform has gone down by something like 60 percent. And so if you can imagine millions of Americans who were cobbling together lives through TaskRabbit or like catering or anything where, you know, that people do contract work and that can be all the way up to paralegals and accountants and their contract lawyers, like all of that work is disappearing.

And then you imagine what's happening in those households, but also in those human beings. If you get that sense of scarcity, it starts to really screw you up.

And can I just got to interrupt, but one of your books and also on Rogan, you mentioned that our IQ goes down by 13 points when we can't pay our bills.

What actually neurologically happens to our brains when we're worried about money, we get dumber, we start making less, we start making worse decisions for ourself.

Our judgment gets clouded. Yeah, we become more subject to really nasty negative impulses, which can be self destructive very often, and that's one of the things that I believe is happening right now with me, is that most of us, when things start going poorly, like we're the we're going to be we and the people in our immediate vicinity are going to be the first to know about it, you know what I mean? Like, it's not necessarily that you're going to go out to the streets or do something, but you're going to start treating yourself poorly, you treating the people in your lives poorly.

The mental health crisis. Yeah, predates the pandemic. But I've got two young kids in the house and I'm sure they're better situated than most American children. And they are not exactly flourishing in this time. You know, you look around and you just imagine that playing out around the country. So so those are the things that terrify me, is like you're watching real time disintegration and then you have this political system that is not connected to that because of some of the problems that that I've discovered relatively recently.

They existed well before I got here. It's like, oh, know, I'm going to run for president and see what the heck is going on here. So there's a disconnect there. There's a disconnect in the media because the folks who do the reporting tend to live and work in certain environments and a lot of their work can be digital so that you're seeing glimpses of it in the food lines and the rest of it. But the true nature of it still a massively unreported.

Can I ask you, though, real quick again, we're like a comedy podcast. It's called Good for You. We try to get people as much information as possible in a way that's, you know, fun with some levity, because I think something you're so good at is using humor so that people actually, you know, are able to process what you're saying. Some of this stuff is so depressing and bleak that we shut down. I find myself I go gone to a news site and I just like, you know, I just don't have the emotional bandwidth to process everything that's that's also very, very reasonable and rational, you know, right now.

And that's the tough part of this is like I tell everyone, just like, look, just take care of yourself and a of time taking care of yourself. I mean, turning shit off.

Yeah. Yeah. And but then you're misinformed. So it's this nightmare.

But I'm going to be really honest, like, you know, the new news media is really bothersome to me. You know, when I you know, I don't talk about my, you know, personal politics too much, I think it's the most of them are pretty obvious. But, you know, when I turn on a network like CNN and I see the you know, the news anchors rolling their eyes and sighing and clearly having a vendetta.

And I just it shuts me down a little bit because, like I grew up in Washington, D.C., there was The Washington Post. I read it every single morning and there was the news and then there was op ed and there was a difference between facts and opinions. Now, I never feel like I'm getting facts. I feel like I'm always getting opinions. And even though I agree with the people that I'm watching, for the most part, the way it's being delivered to me sometimes just feels so glib and emotional that it's hard for me to feel like I'm getting accurate information or it just sort of turns me off.

It makes me feel like it's a gossip session or something.

You and I are just old enough to remember a time when there were only three TV networks, few anchors, two said pretty much the same thing, and there was like 30 minutes of news a day, if that was accurate back then, to be honest.

Yeah, a lot was, you know what I mean? But but it was we also read history books that said Columbus discovered America. So we were probably lied to.

It just seemed like less of a lie or it seemed more. More fact driven and less personality driven. Yes, that was part of it. It's like they almost found the most boring people.

You're just speaking of automation. They were just robots that were just like reading from a teleprompter.

Yeah, the same voice being like today. And other than that. And then it's morphed into this other thing. And one of the things I called out recently on Twitter and ended up with like a like a bit of a back and forth with some characters, is the media right now is broken? Yes, I agree. And and the fact that someone like you has picked up the fights, like, look, this stuff started to turn me off because it seems like we're all just taking a point of view and driving our point of view.

And then each news source has become something of a news silo where even if I agree with you, it bothers me.

Yeah. Where they're reinforcing certain perspectives and priorities and values over and over again. And what's happened with me is they found that that's better for their business. And right now, all of their incentives are around driving audience, particularly in a time when you decimate let's call it a thousand plus local newspapers, which you've done. And then you have these cable networks that, you know, are very driven by ratings and have a format and click bait and getting us to be emotional and getting us to get adrenalized.

I mean, I think they know they're drug dealers at this point. I think they understand the science. You know, Morgan Rogan and I were just talking about that book irresistable about I mean, they know that when they put an emotional word or say, you know, Trump slammed like they use these words that really adrenalized us and get us to click. And it's really scary to think that they sort of know what they're doing.

It feeds off of conflict. And when I was running out, I tried not to to get engaged with, like the Trump tweet of the day because I was like, this is so dumb. Like this is playing into his hands and this is not the point. And they're like deeper problems. But that is the nature of our news media. And there was a producer who recently left MSNBC and is called out and said, look, I don't know if you saw the story on Pocari.

She said, look, the journalists are not bad people, but the system is driving very, very bad decisions. Yeah. And and she said we get better ratings. We talk about Trump. So, yeah, we just talk about. Yeah. And and we're theoretically in opposition to Trump. But it turns out that when we're making production decisions, we lead with Trump all the time. WoW's and then it ends up inflaming certain emotional reactions among people.

So that's the that's one of the big concerns. And what's happening to our media is a is an emblem of what's going wrong generally. And I could even apply it to the entertainment business that that you're a part of, which is essentially the market drives everything now.

Like if it makes money, then that's what we're going to do. Yeah. And yeah. And one of the things I said on the trail is if you have money on one side and people on the other, who's going to win money and then they think about it for a second.

I mean, Neil Postman, there is an amazing book that Neil Postman wrote, I believe in the 20s called Amusing Ourselves I'm sorry, in the 50s, amusing ourselves to death. And I mean how the way even when I turn on news networks and there's an eagle flies by and it's like it looks like a Marvel movie.

I mean, the news is now news and entertainment are really merging in a very post-modern way. That's very surreal to watch.

But I never thought I'd say this, but I would really love to just read some boring news with know.

And also it I want to talk to you about this because I know you're working on something about getting paid for our data, which is fascinating to me and I would love to get into it.

Our attention spans now are so short as well. Like I see this as being such an epidemic moving forward in terms of our ability to process information and gather the information we need to make good decisions as voters and as Americans, which is like by the time I read two sentences, there's like an ad pops up from a pair of shoes that I put my car two weeks ago.

You know, I. I feel like people talk about the assault on democracy, the bots in the Facebook, Russian bots and all that, too, but also just this assault on our attention and the fact, you know, like what can we do to protect ourselves from that?

And where do you get your news? Well, it's one reason why podcasts were so good for me and that podcast in particular.

Yeah, and it's one reason why cable news was not a great format for me, because if you sit down and have a five minute TV hit with five questions and there's a rhythm, be like Andrew, like, what do you think about this? You know, why are you doing this? And there's always like also baked into those media interviews for much or most of my campaign was a lot of skepticism was like, do you really think you could win stuff like that?

But honestly, let me tell you.

Yeah, I mean, the way that you handled that on Rogan was just so endearing and charming and authentic and like. Yeah, they do. You know, we just saw something pretty wild happen and, you know, 2016 that we never thought could happen. So why not?

Yeah, and it was fun, surprising a lot of folks, because if you lined up 100 hundred DC pundits, you know, in twenty eighteen or twenty nineteen and said, you know, like, is Andriano going to outlast like a bunch of these senators or governors or whatever, like you would have gotten zero takers.

And so the fact that we showed that conventional wisdom is failing, I'm very, very proud of and thank everyone who supported me.

Are you going to run again? Everyone's asking me to ask you that.

I'm just going to keep trying to drive forward the solutions that I think we need as a country. And I would 100 percent run again if I thought that was the most effective way to to advance some of these solutions right now. Universal basic income. Now, a majority of the country agrees that we should do it.

It's just for those that don't. I'm sure everyone listening does. But the fact that you brought up universal basic income people were like that couldn't even compute for a lot of people. And now it's just happened. Does that bother you at all?

Oh, I'm thrilled of America. So now what is your idea, though?

It seems like I mean, you're so genuine. It's like you just wanted it to happen regardless of who did it, you know?

Oh, very much so. I don't really love a lot of the politics stuff. Yeah, you get a sense that about me and the behavior is necessary to be a successful politician. Are there unrelated or negatively correlated with me, with the folks that you'd actually want? Why?

What is the problem with this idea? I'm just going to be the Joe Blow and ask a dumb question like a thousand dollars.

That's a lot of money for a month for people that can change a lot of people's lives. And I think a lot of the people that talk about it on the news or whatever, it's just not a lot of money to them. So they don't think it's necessarily a good idea. But it's like to most people that can really change your life.

That would be a game changer for tens of millions.

But the people talking about it on television, because that's a small amount of money to them, you know, it's like it's like baked into the the people's point of views that are actually talking about it is that when only rich people are talking about something that affects non rich people, they're just way too biased, even understand how valuable it is.

Yeah, I had that conversation a number of times where I was like, oh, you do realize a thousand dollars likes to be buried. And Joe Rogan is a good friend of mine, but he's like a thousand bucks. Is that really going to change someone's life? I'm like, yes, Joe, I know there's not a lot of money to you, but like I have family members that that would completely transform their lives.

And also, as you said, just make them sleep better, operate better, function better. You said IQ goes down by 13 points when you're worried about paying your bills. Like, imagine how much that would change.

Just the, you know, the vibe of our country, just sort of like or imagine increasing the collective IQ of the United States of America by 13 points, which is one standard. Maybe people would totally do.

Any kids would stop eating tide pods.

It might actually it'd be like, oh, you know what if I don't eat this time?

But I mean, can I just bring up that the Democrats are the left? You know, I hate saying any of those words. It feels like teams at this point. You know, it feels like, you know, cowboys versus raptors or something. But I do feel like and tell me if I'm wrong, the left puts their candidates through a purity test that is unproductive and in fight in a way that I don't see the right doing. Am I making that up?

That's accurate and correct, I believe, and it's not a good thing, I don't I think it's unproductive.

And one of the things I'm really proud of, Whitney, is that I think people started to understand when I was about over time and realized that, you know, I'm trying to help and I'm just using different ideas than you've heard from other people who are trying to help.

Very good.

Yeah, but it seems like a lot of the most the most pressure that the left gets is from other leftist candidates.

It's like, really I mean, when I see people are like, I don't know. But like, what about that vote from twenty two years ago? It's like, dude, shut up.

Like, you know, I remember I heard once Democrats have to fall in love, Republicans fall in line. Yeah, and no one's perfect, and there is this strange standard that we try and hold political figures to, particularly on the left where we expect you to be superhumanly clean cut, positive, squeaky clean, et cetera, et cetera. And I think. It ends up resulting in a conversation that doesn't speak to a lot of Americans. Yeah, yeah.

And we're also just addicted to outrage in a way that I just feel like we really need to, you know, bring to light and purr that. Can I just ask how important is Twitter in terms of the decisions that you make?

Comedians were always trying to figure out, am I getting canceled?

Like how many tweets? These are getting canceled. How many tweets means you need to make an apology. I'm just so curious for politicians because I think we all are so desperate to be heard. We're also desperate to make a change. You know, sometimes people vote in a way with their tweets, like everyone just wants to be heard so badly. How much of an impact does Twitter have on the decisions that you made when you were running and that you make on a daily basis in terms of feedback?

Well, I've spent a lot of time on Twitter over the last couple of years, and I started my campaign with perhaps five thousand followers and now now it's like one point six million. So I have like this relationship with Twitter where it was just me and nobody listening.

And then when folks started responding to me or following me, there were all Yangyang, Frank Angang, because no one else cared about what I was saying.

And so I ended up with this group of people that was very like minded, frankly, like minded to to you as well, that we're tired of politics as usual and wanted to talk about different ways we can solve our problems and bring people together and stop the polarization and demonization that's happening. And so I wound up with this incredible community of folks around me on Twitter. And then when I got big enough, when people started objecting to various things that I said or did, there were Yangyang being like, you know, like, shut up.

And then I was just like, oh, this is very, very positive. And really, you're the only person that's ever had a positive experience on Twitter.

By the way, Testament fans, I really do appreciate the heck out of them. And the Yangyang was so vital to my campaign gaining any traction, because what would happen was reporters would ignore me. And then all these people on Twitter would be like, hey, why don't you include the story? The young was also a very, very positive generally. Yes, they because we have a vibe of not being jerks. And that's the thing that journalists actually said to me numerous times.

We're like, your people are the most courteous, calm, rational, kind. Yeah. So so I've had a very unusual Twitter experience and not to say there isn't some negativity because you get to a certain point and then people start trying to throw rocks occasionally. But I'm personally above average at laughing off like rocks that are thrown at me, you know?

And I hit a note on my phone at one point during the campaign, which is just to remember that to the vast majority of Americans, you're just a magical Asian man who wants to give everyone money, because that was so it was like taking aim at something I said to sub-group.

I'd be like, just remember that the vast majority of Americans were just.

But I am just very curious in terms of like how much of our digital footprint matters to politicians. When is it useless for us to tweet? Is it helpful for us to tweet? Like what? How much of an impact are our voices having when people do tweet just for everybody listening that are trying to find ways that democracy is going to evolve? You know, how can we exercise our rights as a democracy on a daily basis now since it seems to be crumbling and atrophying in other places?

Like is is Twitter something that makes an impact if we don't like something or is it something that, you know, is sort of our job as Americans to speak on Twitter every day? I think some of us feel helpless sometimes. Feels like it's just an echo chambers.

It is certainly no one's job to speak on Twitter every day.

Oh, I could say that. Yeah. Yeah. A conviction. Yeah. So so I'm the math guy. Approximately. Twenty one percent of Americans have a Twitter account, and of them, many of them are inactive.

I think two percent of them generate 80 percent of the tweets. Yeah. So so you have to know you're looking at like a very, very distinct subset and slice of people. And when I was marching around Iowa and New Hampshire, the vast majority of people I saw on the trail in the cafe or the union hall were not on Twitter.

Right. Interesting. Also, look at where the nominee is. Like Joe Biden is our nominee.

And I don't think he was rocking out Twitter regular, you know, to the people of South Carolina, like I wasn't the way that went down. So so what is it good for? It is good for. Community building, in some cases, it's good for making people feel like they can connect with you and know you, and it's very, very good for driving media narratives, because if you look at I'm going to say like ninety five percent of major journalists are on Twitter, do pay attention to it.

And you can see stories getting driven from Twitter, obviously. I mean, Donald Trump discovered this, discovered it in twenty sixteen and then rammed it all down our throats.

But for me too, I started with his modest following and Whitney the first time I tweeted something and it was in a popped up on cable news that blew my mind.

Like I was like that, that you are a magical Asian man because I was used to the dead, like not having any audience. So the fact that so what it was, was it was a picture of a Waffle House and it just said back in the South because I was back I was back in South Carolina, I just thought this would be a random thing. And then it just popped up on on CNN.

And I was like, they just took my picture of a Waffle House and they didn't, like, delve into it for five minutes. But they just like being like Andrea, being on the trail like so and so that. And keep in mind, I was running for president and so I was like, oh, like, that's a way I can drive attention and conversation. And in my case, my campaign ended up being driven by a lot of Internet friendly content.

And I was trying to compete. So I leaned into it. So so those are things that Twitter can be very effective, that is driving media narratives and. Cultural commentary, but for reaching the vast majority of the electorate, it is not going to be your first tool.

Oh, that's very interesting. I, I feel like one weird thing we have in common is we're both obsessed with talking about robots.

My last stand up special, I had a robot in it and, you know, I companion robot and I just, you know, got so obsessed with the fact that this is so close and nobody's talking about it. And I don't understand why it's not covered more.

The question is, you've talked so much about how automation is going to take jobs. Is there ever a scenario where they're going to create jobs that are safer, like in customer service for the automation tools?

Like is there anything to look forward to in that area? There is something to look forward to if we make something positive happen, so the problem right now is that and I've run companies so like everything about the companies is trying to optimize and maximize the bottom line. And so if I can find a way to. Get rid of your job and replace it with software or robot or whatever it is, I'm going to do it 100 times out of 100.

And so our only path out is to start creating incentives for us to do different types of things that are not robot competitive.

Now, are there are there certain contexts where robots are going to do things that we don't want any human doing? Like, yeah. So we can look forward to that. And you can imagine something really shitty that people are doing right now that like a robot will do.

And so and we should be celebrating. I'll give you an example that is from like the campaign that's very pressing. If you had self-driving trucks, that would be tremendously disruptive to our labor force because you have over three million truckers. That's right. But but trucking is very, very bad for a person's physical well-being.

Over time, if you're sitting in one place, you're isolated like that. I mean, the health problems among truckers are rampant, endemic. And so you can imagine an alternative world where we're celebrating the liberation of truckers because like great news, your truck can drive itself, but you're going to end up with riots because they're like, what are you talking about? Is like my my livelihood and my existence.

And I think it's important for those of you that you didn't hear the Rogan podcast, you talking about, you know, the riots. Like as you said, this has happened before. In the first industrial revolution, there were riots.

This is happening. We're seeing it through the pandemic, too, because very reasonable companies are automating things away because it's just not it's not is that's the bottom line.

It's better from a public health standpoint. If you're a consumer, you like it more and you go in before. And you might have thought the the robot in Wal-Mart was creepy before, but now, you know, like, you know, less human interaction.

Like, it's a it doesn't have to wear a mask. Don't have to worry about having covid now.

So the the robots. Are here to stay, and it's picking up steam, there was a story about how even a meatpacking factory was replacing their processing workers with robots because the fear was that if you have too many workers in the meat processing plant, they might get covid and in fact, each other. So it's like, let's just replace them with robots so the pandemic could even accelerate.

This seemed like an even better idea, right? It's an even better idea. I think there was a major study that asked, hey, are you increasing your investment in automation because of the pandemic? And about half companies said yes. Wow. Well, not to mention if it's retail or restaurants, closing stores and the places that would need human beings in the first place.

OK, we are rolling. Yeah. You're listening to this and not watching it on YouTube. Shame on you. You're about to miss me, but also keep listening to it.

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What those ads were white people just like fumble and throw things around in like infomercials that you and your toothpaste.

OK, I don't know what that means, but thank you. And then the toothbrush is so sexy, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this. Can you read the copy to make sure I'm. Listen, when's the last time you got rewarded for brushing your teeth?

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Ray, listen, when's the last time you get rewarded for brushing your teeth also.

Sorry, look at the base of this. It's almost like a beautiful rose gold. Is this little is a toothbrush like honestly this is the sexiest toothbrush. It makes me feel so fancy in the morning when I use it.

Know I have the all matte black one. It feels like Blade Runner. It's like the toothbrush they used in Blade Runner.

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I'm curious if you talk much about the ethical implications of robots. If like, why aren't laws starting to be made around this stuff? Like I feel like laws I oppose.

Yes, I feel like we are so behind because I got a robot built for my last special and I now know how many companion robots are being purchased. A lot of people that buy them keep them secret. You might not know about them, but it's so much bigger than we think it is and it's so much closer. If not, it's already here. Like, why is it because lawmakers I'm just going to be dumb for a second because they're just old.

Like, why not dumb at all. Yeah. So that yes. I mean, there are a number of reasons. But our government is decades behind on technology, which includes robots and they don't understand.

I've been to the DMV. I noticed or if you just take your average congressperson home, what is their life?

They struggle between their district and DC. You've spent time in DC, so it's not exactly like this tech hub. No, no, no.

They they pride themselves on the charm of, like, colonial architecture. It's like this doesn't feel like we're like it's the laws feel as archaic as the architecture of the city or like this is feels does not feel modern.

Yeah. The Congressman said that to me is that the halls of Congress just reminded him of Imperial Rome just to say, look, nothing is going to change. Exactly like all the marble columns, if the laws are at all as old as these buildings, we have a problem. One of my dreams, it'd be very hard to execute, so I have to figure it out, but if you try and change the culture of a place, changing the physical environment is a great way to go.

So I'm imagining can you imagine if Congress met in like like one of those shuttered office buildings?

Yes. You know what I mean? Like or like not to be extreme because but even one of these, like Silicon Valley types, like glass and steel, and you go in there and you'd feel like you were part of the future.

And if someone's like, you should probably make a rule about breaking A.I..

So, you know, and I've been talking about this a lot in my stand up before the pandemic happened in my tour got cancelled. But you're talking a lot about getting paid for your data. And I've heard you say that data is like the new oil. Right. And it's I would love to hear your take on this. I would love to hear share this with everybody. It's so important.

But I look at the lawmakers and I'm like, we can't have a conversation with data with these people. They're still probably on AOL. They're probably on SBC global dot net. Like these people don't have an Alexa. These people probably aren't even thinking about this. It doesn't affect them or bother them.

They're just that this is the problem is that you have legislators who don't have incentives around solving problems, incentives around raising money, avoiding controversy, making sure they don't get challenged by someone meaningful in their district.

That's really that's that's the job seeking. One thing I'm for which would change things dramatically is term limits, because then your incentive is to get there and solve problems. Then you're going to leave no matter what. So when I was on the campaign trail, I said, look, here's how we get term limits passed, term limits for everyone, but current lawmakers are exempt. That way you can pass term limits and then being like, I can, I'm grandfathered in.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're not affecting you. We're not taking about you. Don't worry about it. You could be here until they pry your seat out of your, you know, clammy dead hands.

But but the person after you and they were like they couldn't even hear you.

So they didn't even know what you were pitching. No. Like, we don't get the hearing aids broken.

So I joked with folks. I was like, if you could get them on board, they were all grandfathered in. They'd be like, we do this for the country. You know, those would be like, oh, so so that's the kind of structural change you would need to make to change the incentives to make it so that their job is to try and get something done and then get out and know they're not going to have careers that are that spanned decades.

They just have this tenure where they never have to modernize or update their own software in their brain.

Yeah. So that the challenge around data is similar to this where they don't understand they're twenty five years behind on technology. They got rid of the office that assessed technology in 1995, so they had. Well yeah I know it seems fucking crazy.

So there used to be something called the Office of Technology Assessment that advised our legislators on technology issues. Very reasonable, had a relatively modest budget of let's call it like twenty or thirty million, and then they got rid of it in ninety five as a cost saving measure. And now the only source of technology advice for legislators is the technology companies who guess what they're like, oh Jesus, Cosmo.

And then you have the average age of the legislators and then you have an incentive structure around them not having to solve problems.

And then you have now the fact that technology is not something that most of them understand. I think the average age of a legislator is 60, to give you a sense of like the generational gap.

So am I in thinking like how can someone at that age solve a data mining issue? Yeah, there were a couple of senators, you get it, Mark Warner of Virginia is like a tech type I really like.

Right. Yeah. There's some tech around Tyson's Corner, right in Virginia.

Yes. Yes, exactly. You got it. But but most of them don't understand it at all. So what's happened? And this actually goes back to the data and media conversation when I'm so freaking excited about trying to solve for this. So here's the deal.

You go to Facebook years ago and you set up your account and you're like, OK, it's free, great. And then you get nothing's free, nothing's free.

And then Facebook's like, I'm going to, like, sell advertising bits to you and then I'm going to start tracking everything you do. And I'm not allowed to advertise. They can target you more efficiently. And so at this point, the selling and reselling of our data now generates hundreds of billions of dollars a year. And so when you talk about it's like, oh, it's free. It's like actually at this point, Facebook is generating tens of billions of dollars a year, largely off of microtargeting us in various ways.

And they say if if a product is free, you're the product, right?

Yeah. So now we're the product. But part of it, someone called it surveillance capitalism, which is a fairly good name. So so so we then become like these rats in a maze and then like getting pelted by digital breadcrumbs and then all of the folks who are in the system then have incentive to try and catch our attention in any way possible, which is leading to an erosion of our mental health and erosion of trust in each other and erosion of the way we get process information changes, the incentives, the media companies.

So it's all tied together. And the way to think about the contrast is between YouTube and Netflix. And not to say that either is perfect, but YouTube is free. But you get there and then they pelt you. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Ad after Netflix you pay and they help you, but they put you in a much more like, like gentle way. And if you don't watch the particular thing, like I don't care.

And YouTube also targets you in a way that hurts your feelings. They end up targeting things to you based on your Google searches. And mine is always like better help dotcom like therapy. I'm like, easy.

What the ads you get targeted have something to do with what you've searched.

Right? So it's always ends up hurting my family, too. It's never engagement rings for me. No one's ever trying to target that.

That's part of the selling, the result of other ads even creepier when you have like a phone call or text conversation and then they hit you with that ad, you're like, whoa, yeah.

You're like it's raining out. And then you get a pop up for an umbrella and you're like, where did that come from? So, you know, and the devil's advocate, this is kind of what I was working on before. I wasn't allowed to perform any more because of the pandemic.

But like we grew up at a time, you know, that was very different because now everyone's like they take your phone number and they take your data. It's like, well, when I grew up, there was a book full of everyone's phone number and home address.

It was called The Phone Book, and they would throw it at your house, just be like on everyone's patios. Like, we just, you know, homeless people had they were hanging from from phone booths. Our data was everywhere. Right. We would send postcards, which literally had our data, like, you know, facing out. We didn't have encrypted documents. We would fax our documents to a Kinko's. And our encryption was like a cover page.

Like that was our security a piece of paper, you know. So why is it so important that we think about this?

And what would it actually look like if we got paid for our data?

So the ideal would be that we have a data bill of rights where essentially you say to the Facebook's and Google's and they're the two biggest data purveyors, though there are hundreds of other data brokers that are lesser players in this industry. But you go to the Facebook's Googles of the world and say, look, my data is mine and you have to tell me what you're doing with it. You have to tell me if you sell and resell it. Right.

I can turn it off. I can move it with me. Yeah. And and if you do sell it, I want to cut because then at least I can now know. Here's the thing. Most of us are not interested in buying our own data cops because we have lives. Yeah, yeah. Yeah exactly. You know, you don't necessarily want to be like what's going on there. And so what you would do is you would end up needing an intermediary.

And I actually formed an intermediary called the Data Dividend Project, which is like you can sign up at DDP for all dotcom and we want to be your data cop and then essentially say, look, we'll figure out what's happening with your data.

You can tell us generally what you want to have happen. And then and if there's value, then you get it as opposed to right now, the tech company is running off with it. So this is one possible approach. Technologist named Jaron Lanier called it like as data intermediaries because because we don't necessarily, again, want to be our own data cops. But at this point, it's essentially a free for all. And there are various impacts. And the impact that I've been trying to pitch to people is like, look, if they're making two hundred billion dollars a year, shouldn't we be getting some of that off of your Google searches?

And, yeah, every time you sign up for something. Download an app or whatever, and I was recording a podcast in West Virginia last year and the people are talking, you made a really good point, which is that the coal companies came in and mined all our natural resources. And now, you know, the big tech companies are coming in and mining our data. And it's just like it feels like the same thing again.

Yeah. And they just like you ended up with regulations saying you can't dump that crap in the river. That's right. Like, in this case, it would be like can't just sell them, resell our data willy nilly and just prey upon us. Right. Right. And like, you know, sort of inputs into the the giant machine. And so this you can see it as an economic argument. You can see it as a fundamental human agency, an autonomy argument.

You can see it as a mental health argument, as a democracy argument.

But it's all crucial. And the fact that we have let it go this far is just a sign of the fact that our government is way out to lunch on these issues and they don't understand what the heck is happening. Now, they're starting to examine the tech companies more closely around antitrust issues where they're saying, look, some of this stuff is anti-competitive.

The most ridiculous thing was when Zuckerberg was like, I you know, they thought I'd be mean to Instagram if they didn't say yes to my acquisition offer. Yeah, it was just like, so the anti-competitive stuff is like the first thing they're looking at. But to me, the data rights piece is as or more important. And and one of the things that I want to do if Joe and Carmelo win, is to advance these ideas and try and drag our government forward because we're not going to have a functioning society or democracy if we don't start giving ourselves more control over what's happening to our data.

Colin Quinn did a special about possibly splitting America into two countries. I don't know if you heard of that sort of idea, does that just sound insane? Where did he draw the new boundaries? Yeah, that's a really good way to put it. It's like, yeah, yeah. South, northeast. Yeah.

You know, people say, like our country so divided, our country is so divided. Is are we more divided than ever or is that just something we say because it sounds good. Well, most Americans agree on most things.

If you frame them in a certain way. I agree. It's just it's just right now you have this coded language that led to tribalism and then you can just gin us up against each other pretty quickly.

And I learned this on the trail where I did not understand the coded language thing.

Like, I was just presented arguments and what I thought was English and numbers, like we should probably do something about the fact that it's coming and the rest of it.

It's a little too rational. Sir, can you please say something irrational so that will listen?

Well, here's where it got wild, Whitney. Is that what I realized was that my way of describing problems and solving them became their own. Symbols, yeah, and there was a real need for a different approach, and happily hundreds of thousands, even millions of Americans got behind that approach and it drew in a different set of people.

And so what I've realized is that you have these different framing of the same issues with these symbols. And there are a lot of structural incentives around trying to get people excited enough about these things to dislike the other people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just feel like we're being pitted against each other in a way where even someone that I ostensibly like should disagree with.

If I get in a room with them for five minutes like we agree on, most things are probably fine. Yeah, like I really like you. Like I tore all over the country. It's something that, you know, I feel so grateful as a comedian that I actually get to go out into the world and see people in these red states, blue states, which are now just it feels so binary. And I go out and I'm like, we have so much in common.

Like, you know, people come to my shows and, you know, we talk afterwards and you'd think we were differently aligned.

And I'm like, this just all feels very fabricated in order to pit us against each other, to create that adrenaline that's going to make us click and make us outraged.

And if that's what we have to put a stop to, because if we do that, we can find common ground.

And I, like most people, I've been all over the country sort of like a comedian, I guess, you know, it's like that I find most people to be very, very.

Very good, reasonable and, yeah, reasonable, reasonable, like, I just feel like people are way more reasonable than we all think and we're operating these generalizations now and these polar opposites of like everyone's this and the South is this and the north is this.

And, you know, it's just like I guess we also really have to look at our neurology in the way that our brains are wired. You know, it's what does it say about human beings that we invented robots that might eventually replace us? You know, we do a lot of irrational things.

Well, I will say, Whitney, we have under invested in the integrity of our society for decades. So to the extent that we don't have as much in common with each other, we haven't really been investing in that commonality. And I'll give you an example of something that I thought would be a very positive step is I propose an American exchange program where your senior year in high school, you go to another part of the country, you love it, family, love and live and work there for, you know, like six to eight weeks.

That's chilling. It was like Facebook friends with like folks who had to come back and be like, hey, I was in Arkansas and people were fine and friendly and like, you know, nice to me.

And I lived with a family and their kid went, yes, I love that. It's not very expensive. And it's the kind of thing that would build national integrity. Like we're not investing in national integrity. There are going to be circumstances that drove us towards it. For example, let's say you had, you know, a world war and then, you know, like drafted people and there was like this sense of common purpose. And so it's one reason why people are making calls to national service over this past number of months, which I agree with.

And so my American exchange program is supposed to be some of the ingredients of that. Now, at this point, because we're short millions of jobs, we should just be finding ways to put people to work. Yeah, particularly young people who are going to struggle to find a real path forward.

If you are to those opportunities, if your children said, Dad, I'll do whatever you say, I'll go to the college.

You want me to go to or not go? If you don't want me to, I'll take the Klatt. Like, what would you want your kids to major in and what would you want them to do?

The the problem with Whitney is that we've failed to adapt our educational system for what's going on out there. Here's what's happening right now writ large in the country and it's much, much worse now.

So college is gone two to three times more expensive since I went by, about twice as expensive as when you went. Yeah. And what's happened was that colleges have become very large bureaucracies and they raise their prices every year.

And then if you're unless you're a Hollywood celebrity, in which case you can pay to have your kid on the canoe team or whatever, well, I'm sure they jack the price up extra high for that person.

So so the so the costs have gone up and up and then families like, well, I'm no choice but to pay, but incomes have not gone up. And so then they just took out one point six trillion plus in loans and just everyone thought, well, that's appropriate because everyone's doing it. And then it turns out when your kid graduates from college, the the salaries have not gone up. And so you've had this massive imbalance where you've just built up this giant debt pile and people's professional prospects have not meaningfully changed.

So if you say, well, what would I advise a young person to do? Like, we need to try and make it so that college doesn't break the bank for the average American family.

And then we need to try and invest in noncollege roots, primarily vocational schools, because where can I ask you what that means exactly what an example is?

A vocational school is pretty much anything that after you come out, you can do something. Yeah, so applicable knowledge, you mean. Yeah. So, you know, it could be the plumber or mechanic. Hairstylists like any need in that mill you yeah, because right now we're way below the rest of the developed world in terms of the proportion of our people that go through the occasional embarrassing, embarrassing in the US, it's six percent of high school grads or in vocational.

In Germany, it's over 50 percent. Give you a sense.

And so what we've done is we've sold college, college, college people and we stigmatize anything. It's not college. We then made college crazy expensive. Yep. Only about a third of Americans will actually graduate from college and the college completion rate has gone down.

The other half will have to go to rehab afterwards because of college, have invested in non college paths.

So those are that's the structural backdrop of what we've done to really chaffed a lot, a lot of people, a lot of young people. So then if you line me up with like an individual young person and say, hey, what should this young person do? It depends upon that person's profile. I think that. For most people, if they're in a position to go to college, it's a good thing. If you're in that top third of the population for whom, frankly, it's appropriate and then what you study.

There is like a message right now that you should study science, technology, engineering, math and the rest of it, and those things are helpful in that they make you into a structured thinker and will make you able to frankly, like, interface with a lot of these technological changes in a more positive way.

But the proportion of people that are going to be employed in STEM fields is still relatively low relative to the population. So saying everyone should learn to code is bullshit. And the fact is most people don't particularly want to code.

Yes, it is very tedious. Yeah. So going around telling kids is they really get in there like upside up. They're like, no, I want to get girls.

Yeah, yeah, that's that's I hope my boys say that they're so so. So what I advise folks to do is to try and pursue something that gives them a sense of adaptability, resilience, grit, ability to work with others direction and seek that out professionally, too, where if you can work with someone who will actually give you the time of day, where you can get a sense as to how they do what they do like, that that sort of thing is the best measure that's generally applicable.

Another thing that's generally applicable is to try and avoid massive debt loads, because like most anything that's going to throw that much debt on you is a bad value prop, if you like, coning in the rest of it. Fantastic.

If you don't like you know, they're going to be many, many roles for folks who like people. And because I think we're doing people a disservice when we're just trying to trying to turn them all into engineers, we have so little time.

But I just want to throw out it drives me so insane that voting is on a Tuesday. It drives me nuts. You talk about this is so stupid.

It's another anachronism.

It was literally so that you could have time to, like, take the wagon from your that law was made when we were an agrarian society. Sunday was church. Monday was a travel day and Tuesday was voting day. What I don't mean to be a conspiracy theorist, but why isn't this changing? Why isn't a holiday? Why isn't it a weekend?

It's because in America, nothing can change, because it would be un-American to change when it was just like what?

Like who's stopping this? There have been bills to try to change it. People have tried and just failed because there's a vested interest in keeping voting has become kind of politicized.

Yeah, I was proposing a whole series of reforms like we should make it a national holiday. Yes, everyone.

One can make it all on a Tuesday. Yeah. The National Holidays Sanity Saturday are a good day. Yeah, it's unfortunate because anything around voting, like there are certain people that think that making it harder to vote is good for their prospects, and you're seeing it now with this election.

Yeah, it's so fascinating. And what a lot of people are asking me to ask you about what's going on with the mail right now. How worried should we be? How paranoid should we be? Is this election going to get postponed? What can we do? What should we do?

How freaked out should we be? I'm not as freaked out on the Postal Service issue because it was very helpful that I think that to the extent that there was something afoot now a lot of attention is being paid. So thank you to the folks who were on the spot.

But from a number standpoint and the average Christmas season, the post office moves like a couple billion billion pieces of mail. And so if you look at the context of an election, like we should be able to get it done within the current operational resources of the post office. It's it's to me, the central question, though, that people are asking and should ask is that are we going to to count votes, get results. If you have dragged on election, what does that look like?

What does that mean?

So that's very real and which we know is going to happen regardless, right? Yeah.

So that that is very important. But I don't think we should be afraid that somehow all the votes are going to be lost or, you know, you send the mail because the mail actually in a way, is like a fairly strong paper trail, unless you believe in it to such an extent where you think they're going to take thousands of thousand envelopes and throw them in a dumpster somewhere.

Yeah, which and you'd have to do that like all over the country in different places with different people like that. Yeah. You know, the paper trail around the mail is fairly strong and so I'm not as freaked out as others. That's a good point.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good point. I was trying to set on fire and a barrel. Yeah. OK, now that I'm thinking it through, I'm less panicked.

Yeah. But it's great that we're attentive to it. And the fact that the president was trying to undermine mail in voting is just freaking bizarre and nuts. And the fact that we're at this stage is part of the dystopia that is America and twenty twenty.

You might run again last, last, last, last, last. What was the most surprising thing about running that you didn't expect? Like a thing that was like, oh, I didn't realize that was part of the process or oh, that was harder than I thought or easier than I thought, the most surprising thing was the love, Whitney. Oh, really? You know, and you're part of.

But not everyone. You got it. Not all. Not all the people that run got that love. Well, I guess maybe that's why it was such a surprise to me.

So so so I'm like I'm like a fairly rational guy, I think. And so I was like, OK, let's run for president and try and solve these problems. And some of the enthusiasm and hope and optimism that I saw in people who came to my events and wore math hats.

And the rest of it was just so incredibly touching. And it may be ridiculous to hear from someone who was running for president, but like, I was stunned.

Every time I go someplace and be like, well, people are actually here to see you exciting.

And then that's because you're not a malignant narcissist like most politicians.

And it's true to this day, even where, of course, covid is complicated, too. But because I've been in the house an awful lot, but you go out that someone's like, I love you and I'm just like, really?

Universo added in a day where people want any opportunity to hate anything or criticize anything, you ask to be the most universally beloved person and having you on it.

It's been what a dream. You're just you're just a dream and everything that I hope for my future children, you know? And it's so rare that there's a role model out there anymore. I mean, I always say kids just don't have role models. And you're one of the few that I mention when I do.

And Beyonce. Oh, that's OK, that's very elevated company. I don't think I deserve that. You're just like the best version of a human being. You know, it's like I know, you know, television has changed the way that politics works. The Internet has changed you. You had to be telegenic and then you had to be charismatic and then you had to be good at social media. Then you had to be good. There's so much that goes into it, but it's like you're just the best of every, you know, version of this.

And I think people, you know, we do this in comedy and we do this in politics as well. Politics as well. Will we assume that people are dumb, they're stupid, they're easy to manipulate. And in some cases, yeah, it's easy to get people to click on fake news and to believe things that aren't true by no fault of their own necessarily.

I have compassion for them, but like, you know, I operate that people are smart. They see through bullshit, you know, and you just are people are smart, people are smart.

And so this is and this is a big theme and something I mean, I'd love to have your help working on some of these issues, Whitney, because you're seeing it all like the data, the media, the the fact that our legislators are very, very disconnected. I'm trying to fix it all.

And and this last couple of years made a lot of progress. I learned a lot, if you like, out of advanced universal basic income to a point where I believe that we're going to get it done.

And yeah, but then these structural problems are both in the way and also independent of it.

So we need to get things like Gaist really quick. We need to get people like us have to connect. Because I remember when Michelle Obama there last year in office, she did a conference call with show runners and a bunch of us show runners got on a call and she said, now we can make a direct link between the mass, the passage of marriage equality and the TV show Will and Grace.

Wow, so what we are putting in people's homes every day, something that doesn't know a gay couple that you know, and then they, you know, are put in the position of should gay people be able to get married? Yeah, well, of course, you should love that guy.

You know, he's been in your living room every night for eight years. So the things that we put in our shows, the things we talk about in our up, like to just really does insert things in a conversation. You know, I should be making a show where we talk about, you know, data being sold. You know, we have to get it into the conversation with people that make television and the things that are, you know, going into people's brains every day.

So it's top of mind.

So people I talk to, folks, I wonder, is one reason why I love talking to people like you or the leading storyteller creatives, people like you end up teaching a lot of folks about the world we live in.

But I agree with you that people are fundamentally smart and the big fear I have around the media. So this is something that some people whatever.

So so I've been looking into our trust in the media so that our trust in the media has been declining. Probably not shocker to people watching or listening to this, but it's been declining differently among different subsets of us.

So Republicans trust in media has plummeted to something like 15, 20 percent, like they don't trust anything independent of Fox News and Sean Hannity and Infowars, even though they'd be like these assholes, like the independents.

It's. Let's call it 40 or so, and then which is about the national average, our trust in me is around forty one percent, not very good. And then among Democrats, it's something like sixty five. So what you have is you have a whole chunk of the country, let's call them Democrats who trust the media. Yeah.

And then the media's telling them things and then there's like this circle and then there's, then there are Republicans who don't believe any of it. It's like oh you're all full of shit. And then the independents are somewhere between. But all of this stuff is trending down. Yeah. And so the thing that scares the shit out of me is that you're going to end up with a subset of the population that's like in this, you know, in this echo chamber that is essentially are like our national conversation.

And then more and more Americans are slipping out of it. And the incentives of the media companies are tied up with keeping their own audience vibrant and whole for their advertisers. And the fact that it's declining, like, is it something to them? It's like an inconvenience, because a lot of these audiences have been declining for a while because of technology and the rest of it. So this is a disaster in the making where you have and this is one of the reasons why our integrity as a society seems so low.

It seems like it's slipping away. It seems like we can't reach everyone. Right.

And the folks that you are trying to reach to these messages are getting less and less trusting of it. It's like, oh, I don't believe you anymore. You and and then you're going to have this this subset that is like, well, I believe. I believe. Why don't you believe like that is. Yeah, that is a disaster in the making. And this to me is something we've been experiencing.

So we're the fact that no one knows if they're supposed to wear masks or not. I mean, it's just sort of like I'll send an article to someone, they'll send another one back. That contradicts the very thing that I just said, you know, and and, you know, there's so much dishonesty when they say, like, covid has gone up 50 percent in this area. It's like you're a math person. I'm really not. I just go 50 percent.

That's a huge number. And then it's like it's gone from one to two cases and you're like, that's OK. That definitely blew that out of proportion type thing.

So I think everyone is so suspicious. But I think that because, you know, it's no accident that young people I think it was something like 50 percent of people this was a couple of years ago were getting their news from Jon Stewart, you know, because it's like at least I can trust this person, you know?

Yes. Back to storytellers, comedians and entertainers. I think that we have to come together and try and figure out how we can restore a sense of trust in each other and the information we're getting. And that's not something. And this is what frustrates the hell out of me is like most people who say this, it's like, hey, we need to restore trust. Well, that's great. I agree and say, you know what that's going to require?

That's going to require actually investing billions of dollars in, like, you know, infrastructure, national service programs, universal basic income and like an information. A set of incentives that make it so that if I give you an hour long conversation and it was shitty for ratings, I can still do that because we actually thought you might, like, get something positive out of it instead of just freaking like, you know, peppering you with the same freaking high stimulation type of segments so so that the restoration of trust is like a massive, massive investment.

And I'm hopeful that Joe and Carmela end up being people that can help. Make that case where we're going to need to invest trillions of dollars in ourselves, in our society and folks who don't think that's possible, I just always tell them it's like, look, you remember voting for the four trillion dollar bailout of Wall Street, like in 08, and then people are like, no, I never voted for that. It's like, yeah, so, you know, and I think I've got to time as I'm talking to you in as I'm thinking through, this is someone who's not a media strategist.

Is it just a comedian who makes observations? You know, like, I think a big part of restoring people say, how can you restore trust in politicians? I think it's like this. I think it's comedians having podcasts and having politicians or people like yourself come on and have thorough conversations, in-depth conversations. I know I have to let you go soon, but not just these five minute bites here. Are there you know, it's like you going on rogue and that's how I'm going to build trust in you.

That's how I'm going to really understand how you think. And so I think that people like you coming on podcasts is part of how this changes.

Wow. I should go on podcasts more often. I'm just saying people come here because they don't trust CNN, they don't trust MSNBC. They want to just hear a human being talk and they don't want to be pandered to. They don't want to be manipulated or beguiled or, you know, they don't want to hear like a bunch of jargon. They don't understand and see someone in a super expensive suit they can't afford. They want to see a guy in his basement, in his t shirt with his head.

Like this is like, I trust this guy, you know, and this is a human being. I want to elect human beings. I don't want to, you know, elect some sort of narcissist with wearing a suit that I could never afford. You know, I think people just want this sort of feels like the new town hall, you know, you're going to be and, you know, talking to me in someone's car or a trucker or a mom driving her kid to school or whatever and gets to hear you answer questions.

Honestly, I don't think there are nine publicists behind the camera. You're looking at holding up signs telling you what to say.

You're just can't say they're all well. Well, with Whitney, I. I'd love to do this again because I feel like, you know, like I did a lot of talking this time and I appreciate it. But, you know, I'm thrilled to be in touch. And if you think that stuff is good for the country, like, sign me up because I love talking to folks like you. You're a real voice of reason and clarity.

It makes me glad that we're connected now, even though it's been, you know, half the time I hear moderators ask questions, I'm like, no one's speaking for just kind of the I don't like to say, you know, average people like, you know, I like that in your book was the word normal people.

I hate when people say average. You know, it seems so pejorative. But, yeah, I just like normal people's everyday question of like, you know, where am I? Google search is going. Are they selling my data to insurance companies, you know, you know, to be able to have those conversations. And, you know, it seems like millionaires ask millionaires questions. That's kind of what, you know, the news does. And, you know, I think on this show, I really, you know, and normal people are looking up being like none of this means anything to me anymore.

And you're like, yeah, you're right, it doesn't, because our system now only cares about the almighty dollar.

And if you don't have enough of those and we don't care about you, yeah, that's the way we know now. We know that that's a approved news anchor whose tweets were vetted with pre-approved questions, with pre-approved answers. Everything feels so scripted. And, you know, I think podcasts are changing the way we gather information and connect to people. And, you know, so what an honor. Thank you for doing it. I hope you do it more.

I think that this exact thing is what's going to restore trust in politicians and raise awareness about the things that actually matter because these are comprehensive.

Well, thank you for the opportunity, Whitney, and hopefully will be able to hang on in person after all of this stuff passes. But if not, if we're in this mess for a long time longer, we'll do another virtual conversation.

Yes, I have a billion more questions for you. I know everyone's going to have a billion more questions for you, but thank you for letting me, of course, pick up a little extra of your time.

We got twelve minutes more than we should have, guys. My podcast usually like four hours.

So this is going to be like, you know, well, that's one reason why I felt actually like self conscious, though. I feel like I'm abbreviate a little bit because you're the kind of person I could talk to for four hours. But if anyone wants to see what I'm up to, my organization is called Humanity Forward. It's called Move Humanity Forward. Dotcom, we've given out eight million dollars in economic relief because Andrew is all about getting money to the people of it.

We have this data dividend project that when he described have our own podcast, which is not as funny as witness data dividend.

It is so new, are so great at naming things as well.

I mean, to obvious name. Yeah, that's my gift. You don't overthink it. Make it super clear. Andrew Yang on his Instagram, it's it's you know, everyone has their own channel now, which is the great thing about social media. I know there's a lot of downsides about it, but the upside is, you know, he's doing these incredible interviews on his social media almost every day. You've got a new live or a video from your podcast.

Your Twitter is incredible. I must say. Your Twitter is a breath of fresh air. It's always so positive. It's so clear. It's the nice break in. Toxic mess, that is Twitter, follow him on Twitter, follow him on Instagram and, you know, buy the books, which we're going to, you know, talk about more in the intro and please run for president again.

Thank you, Whitney. If I do, we're going to have a party in the White House. Your wife is probably had it. And I also, may I please say with the last last thing, your wife, Evelyn, is unbelievable. As someone that is a survivor, I followed her journey very closely and she is absolutely incredible. Everyone look up Evelyn Yáng and her journey and her bravery and her courage. I would love to have her on the podcast at some point as well.

Soon I feel like I'm already pushing.

I feel like I'm already pushing it.

So I will I will ask her because she's a huge fan of yours and yeah. Like, I was so proud of her. And it was I mean, it was something that I obviously shared with her, like, you know, as her husband beforehand. And then and I was like, look, if you obviously it's like whatever you wanted. Yeah. Like I'm 100 percent behind you. But I was so proud of her and so angry at.

The doctor and the folks that. Made it possible. And so there was so much of me that was like I frankly, I didn't want to be like, baby, I want you to fucking rain hellfire.

I really do. But because you don't you don't want to be like, you know, so I was like always like like, you know. Yeah.

100 percent supportive, but I was so proud of her and and sharing a story about, you know, an assault that you experienced, you know, there's so much embarrassment and shame and fear. And, you know, I can only imagine the amount of anger and rage, you know, that you felt. But the way that you supported her through that and the way that she walks through that with such grace was incredibly inspiring to me. And I know changed a lot of people's lives.

Thank you. Thank you. I'll thank her for you and me. It was I mean, it was wild because like I felt. So much sadness before and then, like, you kind of relived it because then it was. Something that everyone knew about. Yeah, I'm just very appreciative of everything. I'm very, very lucky to be married to. You will I agree, I agree she's unbelievably so strong, so resilient, you know, as someone that constantly struggles with how to speak about things like that, watching her interviews and watching the grace that she navigated it with and the elegance and the bravery and the courage made me think, oh, you know, we can do this.

We can speak out without making a mess of ourselves or embarrassing ourselves or seeming like a squeaky wheel. You know, it felt like just the way that she navigated that made me less scared about, you know, talking about my experiences.

And I know that it I'm so glad. And when she was on the trail, too, she got that from women everywhere we went. And it was beautiful. She wasn't someone who was frankly seeking the public eye at all.

I think people understood that. And it's one reason why people appreciated her coming forward is that it seemed just like she wanted to help.

And it was really touching because everywhere we went, there was so much appreciation for and it started a lot of conversations with a lot of my girlfriends, a lot of my family members going, oh, I never thought about that.

But now that I heard her talk about, you know, so I think she really is a very powerful healer and the things that she did, I'm sure there are some days that seems thankless and some days that, you know, it seems exhausting. But she really has healed so many people, you know, just in my immediate proximity. So I hope that one day I'll get to have her on the Alaska.

I'll ask her later today. Yes. Yes. And if she says no. Then you'll love her anyway. I'll just get to meet her and give her a big hug when this whole nightmare is over. I love you. I am such a big fan. I am going to harass you and force you to do this again. I love you so much. Thank you. I've already taken up too much of your time.

Thank you. They are the best of the best. I love you to love you. Andrew Yag.