Washington(CNN)Evelyn Yang was reading letters that voters had sent to her husband, Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, and suddenly stopped in her tracks.

A woman wrote that she had decided to press sexual assault charges against an investor in her company, because she had heard Yang talk on the campaign trail about how female entrepreneurs don't get enough support.

"That was enough for her to make this life-altering move, and that was just so powerful. I remember reading that letter and others and saying, 'I feel you. I wish I could reach out to you and tell you I understand. I have my own story,'" Evelyn Yang told CNN.

In fact, she says her own story of sexual assault was so secret that she never even shared it with most of her family, including her parents.

But Evelyn Yang says the overwhelming response -- and gratitude from voters -- that she and her husband receive when they talk openly about their son Christopher's autism made her feel newly empowered. So she reached out to CNN to go public for the first time.
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https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/01/16/politics/evelyn-yang-interview-assault/index.html?

Speaking to Stephen Colbert on Wednesday’s episode of The Late Show, Yang offered his explanation for the whiteness of Tuesday’s debate. “What I said at the debate before this one (is that) fewer than 5% of Americans donate to political campaigns. You need disposable income to contribute to campaigns, and you need some form of security in order to run for office. So what happened on the stage last night reflects the inequities and realities in our economy,” Yang said. “We should be more concerned with changing those realities on the ground. And if we did that then the stage would look very different. If you have communities of color who are just making ends meet, they don’t have the resources to contribute to campaigns at very high levels, and so you wind up with a stage that does not reflect the population of the country.”

Andrew Yang’s message is remarkably similar to Elizabeth Warren’s and Bernie Sanders’s — the American economy is not working for enough Americans, and it’s going to require structural change to do better. Where Mr. Yang differs — beyond his almost complete lack of government or political experience — is in his prescriptions, including his signature Freedom Dividend.

Mr. Yang previously ran a successful test prep company and created the nonprofit Venture for America, which he argues is a strength, offering him fresh perspective and critical distance from the workings of Washington.

In an interview on Dec. 4, it was clear that Mr. Yang has done his homework, traveling across the country and listening closely. “He really seemed to have an almost emotional sense of what people have been going through and what the problems are,” a board member [Related: What Is an Editorial Board?] said afterward. “His portrait of the fundamental economic problems were more moving than Bernie’s, and Bernie has been selling this for 30 years.”

He articulated a vision for the future of work, education and technology for the nation. The board also delved into Mr. Yang’s approach to foreign policy and military intervention, and learned of his fascination with aliens and fear of flying vacuum cleaners.
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https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/01/15/opinion/andrew-yang-nytimes-interview.html

Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who was virtually unknown 12 months ago, is currently polling around 3 percent nationally. That’s good enough to put him right on the cusp of qualifying for Tuesday's Democratic debate, but significantly lower than (most of) the six candidates who officially qualified.

While Yang may not have wide mainstream appeal — yet — he has been able to mobilize strong support from a diverse group of men who, on the face of it, would have little in common. Wealthy tech CEOs, disaffected Bernie Bros and some of the most notorious Republican rabble-rousers seem to have a Yang-shaped hole in their hearts. This is, at least in part, because Yang’s message is resonating in particular with men who feel forgotten, not just by the Democratic Party, but by society at large.
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One of the most memorable presidential debate moments thus far came when the candidates were asked on Nov. 20, 2019, about white supremacy. Rather than blaming Trump and condemning his supporters — the party line at this point — Yang alluded to the fact that many of the men joining these movements are lost. Focusing on how to productively raise boys differently to protect them from these movements may be the solution to this bigger problem.

If Democrats want to stand a chance against Trump in 2020, they may want to take Andrew Yang seriously. And perhaps literally, too.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/amp/ncna1114751?

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For much of the 2020 race, Yang was a virtual unknown in a crowded field; he’s never held an elected position, and the position he talks about with the most passion isn’t health care or student debt, but universal basic income—which, he maintains, could help deal with problems like health care and student debt.

Yang believes that advancements in AI will eliminate entire swaths of the American workforce. To cope with the destabilization, he wants to put a little cash in people’s pockets each month—no strings attached. Yang is an optimist about human nature and a realist about the issues we all face. Hence, the “men can be morons” quip.

Sure, the line shouldn’t be that impressive. But in the context of a presidential debate, the admission that groups of men left alone in rooms can and do wreak havoc on the world (and the women) around them felt momentous.

A few weeks later, I called Yang to talk about it as he was driving around rural South Carolina and I was heading from Palm Springs to Los Angeles. We chatted about feminism, tech, child care, reproductive health care, and, as Yang put it, a lot of “bullshit, frankly.”
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https://www.glamour.com/story/andrew-yang-interview-sexism-feminist