CBS This Morning co-host Tony Dokoupil on Wednesday just came out and endorsed 2020 Democrat Andrew Yang’s plan to just simply give away cash money, should he be elected president. Dokoupil called the scheme a “good policy” as co-host Anthony Mason gushed that “it’s pretty attractive.” Where the money would come from and how much it would cost wasn’t discussed.
Mason interviewed Yang and mostly focused on horse race questions, offering softball questions like this one: “You think you can beat Joe Biden?” However, after the interview, Mason repeated talking points: “But he’s saying the problem isn’t immigration, it’s automation. He is the candidate offering a thousand dollars a month a freedom dividend he calls it, to everybody in the country, essentially.”
Dokoupil then endorsed it: “Freedom dividend is a good name, and a thousand a month is a good policy.” Mason agreed, “It's pretty attractive.”
CBS This Morning will air more of the interview on Thursday. But based on the tease, one might not expect a grilling. Mason touted, “Coming up tomorrow only on CBS This Morning, more of our conversation with Andrew Yang, including why he believes the American dream is dying, he says, by the numbers.”
A transcript of the segment is below. Click “expand” to read more.
CBS This Morning
9/4/19
8:22 AM ETANTHONY MASON: In an interview with CBS This Morning, Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang says he is confident he can beat front-runner Joe Biden. Right now, the businessman is polling at about two to four percent nationwide. The 2020 hopeful told us why he believes he has what it takes to beat President Trump. Polls show most Democratic voters and Democratic-leaning independents, two-thirds, the main thing they want in a candidate is someone who can beat Donald Trump.
ANDREW YANG: Yep. Yes. I'm one of only two candidates in the field that ten percent of Donald Trump voters say they would support.
MASON: Why is that?
YANG: It’s because I'm focused on solving the problems they see around them every day, and I'm laser focused on making their lives better. That's why I'm getting thousands of Trump voters as well as independents and libertarians and Democrats and progressives. If I'm the Democratic nominee, we win. That’s the math.
MASON: But that's Joe Biden's argument too.
YANG: That’s one reason he’s leading in the polls and that’s one reason you’ll see me leading in the polls before too long.
MASON: You think you can beat Joe Biden?
YANG: I think I'll be the nominee. If you listen to Joe's talk about it, his main argument is that his election is going to be a restoration of the Obama/Biden administration in essence, which is a move, literally, a move backward in time. To me saying that, we can somehow erase not just Donald Trump's presidency, but all the reasons why people voted for Donald Trump, to me it's not correct. These things happened and we're going to have to address them. We'rer going to have to solve the problems that got Donald Trump elected, one, if we're going to win and, two, if we're going to move forward.
MASON: It’s interesting. Yang is appealing to Trump voters in a lot of ways because he is also painting a fairly dark picture of the economy. But he’s saying the problem isn’t immigration, it’s automation. He is the candidate offering a thousand dollars a month a freedom dividend he calls it, to everybody in the country essentially. He's sort of carved out a space no one else has.
TONY DOKOUPIL: Freedom dividend is a good name, and a thousand a month is a good policy.
MASON: It's pretty attractive. Anyway, coming up tomorrow only on CBS This Morning, more of our conversation with Andrew Yang, including why he believes the American dream is dying, he says, by the numbers.
