In his opening statement during Thursday’s Democratic presidential debate on PBS, businessman Andrew Yang took a few swings at the media for being untrustworthy and smearing good Americans in their pitiful explanations for why Donald Trump was elected president.
“It's clear why Americans can't agree on impeachment, we're getting news from different sources and it’s making it hard for us to even agree on basic facts,” he declared. “Congressional approval rating, last I checked, was something like 17 percent, and Americans don't trust the media networks to tell them the truth.”
He then pointed out that the media couldn’t accurately understand why President Trump was elected, so they resorted to using fearmongering and smears to explain it:
The media networks didn't do us any favors by missing why Donald Trump became our president in the first place. If you turn on cable network news today, you would think he's our president because of some combination of Russia, racism, Facebook, Hillary Clinton, and emails all mixed together. But Americans around the country know different.
“We blasted away 4 million manufacturing jobs that were primarily based in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Missouri. I just left Iowa. We blasted 40,000 manufacturing jobs there,” Yang explained.
Adding: “The more we act like Donald Trump is the cause of all our problems, the more Americans lose trust that we can actually see what's going on in our communities and solve those problems.”
In wrapping up his opening statement, he argued that we needed to stop being obsessed with impeachment because Americans already knew the outcome and Trump would on the ballot in 2020:
What we have to do is we have to stop being obsessed over impeachment, which, unfortunately, strikes many Americans like a ballgame where you know what the score is going to be, and start actually digging in and solving the problems that got Donald Trump elected in the first place.
“Make no mistake, he’ll be there at the ballot box for use to defeat,” he concluded.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
PBS NewsHour & Politico Democratic Debate
December 19, 2019
8:12:29 p.m. EasternANDREW YANG: It's clear why Americans can't agree on impeachment, we're getting news from different sources and it’s making it hard for us to even agree on basic facts.
Congressional approval rating, last I checked, was something like 17 percent, and Americans don't trust the media networks to tell them the truth.
The media networks didn't do us any favors by missing why Donald Trump became our president in the first place. If you turn on cable network news today, you would think he's our president because of some combination of Russia, racism, Facebook, Hillary Clinton, and emails all mixed together. But Americans around the country know different
We blasted away 4 million manufacturing jobs that were primarily based in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Missouri. I just left Iowa. We blasted 40,000 manufacturing jobs there. The more we act like Donald Trump is the cause of all our problems, the more Americans lose trust that we can actually see what's going on in our communities and solve those problems.
What we have to do is we have to stop being obsessed over impeachment, which, unfortunately, strikes many Americans like a ballgame where you know what the score is going to be, and start actually digging in and solving the problems that got Donald Trump elected in the first place. We have to take every opportunity to present a new positive vision for the country, a new way forward to help beat him in 2020 because, make no mistake, he’ll be there at the ballot box for use to defeat.
