The Home Stretch

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This week on the Andrew Yang Podcast.

It's so under the radar, but what I love is like, I'm jonesing for, like, I just want this article to come out after the election. It's like Yang and the Forward Party just blew up the Republicans' plan to keep the Senate or some version of that, right? Forward Party flips the Senate. It's a cool and a very, very non-zero chance, like a very real chance.

It's very, very real. Hey guys, it's me and Zach with a special midterms episode of the pod. I don't know if this is the only midterm episode we're going to do because, uh, you know, things could happen, but it's great to be with you. We have actually, like, you know, some, some exciting inside stuff to discuss, some of which we're not allowed to, to share, but some of it we're gonna dump. Right now, before we get to politics, which is going to be the main topic, I do want to dig into a tweet I put out there, a post that went not quite viral but definitely took notice. So check it out. Those of you who don't care about this stuff, I'm going to explain to you why you should care in a sec. But there's a very, very big venture capital firm called Andreessen Horowitz, a16z. You might have heard of them. Raise gajillions of dollars, and they just fired the vast majority of their 34-person talent team that was headhunting for their portfolio companies. So their pitch was, hey, if we invest in you, it's not just money, we also recruit your executive teams. And that's been their pitch for quite some time. It came out in Axios that they just axed the vast majority of that team. And I took this as a very significant bear market signal because what this is, a major firm saying to their portfolio companies, look, we don't think you should be hiring to the point where we're just going to get rid of our entire talent team. And I'm pretty sure simultaneously, they sent out a message to their firms, batten down the hatches. There is a very, very rough time coming. These venture capital funded companies tend to be the canaries in the coal mine of the risk-on economy. You know what I mean? It's like these guys are investing in edgy tech and when the tide is going up, everyone looks like a genius. You know, I'm sure their valuations have all gotten marked up over and over again. And by the way, and one thing I don't know if I shared with you, so I put this post out, you know, got a few hundred thousand views. And then someone texted me saying, "Hey, thanks for putting that out because I was literally talking to those headhunters. They were trying to help me find a job, and then they said like I just lost my own job. So sorry, can't help you anymore." So that there's there's an ill wind blowing, and I'll talk a little bit more about like another sign of the top that just came out in a moment. But thoughts on hey major firm now just cut its talent team.

My sense was, on one hand, sign of a bear market ahead or choppy waters ahead. The other one is how many of these jobs are actually getting, especially in the engineering world, are getting like either duplicative or they're getting eliminated from AI, you know? Like, it's easy to imagine.

Yeah, yeah. That occurred to me too, is like maybe this is person-lite. So I want to cut to why I think this is important for just about everyone. So I was talking to my personal trainer. I do have one. Anyway, um, so, uh, and then he mentioned something, um, that I was like, yo, that, that's probably not very smart. He, he mentioned that the majority of his, uh, portfolio slash savings are in one stock, and that stock was Nvidia. Um, and, uh, and I said, look, I'm not prone to giving tons of investment advice, um, but I just think that's a bad idea. That's a big bet. And you should definitely— yeah, that, like, it, that's Objectively unwise, and you should lighten up. And then he was talking about it's like isn't Nvidia just going to you know benefit from the AI boom blah blah blah blah blah. And I was like let's just say like there there's some stuff going on under the covers that might make you glad you sold some like if like at the top. So you know that like people everyone's going to get affected if the AI boom goes into reverse because and some major figure just came out and said it's like look if you get rid of the data center spend, we go into recession, which is objectively true, by the way. That is true. Like, the majority of the economic growth has been data center spend. Yeah. But, you know, I don't think that's sustainable. I think that, that the bloom is coming off the rose. The other major announcement that came out was Anthropic is going to go public in November. It's going to go public at some whopping valuation, but they released their Q3 results because it's October. So they released their Q3 results and they did— I think the number was $16.8 billion in Q3, which was a 45% increase from Q2. Which you could say it's like, wow, that's amazing. That sounds great. Yeah. But the problem was that that growth rate's a little bit behind what people were hoping for. And I will tell you for a fact that Anthropic has been nudging its customers and discounting tokens, trying to get people to spend more because they're trying to IPO. I mean, it's obvious, like you're trying to IPO.

As a customer of Anthropic, they have discounted plenty of tokens.

Yeah. So, so, so then, so their valuation on the private market and what they were trying to IPO at was $2 trillion and their valuation went down by 10%. on the basis of the fact that now people saw these earnings in the private market. So that might not sound like a lot. I mean, obviously $1.8 trillion is still a bonanza, but this entire AI story is a hypergrowth story. And so when the hypergrowth just becomes normal growth, some of these valuations don't make any sense. Mm-hmm. And, and you're going to see— and, and if, if I think Anthropic will still go public and it'll be fine. I have very, very deep skepticism about OpenAI's ability to go public. I've heard also that OpenAI is discounting tokens and trying to juice demand, and it's also showing, let's say, non-hypergrowth in this. So the rubber's going to hit the road, and I think the rubber's going to hit the road a little bit sooner than people— Might think or hope. So if you're listening to this and being like, hey, how does this affect me? It's like, just like Yang thinks that we're in for a very, very rough period, that this cycle is now reaching its top, or, you know, like the momentum is eroding very quickly. And if you're an investor, then, you know, you'll obviously take from this. Um, it's like, you know, maybe I should do something, maybe I shouldn't. If you're a non-investor, um, then you should still think, okay, there might be some, um, moves to make or precautions I can take just in terms of maybe you put off that home improvement project. Maybe you—

Save more

cash. You know, maybe you just, uh, um, hunker down. And I felt, look, like, it's not like I'm some, you know, uh, Nostradamus figure where I don't have a crystal ball, but I just feel some obligation to share some of these data points with people that keep up with us because, you know, appreciate everyone who does keep up with us. Love you all. And, you know, if I believe something is in the works that could affect people, like, I just want to be able to discuss it and share.

What is the bomb that goes off? What is the pop? What is the fall? Is it Anthropic's IPO being Discount of 50% or what they initially thought? Is it OpenAI not being able to go public? Like, what if this bubble bursts? Is there something you're watching that would be the— not the canary in the coal mine, but the actual bomb, the actual issue?

I have thought for months that the problem was going to be OpenAI not being able to go public because then there's a lot of money locked up in there and that they expected to be able to get it out. And if they're not able to get it out, then I think there are very, very significant problems. I think that you are going to look at a discussion of do you nationalize OpenAI because some of the mega companies that are in there are going to look to the government to make them whole. I know that's screwed up sounding. Mm-hmm. But the, the legitimate case they're going to make, which I frankly am very unsympathetic towards, but the, but the legitimate case they're going to make is, hey, if, if this spending evaporates, like you are going to see a very, very deep recession and market correction. And those are just numbers. Like, that's not like a— it's just if you look at how much of our growth is tied up in this stuff. So I thought it was going to be a failure of OpenAI to IPO, but now I'm starting to think it could be some earlier dominoes.

Interesting.

OpenAI even said it's like, oh, it would be unwise for us to go public. So we're not going to go public until next year.

Geez.

But I don't think that was a choice. I think that choice kind of got pushed on them, you know, and he's like acting like it's prudent.

I was talking with a friend who had, like, entrepreneur and things like that. And he was, he was saying being the CEO of OpenAI or Anthropic would, has to be one of the worst jobs in the world right now. Um, and I was thinking about whether I agree with that or not. It's like, okay, you're rich, but you're not liquid. You're not rich rich, right? Um, they're rich on paper. Um, so they're not like living the creature comforts. It's a sprint every day. You seemingly, I was like related to a presidential campaign where like you have to, you have to have a win every 1 to 2 weeks. You know, you got a new product every day. You're racing with not only your own country's innovators, but also— and, you know, Google and Facebook, some of the biggest players in the world, but also the whole world. The legal risk is insane in that this thing could hack it. You know, this thing goes rogue seemingly every couple days. And what's the end is AGI? Like, what the end is something terrifying we don't understand. I'm just curious your thoughts on the human side of running these businesses. And to me, it maybe matters because there's that— there's a human being making a decision on how this thing, how this plane lands, how this thing ends, you know?

Yeah, I think they've got a trillion-dollar wind at their backs. Uh, certainly Anthropic right now, and I do know this for a fact, that like Anthropic employees are having meetings about, uh, personal wealth management. Like, they're all looking around being like, hey guys, we're about to all get fantabulously rich.

That's true. If they do go public, yeah, there's a lot of— there's a lot of that. Sure.

So that, you know, so that like And then, and then if you were the CEO of that organization, you also are obviously going to become a billionaire many times over. But you're surrounded by people who are going to become very, very rich in a minute if they're waiting for an IPO.

50% of what you expect. They're so rich. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. So, so you have a trillion-dollar wind at your back saying, let's go, go, go, go, let's hit goals and get out the gates. You know, like to me, in some ways it's like what happens post-IPO is going to be a more human question, shall we say? Yeah. Because there'll be a lot of people up and down there. And I think OpenAI is in a similar situation where it's like— and I don't know if— I'm obviously dubious that there's a trillion-dollar IPO pot of gold waiting for those guys.

Right.

But they're trying to make it happen. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, that's— I mean, they've got literally, like, you know, like tens of billions of dollars in investment on the line. So that job, I would say, is extraordinarily stressful. That one would be very difficult.

Or do you take it? Yeah.

Yeah, because you're feeding the story and the story is one of the biggest in business history. And then how the story ends is very much up in the air.

I mean, it makes— like the guy who put all his money in Nvidia, So what's it? It was a California gold rush. Like most people, almost no one made their money in gold. The people made their money were like the picks and shovels, you know, the suppliers of the people attempting to get rich, which is the Nvidia play, if you will.

Well, so there's another company that's run into problems just now, CoreWeave.

Yeah.

And it turns out that Nvidia owns 10% of CoreWeave because Nvidia, you know, because Nvidia sounds like it does. I believe invested billions and then CoreWeave was going to spend the money on Nvidia chips. There's a lot of circular financing going on.

Yeah.

In the space. And at the center of it all is Nvidia because like, so I mean, here's the dynamic. It's like, hey, you want to buy $10 billion worth of chips from us, CoreWeave? Well, you don't have $10 billion, but I'm going to give you $10 billion. Then you're going to like pay me. And, and that, that's been going on. Sometimes there are multiple entities involved in this practice. It's called round tripping. It's like, yeah, it's not great, guys. It's not great.

Musical chairs, dude.

So I'm, you know, just want to share some of the data points that hit the radar this week. The big ones are a16z laying off their talent team, Anthropic's valuation going down because their hypergrowth seems to be slowing. I do have some other, you know, data points that OpenAI is having worse problems than Anthropic trying to juice their, their revenue. So, you know, that hypergrowth is going to fall. And then this company called CoreWeave is having problems with its financing. So I'm going to share a joke that I actually opened a talk with the other day. I don't know if I've used it on the podcast. I'm going to ask you, let's see, how far behind the US is China in AI?

Tell me the answer. You said this on the presidential campaign, I think.

Yeah, well, 12 hours because they wake up and see whatever we did the previous day. So there was a report by a bank called Jefferies that said that they think that Chinese open-weight AI models are going to end up being a cheap substitute for a lot of the frontier models that we spent gajillions on, and that a lot of the investment in OpenAI and Anthropic in particular is going to end up being written off. I mean, and I believe that's directionally accurate. Because I talked to someone at a very high-performing financial institution who said that even for them, and this is like a very rich company, even they have been swapping in open-source models for OpenAI and Anthropic because they're like, look, get me 85% of the quality for 10% of the cost. And this is not necessarily like a, where am I gonna invest $1 billion thing? This is like for me to just like write a report or do this or do that. Yeah. You know what I mean? So it's the, and the, token spend was significant enough even for this financial institution where they were like, look, we're just not going to do it.

If they're— if the thought is that these companies are going to rely on the retail aspect of AI, so like humans, families, families like using it to book flights and do the calendars, no one's going to spend— you don't need to be a super— like the current models work great and they'll get a little better and that's fine.

Yes,

there is a point. And we're at Noble, we're somewhat there. But if you're an investment bank or you're doing some really crazy modeling or heavy engineering, like, yeah, the supermodels are going to might be worth a little bit of payment. But at the core of it, what is this thing? It's a super fast calculator, computer researcher, report writer, researcher, assistant. If that's baked into their growth projections, then I don't think people are going to pay for it if there's a free option.

Yeah. It's hard to double from $80 billion is one of the things. It's like, you know what I mean? Like, you just got to find another $80 billion. It's just not happening. So like, you know, that this Um, the bloom is coming off the rose. Uh, hunker down, be a little cautious on that side. Um, risk-on is about to become risk-off, in my humble opinion.

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Thank you, listeners. Please make sure to like and subscribe. And if you have any questions, send them to mailbag@andreyang.com and We'll do our best to answer them. Thank you. You know, it's one reason why I'm really glad to be working on Noble Mobile with you is because it's gonna save people money and headaches. Yeah. And I, you know, I wanted to do something with you that actually solved a pain point for the average American family. So if you haven't switched to Noble yet, or at least checked it out, if you go to noblemobile.com/yang, 3 free months for anyone listening to this. It's good for you and your family members. Email matt@noblemobile.com if you want to talk to a real-life human about it. But we'd love for you to take us up on this because we're genuinely trying to return value to you. Fair enough. And the carriers are not. I would say the big— certainly Verizon, AT&T, to me, I mean, they're paying their shareholders $18 billion a year. Um, in profits, uh, that, uh, it's pretty much the, the reason anyone holds the stock. And Noble Mobile's, uh, doing great.

Yeah,

we're growing all the time, uh, and we're a private company, so we can't be putting out the numbers, but like things are, are going— Yeah, really, really well. We have some exciting announcements on, on that side as well upcoming. That's why me and Zach are in a good mood and still in a great mood. Yeah.

Also, if you— we hear it a lot, like, hey, I'd love to switch, but I got to pay off my device, etc. We will pay off your device. relatively cleanly with, with free data. So, uh, if you email matt@noblemobile.com, M-A-T-T, we can sort of help you do that. Um, there's some exceptions to that because some of you guys have crazy bills, but most of the time we're able to do something pretty substantial.

So, yeah. And one reason why Noble's doing so well is we bought a discount brand called Helium Mobile, um, which might be the cheapest plans out there. Now it's no frills. Noble is kind of the—

we got all the frills, yeah, kind of full of people. We got international. We're comparable to Verizon, AT&T. But if you want Not just the data.

If you want the best, the Helium Mobile, if you look, I mean, you're talking about, um, the cheapest plans around for the data. So cheap that—

$15 a month, like—

Yeah, so cheap that we're not even making money on a lot of those plans, honestly. So, so, um, but yeah, like, so Noble's the premium values-based one, uh, international Cashback, 5.5% interest rate, all these things. Yeah. And then, uh, Helium's just budget. Give

me the data, baby. Which I get. Some people like just want the data.

Yeah, no, no, totally cool. So check out Helium Mobile if, if that sounds appealing to you. Um, yeah, but things are going great on that side. All right, to the midterms.

Totally politics, baby.

Yeah, yeah. It's, uh, me, me and Zach, uh, came together on politics. I'm still Obviously deeply involved. Your phones are probably blowing up. My phone's blowing up.

I get one a day from some Democrat candidate.

I get multiple a day. Yeah, for sure.

For the record, I think I've said this on this podcast before. We, the Yang campaign, did not sell your email and phone number. That is a Democratic DNC Act Blue situation.

Yeah, if you don't act blue, then you have to be sorry. There's this. Yeah, curse them too. I make things much worse for myself. Um, because I actually continue to donate to various— like, I, I mean, I, I attend events and do things partially because I've been a candidate. And so,

yeah,

like, I feel for candidates, though obviously people that, uh, keep up with me know that, uh, I've focused on a couple of independent Senate candidates that we'll talk about, um, after we talk about the general midterms.

Talk about it, man. What are you thinking?

It's going to be a great night for, uh, the Dems and anti-incumbents. Uh, I— the term that came to mind for me was blue wave, but I really detest That because blue wave suggests that the Dems all of a sudden have figured their shit out and everyone likes them again, which is—

which is—

yeah, they didn't do anything on this one. But, but you know who did do something? Donald fucking Trump and his 32% approval rating. By the way, 32% is crazy low. Mm-hmm. Like, it used to be traditionally if you were anywhere in the low 40s, people were like, uh-oh. I mean, low 30s, I've never even seen this before.

It's All right. I mean, look, this is an own goal. It's his own fault. He got cocky after Venezuela, went to war with Iran, uh, and now we're in a forever war. And he ran on no more wars, which is something that almost every, every American in the country said, we've got issues here, stop spending money abroad. And then he did, and now we're stuck in this thing and there's no way out. And frankly, the other thing is gas prices through the roof.

Yes.

And that's— most people see war in Middle East and they tie it to gas prices. So he's getting blamed for both.

Which is correct in this case. So check it out. No more wars, missed on that. Curb inflation, missed on that, related to the war. And then the third is enforce the border, in parentheses, without shooting Americans. And so even folks who were with it on that are just like, wait a minute, like, I didn't sign up for weird militias with masks on, like shooting folks in, you know, in the suburbs. In the suburbs. Like, that's— so he's 0 for 3, 32% approval. And so there's going to be a washout. Now, how far does the washout extend? It's actually been really entertaining to me because I've met with a bunch of these Senate candidates. So the Dems take the House categorically. Like, I do not see any way that does not happen, even though the gerrymandering, blah, blah, blah. Dems probably win about 10 seats. That's gonna be enough. Yeah. The question is the Senate. The Dems are down 53-47 in the Senate, and the map was not great for them. And yet I think that they at least get 50 or 51, especially if you start including some of the independents that I'm going to talk about. But there, there is like a spreading map where it's like a follow the money situation where the Republicans choosing to spend money. The Republicans are spending money in Kansas defending a Senate seat, South Carolina defending a Senate seat, Nebraska, which is an independent, defending a Senate seat. Obviously Texas, I mean, they're probably gonna spend, you know, like $100 million plus because they have a really bad candidate there, Paxton. I guess we should talk about the Tallarico bullshit story that popped up.

Probably.

So weird.

So the quick story is Senate candidate in Texas, James Talarico, disappeared off the trail for, I think it was 13 days, with a version of no proof of life. And then I guess sort of, I think they've somewhat proven that he had the flu with like home security cameras, et cetera. But the no proof of life thing is very strange. Which is a bit of a bummer because he's pretty— he's relatively talented.

So the Republicans then put out a story that he was in some rehab mental health facility in Ohio. And by the way, so I actually have some exposure to the story. I don't know how I end up in these sitches, but I saw James Talarico here in New York one day or 2 days before the flu hit. Robert De Niro was there. It's like a fancy New York nonsense event. But Talarico was obviously like hale and hearty in the sense that, like, you know, there was like zero concern about— I mean, if anything, he was the opposite, where he was energized, energetic.

He seemed great.

He seemed great. And he had that winning spirit to him. And so when I saw that story, I was like, this story is horseshit. And I, like, I knew it immediately because I'd literally seen the dude 36 hours before the interview in question. That said, if you were on a plane flying to New York, glad-handing a bunch of strangers, like, the odds of you catching a bug— that's legit. Like, I've caught bugs. Yeah, sure.

You get sick on the—

So yeah, so he got sick and then he went home. And the fact that they then tried to turn it into some, like, story that was, like, easily debunked, you know, and I think it had no impact. on the dynamic of the race. But Talarico— so Texas is the proving ground in that the Dems have wistfully wanted to win in Texas for years and years. Beto O'Rourke was the last great hope in this direction, running against Ted Cruz. And Beto raised a lot of money, had a lot of crowds, a lot of energy. And I want to say he might have lost by like 6 or something like that.

Yeah.

And so some people are looking at it and saying Talarico is gonna be the same way. I think that Talarico has a real chance to win for a few reasons. Number one is that the, you know, again, like the incumbent administration's like deep underwater.

Yeah.

They picked a really unappealing candidate. Like if it had been Cornyn, the other senator, then I think Cornyn probably wins. But they chose Paxton, who's, you know, corrupt and like unappealing and just a general jackoff. And then, and then, so you have bad candidate Republican side, good candidate on the Democratic side in the form of Tallarico, ticked-off populace, and a state that's getting more and more purple. So I think Tallarico has a chance to make some history. You know who else I think has a chance to win is Adam Hamilton in Kansas.

Tell me more.

So Adam Hamilton is a pastor, preacher, leader of a congregation of tens of thousands, and is a friend of a friend who lives in Kansas and has been trying to get Adam to run because he knew he'd be successful. So Adam's running as a Democrat, but he's super religious and a person of faith, and obviously has written a series of books. And so for the average Kansas moderate Republican type, all they have to do is hang out with Adam for a second and hear his message.

Yeah.

And then we're like, oh, I'm totally fine with this guy. One female voter said to Adam, it's like, hey, I'm a Republican, I'm a Christian, you're a Christian, how are you a Democrat? And then Adam said, like, didn't Jesus want to care for the poor? Like, I feel like that's what I want to do as senator. And she's like, no. I was like, yeah, pretty reasonable. So, so again, follow the money. The Republicans are spending millions in Kansas now,

right?

Which was not on their bingo card.

Mm-hmm.

So Adam Hamilton has a chance to win Alaska. Mary Peltola has a chance to win in Ohio, which has gone 9 points red. Sherrod Brown, I believe, is going to win. Like, it's just a really, really significant amount of energy behind some of these Dem candidates.

Let me ask you this. Do you think the Dems have done a pretty good job of running electable candidates in a general election? I think in the past— and there's been a ton of media hype on the DSA, Mondame, and El-Sayed in Michigan. They're getting a lot of the national media coverage. But I think in a lot of states, the reason A lot of them are outpolling expectations and taking advantage of these Trump— this Trump own goal is because they're running somewhat moderate, reasonable, middle-of-the-road Democrats, which there are plenty of progressives that are like, no, no, no, can't run those. And I hear the argument. I don't know if I agree with it because you have to win a general. I'm curious if you think— I think the Dems might actually be doing a pretty good job of staying out of their own way. I'm curious your thoughts.

Well, the single biggest primary that jumps to mind in what you just posed is— was James Talarico against Jasmine Crockett in Texas. Yeah. For that Senate race. And I do happen to think that Talarico is much more formidable in a general election than Jasmine Crockett would have been. Yeah. So on that one, you know, like it worked out. You know, there are arguments about some, some of the other candidates. I mean, one that jumped into mind for me was like the progressive recruitment of Graham Plattner in Maine that ended up blowing up in their face.

Yeah, that's a weird one. He won the primary and then they got him out. Well, he had some flaws.

Yeah, I mean, they got him out because, you know, he had like— he was in a, uh, he was, he was in like a, you know, assaulter, abuser type. Um, and then, and then he got—

Being generous, I said.

Yeah, yeah. And then he got replaced by, um, Troy Carter, who is more nondescript and it's still competitive. You know, it was like a little tougher. So the Dems have some really strong candidates. Mary Peltola is very strong in Alaska.

Yeah.

I mean, she's a member of Congress. She's taking advantage of the voting system up there, which if you're a fan of mine, you know I love the Alaska no-primary ranked-choice voting system. That's right. And for— I mean, it's going to help the right person win. And in that case, I think Mary Peltola is helped by the system.

Mm-hmm.

The Dems are really taking advantage of Republican screw-ups at the top, primarily. And so they're gonna say, like, the people love us again. Like, it's a blue— it's a blue wave.

They claim victory, sure.

Yeah, they claim victory. And then, like, I personally will be rolling my eyes being like, oh my god, like, you know, like, you're still deeply underwater with most Americans in the numbers I see. It's just that we Can't stand who's in charge right now. We can't stand the inflation. We can't stand the the new wars. We can't stand the profiteering, the ballroom nonsense. Like you know, like like whatever's going on is just not what anyone signed up for, including a lot of Trump voters. So the pendulum is going to swing, and then the clock is going to tick. And I I'm not optimistic about. new legislation coming out of—

No.

Out of Congress, even if the Dems do take the Senate. And I want to return to the races I'm most enthused about. When this episode comes out, I will be just days away from heading to the great state of— drumroll, please— South Dakota. Hey. Yes. Heading to Sioux Falls. So people who've been up on me and Ford know that we've been backing these US Senate candidates in states where the Dems are really unpopular, kind of non-factors, including South Dakota. So the, the 3 Senate candidates we've gotten behind in the biggest ways this cycle are Todd Achilles in Idaho, Brian Bengtz in South Dakota, and Seth Bodnar in Montana. Now, in Idaho and South Dakota, the Dems dropped out. It was like they were a non-factor.

Yeah.

So you have Todd Achilles one-on-one with Jim Risch, who's 83 years old and not well-liked, and then Brian Bangs one-on-one against Mike Rounds, who's 72, not that much younger, and also not well-liked. And in South Dakota, Mike Rounds just scrubbed the I'm with Trump language from his website.

God.

And now the Senate, the Republican Senate committee, is starting to spend money to defend Mike Rounds. So I want people to think for a second, why would they do those 2 things? They would do those 2 things because they polled it and found that Brian Bengs could win. Wild stuff. So that's why I'm heading to South Dakota. And if you're listening to this and you want to stick it to the MAGA crew, I'm going to suggest that donating to Brian Bengs is a great way to go. It's B-E-N-G-S. Because imagine Republicans being like, oh my God, we have to defend South Dakota. Like, we haven't had to defend South Dakota Ever. In

100 years. In

100 years. And the reason why they have to defend South Dakota is not because the Democrats did anything great. Brian actually shares really funny stories about how shitty it was being the Democratic nominee for Senate in South Dakota because everyone hates Democrats in South Dakota. So he, he's been an independent his whole life. He ran for Senate in South Dakota as a Democrat in 2022. had a terrible experience. Uh, you know, like I asked him, what did the Dems do for you when you were the Senate candidate? And he said, the best thing I could say is that they didn't actually fund my opponent. Like, they didn't do anything for him, and everyone hated him. Uh, and so then now he's running as an independent. The Dem dropped out. The new Dem— that's pretty funny— the new Dem was running and being like, Brian was the Dem candidate last time, he's not a real Dem, I'm a real Dem. And then everyone was like, oh, we don't care.

But if you're a real Dem, we're—

Yeah, we're out on you. Like, that, that, that guy's That guy raised, you know, no money, and Brian Bangs raised over $1 million. In South Dakota, it's like a real contest. Yeah. So Brian Bangs now has a chance to expand this map, but the only reason that Brian Bangs is expanding the map again is that he's running as an independent. And Forward Party is political support infrastructure for positive independents. So you can see why we love this Brian Bangs opportunity. And when you and I were talking about this, you're like, wait a minute, you could get a US senator? Uh, in. I mean, we had a U.S. senator in, um, in a very, very unlikely place. Expanding the map, backing independence. As you can tell, I'm super excited about it. That's why I'm heading to Sioux Falls. And if that is exciting to you, please do check out Brian Bengs, B-E-N-G-S. The man is 6'8. He has real Abe Lincoln vibes. Yeah. He's an Air Force instructor and former park ranger. He's that kind of guy. It's the fall, and I'm not gonna lie, my health routine has taken a hit these past couple months. I've been on the road, I tweaked something, I've eaten some stuff I should not have eaten, and that's why it's a great time for me to get back to Factor Food. Factor makes chef-crafted, dietitian-designed Ready to eat meals so that even a klutz like me can just go heat them up out of the fridge. Real food, and you can taste the quality. You can taste the healthfulness. We're talking about mustard chicken, salmon burgers, shredded pork, collard greens. Factor makes me more effective, healthier, and it can do the same for you too. Let's eat real. Head to factormeals.com/yang50off. And use code YANG50OFF to get 50% off and one free breakfast item per box for one year while supplies last until 10/31/26. That's code YANG50OFF at factormeals.com. YANG50OFF at factormeals.com. See website for more details.

Couple questions for you. One, you sort of alluded to this, but I'm curious your thoughts. Let's say the Dems do flip the Senate somewhat or tie the Senate, whatever it is.

Yeah.

What do you think happens? My prediction is Trump just gets held up in corruption impeachment hearings or whatever they are. We don't get real legislation, but I'm curious what you think the— what happens the next 2 years prior to the 2020 election.

I'm pessimistic about what comes out of Congress because even if the Republicans have a very bad time, they're still gonna have 48 or 49 senators.

Yeah.

And I do want to paint a picture where you could wind up with a 49-49 Senate and then 2 independents in the middle who then— and Brian and Todd and Seth have all said that they're not gonna caucus with either party.

Mm-hmm.

So they have to build a new cloakroom and cafeteria for like the, the third crew, but they'll be the dealmakers. So you could get some stuff done on really common-sense items that most Americans are like, just shrug about. So this would be permitting reform, anti-forest fires, pro-shipbuilding, like things that Americans would be like, whatever.

But helpful.

Yeah, it'd be helpful. And some senators would be like, yeah, we're gonna do it, we're gonna Gang of 6 this thing. So, so that— and then Really, in, in our political system, all the energy is gonna head to who's gonna run for president in '28. And, you know, someone said that they count 32 Dems that are gonna run.

32 is crazy.

Which sounds order of magnitude correct-ish. There, there was a story that came out that you and I haven't discussed on the pod, I don't think, which is that Kamala Harris just hired 9 political operatives.

That was my next question. And she's doing a tour in New Hampshire, Georgia. There was, I think, 7 states, 6 states. Alex Thompson tweeted that the other day. She's out there.

Kamala, the return of Kamala, her 3rd run. 3rd time's the non-charm.

I'm gonna make my— I've already decided who I'm voting for president. I don't know if you saw this article, but the one and only Soulja Boy has said he may run for president, and if he runs, I'm definitely gonna donate.

I just wanna hear the tunes. I wanna hear the Soulja Boy anthem.

Soulja Boy, tell 'em, baby.

I did, um, uh, follow him on, uh, Instagram, uh, and tried to say hello so I could be like, hey, man.

I love that. There are some Dem insiders that have said the Democrats are not prepared for who will run in this party, and it won't be— it'll be A-list celebrities, etc. I wouldn't be surprised. I don't think Portnoy's gonna do it, but Stephen A. Smith maybe has certainly been flirting with it.

Stephen A. Smith essentially bowed out recently. He bowed out. Yeah.

That sort of type or someone well-known, I think you'd be— I wouldn't be surprised if some of these names come out of the woodwork. Because if 32 people are running, you're going to have well-respected, sadly very good candidates that are going to poll less than 1% maybe the whole time.

Yeah. Especially if Kamala runs, because Kamala is going to swallow a lot of the oxygen, a lot of the energy, a lot of the—

We've seen this movie.

Attention.

I've seen it.

Oh wait, which cycle are you thinking? '20 or '24?

I've seen it twice. I've seen her as the only candidate. I've seen her in a crowded field. Both did not go well.

Yeah, that's true.

Like, what are we doing?

Yeah, that's not good.

And then Gavin Newsom has said he won't run if Kamala runs. Is that true?

He did say that, but that didn't make much sense to me because I really feel like Gavin's running.

I don't think it's a true statement.

Yeah, I don't think so either.

But why say that? It's weird. He's definitely running. Come on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, Gavin's running.

He's in second place in the polls.

Yeah, Gavin's running for quite some time. And I tell people, I think Gavin's going to be a force the whole time because that dude is going to really click in living rooms in New Hampshire and salons in South Carolina and the rest of it. He just looks and feels very presidential when he's in the room.

For sure. He's even taller than you, bro.

Have you met the same room as him?

Yeah, yeah, we met him. He's taller than you. Yeah, he is. He's like a—

And Zach's really tall. How tall are you, Zach?

I'm 6'3¾.

Can you believe that?

I round up to 6'4 if I'm trying to impress people.

Yeah, I know. So Zach Grauman here is 6'4. So that makes Gavin like 6'5?

Yeah, somewhere in there. Yeah, he's impressive. He's like a force of nature.

He's an impressive human in that way.

And he's a good—

He's a great communicator.

If you watch the debate, um, with him and— was it DeSantis? Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think he did a good job. He, he went with, uh, he was on Charlie Kirk's podcast years ago. No, it's a little bit like he's very politician-y, right? He's like, oh, why is California such a shit show? Like, oh, you know, like, you know, I agree with you, it's a mess. Like, you know, but even though, you know, so it's like, you know, who knows how that goes. But he'll be a force for sure, in my opinion. Um, right now it's Buttigieg, Newsom, Ossoff, and, and Kamala and AOC are sort of the names right now.

One of the fears is that the, um, the vote's gonna get split among a bunch of mainstream candidates, and then AOC is gonna absorb the 20% of the—

And I don't know if AOC's running. The moves she's been making have seemed to be Senate-related in New York. Like, she's out there with a Bills sweatshirt on in upstate New York. As a Bills Mafia member, we were like, oh, okay. So that's a safer move for her for sure, because I think either Schumer retires or I think Gillibrand's always vulnerable and she's never won. I think she was appointed to that seat. So we'll see.

You know who I'm not sure runs, even though everyone's already putting him in the race?

Yeah, he's talented.

I think Asaf is really formidable and compelling and also has the virtue of being a good human. Yeah, but I'm not sure he's running. Yeah, like, you know, he actually has a young family that he enjoys spending time with, that sort of thing. He's not like a creature in the same way that some other folks are where they're just gonna run. For sure, Buttigieg is obviously running. Yeah, I mean, you go down the list, and I mean, so so so this is the question about how much legislation comes out. I'm not optimistic. It's all going to be 28-28 for the the duration. Trump will be in sort of lame duckery status and like deeply unpopular. He's like you know in his eighties now, and so then there there will be the major. Is it gonna be J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio food fight? Is there a genuine primary on that side? I do not believe there will be. I think it's gonna be one of those 2 guys, and then they—

Interesting. They sort of appoint it.

Yeah, I think the Republican Party's just gonna line up, and there's essentially going to be like a second-term Trump administration vibe. I like— I don't think the Republicans have real, like, competition.

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Hmm, one iced coffee?

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So right now, in November, as you can tell, that's how I think we think it's going to play out. Dems get the House. Dems, I believe, get to 50 in the Senate. And I do think the Senate balance is going to swing based on what happens in some of these independent races. And so it's Todd Achilles in Idaho, Brian Bangs in South Dakota, where I'm heading, Sioux Falls. Check out Brian Bangs, the apple of our eye. Seth Bodnar is an awesome candidate, number 1 in his class in West Point. Rhodes Scholar, the— it was like airborne commander, jumped out of planes, successful president of the University of Montana, and would be crushing this Senate race if the, like, the lunkhead Dem didn't decide to stay in.

Mm-hmm.

And people— this is how extreme it is in Montana, like, don't get me started. The chairman of the Montana Democratic Party has come out and endorsed Seth and said, we think that our Democratic candidate is probably a plant. It's probably a Republican plant. It's probably a Republican plant.

That's what they should do in all these states.

Yeah, I mean, it's— I mean, it's so dumb. It's so dumb and extreme. So the, the, the— so the, the Democratic candidate in Montana is like just not a cool human. Her name's Alani Bankhead. And it's not great. It's not great. Now, despite the fact that it's a 3-way race in Montana, Seth still has a chance to win.

Good for him.

But the Dem being there makes the terrain more like harder because some, you know, ill-informed Dem-aligned voters would just be like, oh, like Dem, let me vote for that. Even though at this point the chairman of the Democratic Party, like the last Democratic senator in Montana, Jon Tester, like everyone's piling behind Seth. But then you have this like fly in the ointment. And so that's the third race where the independent is contending. And then the fourth race is Dan Osborne, who's running against Pete Ricketts in Nebraska. Dan Osborne ran as an independent 2 years ago, was poised to win against Deb Fischer until the Republicans spent, I think it was $14 million, uh, defining him as a Democrat. And so he ended up getting maybe 46% of the vote, which is still really high. And so now he's back again against Pete Ricketts, who is a billionaire. And so the pipefitter Navy veteran with tattoos on his arms who doesn't own a suit against the billionaire is like a pretty good narrative.

It's fun.

Especially in 2026. Um, and some of Dan Osborne's ads are hysterical where He has Pete Ricketts in an AI video, like conjuring up a data center with magic powers and like da da da. So they're worth checking out.

Okay, fun.

But but Dan Dan Osborne is also contending. So so I I think and clearly hope that at least one of the independents breaks through and could end up being a pivot in the Senate.

Yeah. Well, you know what? It's and you you sort of alluded to this. It's such a game, right? Every once in a while someone comes in with. $10 million. Sometimes they put a plant in to like skew the vote. There's like this puppeteering that's happening. And normally, I think a rational person would be like, well, why do I care about this like dog and pony show nonsense? But the reason it matters, in my opinion, I think you agree, is because we talked about what we talked about at the top of this episode is that someone in charge has to make big decisions on AI and what's happening in this country. And that's why it matters at the end of the day. So, like, kudos to you for Finding some— I call them— and we ran for president, we tried to find them too, like finding your hacks, you know, like, okay, the Dems aren't going to win here, but if we fund an independent, might be able to take advantage of vulnerable Republicans. Um, sounds like you have a couple hacks. All you need is one to hit, frankly, and we change the game. So—

Thank you. And, uh, I, I'm, I'm juiced, I'm pumped, in part because, uh, the data says that we have a real chance to break through I will say too, I mean, I was talking to a guy who's like, you know, frankly, like a hard-nosed money type who was kind of in wonderment. He was like, wow, you've been telling me that these guys have a chance for months and I didn't even think it was possible. But like now he saw the numbers and was like, they really do have a chance. And that particular guy is donating to Brian Bangs in South Dakota.

Yeah, baby.

And Seth Bodnar in Montana, and he's really, really highly numerate. So thank you for putting us in the hack category. But if we wake up the day after Election Day and there's an independent senator out of one of these Mountain West states, America will be like, wait, what?

It's so under the radar, you know what I mean? Because the press isn't listening to this podcast, right? But what I love is like, I'm jonesing for, like, I just want this article to come out after the election. It's like Yang and the Forward Party just blew up the Republicans' plan to, you know, keep the Senate or some version of that, right? Forward Party flips the Senate. There's a cool and a very, very non-zero chance, like a very real chance.

It's very, very real. Very, very real. That's why I'm heading to South Dakota this weekend.

Flip the Green Party. I love it.

Yeah. Maybe I'll see you there. I don't think people are going to go to Sioux Falls on the trip. That's a long trip, man. But hey, you know, I'll be there and I'll—

Is there a direct flight from here?

There is not. See, that's commitment, folks. There is a layover, but no layover can stop your guy heading to South Dakota.

I never been. I hope it's fun.

Well, uh, stay tuned. Thank you all, uh, and, um, big number of days ahead.

Yeah, love y'all. Thanks, guys.

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