Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang told Hill.TV on Friday that the U.S. was going through a major technological change that led, in part, to President Trump’s election in 2016.
“We’re going through the greatest economic and technological transformation in our nation’s history,” Yang told hosts Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton on “Rising.”
“It’s called a fourth industrial revolution, and it led directly to Donald Trump being elected in that we automated away 4 million manufacturing jobs in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Missouri and Iowa,” he continued.
“My friends in Silicon Valley know full well we’re about to do the same thing to millions of retail workers, call center workers, truck drivers, and on and on through the economy,” he said. “We need to think much bigger about how to help Americans handle this transition.”
Yang is running on a progressive platform that includes a proposal for universal basic income involving a $1,000-a-month “freedom dividend” for every American adult.
While he is one of the lesser-known candidates in the 2020 Democratic primary, with only 1 percent of Democratic voters saying he is their top choice for president, he is looking to increase his following.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported this week that Yang drew a crowd of roughly 3,000 at a campaign rally in San Francisco on Monday.
Yang’s campaign has also raised $350,000 from 66,000 donors.
— Julia Manchester
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