| | | | |  | | By Brakkton Booker | With help from Ella Creamer, Jesse Naranjo, Rishika Dugyala and Teresa Wiltz
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POLITICO illustration/Photo by Getty Images for The Asian American Foundation | What up, Recast family! Congress is back in session as lawmakers face a looming end-of-the-month deadline to avoid a government shutdown, the bitter dispute over Dianne Fienstein’s family finances heads to court-ordered mediation and questions arise over why the Biden administration has yet to name a book ban coordinator. First, though, a focus on the next act in the political life of Andrew Yang. Former presidential candidate and ex-Democrat Andrew Yang, who famously campaigned on a MATH platform — an acronym that stood for Make America Think Again — is, if nothing else, a tireless calculator. In a meeting with reporters and editors at POLITICO’s Rosslyn, Va., headquarters Monday afternoon, the 2020 presidential hopeful and one-time frontrunner in the New York mayoral election hinted that he has not ruled out a third-party presidential bid with the centrist outfit No Labels. “I’ve had conversations with various folks who are associated with No Labels,” Yang said during the 45-minute interview, dodging one of the many attempts — by my count, eight specific times — to pin him down on whether or not the group had specifically approached him about running. Yang, who announced his formal break from the Democratic Party nearly two years ago, now serves as co-chair of the nonpartisan organization Forward Party, which launched last year. Its platform includes advocating for ranked-choice voting and doing away with partisan primaries.
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When he’s not doing that, he’s hawking books. His latest, out today, is a political thriller he co-wrote with Stephen Marche called “The Last Election.” He also doles out unsolicited political advice to upstart presidential candidates seeking the GOP nomination.
“We’re both young (in political years in particular) with new ideas, tech-savvy, Asian and really, really good-looking,” he wrote for POLITICO in May, before offering a nine-point plan for how Vivek Ramaswamy, then a relative unknown, should navigate a treacherous GOP field to topple Trump.
|  Yang, then a Democratic presidential candidate, arrives to speak at forum Feb. 8, 2020, in Concord, N.H. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo | Ramaswamy now sits as high as 9 percent in some polls, including a recent Civiqs poll of likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers. When we asked Yang about the Ramaswamy campaign, he answered by bringing up one of Ramaswamy’s GOP rivals. “I mean I publicly donated to Chris Christie because I thought that him making the debate stage would be a positive,” Yang said. “I’m an anyone-but-Trump guy. There are a number of candidates that I vastly prefer to Trump.” When pushed again, he acknowledged that his list did include Ramaswamy. In recent days, Ramaswamy has taken a hard stance on immigration, declaring that if he was elected president, “the family unit will be deported,” including the American-born children of undocumented immigrants — despite the 14th Amendment guarantee of birthright citizenship.
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| When asked about that, Yang demurred. “Though I did watch the last debate, I have not been digging into the platforms of various candidates,” said Yang, who was dressed in a navy-colored suit with a white FWD pin promoting his nonpartisan Forward Party on his left lapel. “But I mean, if my choices were Trump and Vivek, yeah, I’d support Vivek, sure.” In a POLITICO op-ed last month, Mary Anna Mancuso , who served as national press secretary for the Forward party, described a hollowness of the new party which Yang serves as co-chair. Like many politicians who once commanded the attention of avid political reporters, Yang appears eager to avoid being written off as some has-been scrambling to hold on to his waning 15 minutes of fame. He remains critical of Washington’s tepid response to the looming dangers of fast-moving technology, which will further upend the American economy. That, he argues, is yet another reason why our current political system does not work. “I think that there are a lot of digital natives who are particularly dissatisfied with a two-party system, because they don’t see government understanding or addressing AI,” Yang said. “When you talk [to] folks who are deep into technology, they particularly feel like the multidecade tape delay that D.C. is operating on is set to be deeply problematic.” |  Yang presents a powerpoint presentation Jan 14, 2020, at a campaign stop in Aimes, Iowa. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo | Yang, 48, used the bulk of his conversation with POLITICO to underscore how “terribly unrepresentative and borderline ridiculous” it is that the 2024 race appears to be a rematch of two frontrunners in their advanced years of life. “I mean, you’re talking about two guys whose combined age is 160,” Yang said. (President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will be a combined 159 years old on Election Day 2024.) “In a country of 330 million people, you would choose these two gentlemen at this stage? I mean, it makes zero sense.” No Labels, which did not respond to POLITICO's request for comment on meeting with Yang, is prepping a potential third-party presidential unity ticket campaign. Among the names being discussed as part of such a ticket include current Gov. Chris Sununu (R-N.H.), former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, former Gov. Larry Hogan (R-Md.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). Don’t be surprised if Andrew Yang’s name is added to this list. As always, we’ll be watching to see how this all shakes out. All the best,
The Recast Team
| | | G20 WELCOMES THE AFRICAN UNION
|  South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa and India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi shake hands ahead of the G20 Leaders' Summit Sept. 9 in New Delhi. | Pool photo by Ludovic Marin | At the G20 summit over the weekend in New Delhi, the African Union was welcomed as a permanent member of the body representing the world’s richest and most powerful nations. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi heralded the announcement on social media, saying, “Together, let us foster global unity and progress. Let us also do whatever we can for the development of the Global South.” The African Union, which is made up of 55 member nations, joins the European Union as the only regional bloc to be given full membership status in the G20. “This membership, for which we have long been advocating, will provide a propitious framework for amplifying advocacy in favor of the Continent and its effective contribution to meeting global challenges,” Moussa Faki Mahamat, the chair of the African Union Commission, said on X, formerly known as Twitter. In practical terms, the inclusion of the AU means the continent — whose 1.3 billion population is expected to multiply in the coming decades — is being recognized for the potential of its development and global economic opportunities in the future. Now the continent has a seat at the global table.
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|  Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) looks on during a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on Capitol Hill May 18, 2023. At left, committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) is seen. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | DiFi Family Drama — A judge has ordered the warring sides of Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s family to resolve their battle over the estate of her late husband through mediation. POLITICO’s Dustin Gardiner reports this is the latest chapter in an ongoing saga calling into question DiFi’s ability to serve in the Senate. No Way, Lee — Speaking of that California Senate seat… Democratic Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom over the weekend ruled out Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) as a possible caretaker senator, should Feinstein leave before her term ends in early 2025. POLITICO’s Christopher Cadelago explains why. Still No Book Ban Coordinator — During June’s Pride Month, Biden announced he would appoint a “book ban coordinator.” Three months later, as POLITICO’s Lawrence Ukenye notes, very little movement has been made on filling the post.
| | | THE RECAST RECOMMENDS “The Other Black Girl,” premiering tomorrow on Hulu, follows Nella, an editorial assistant and the only Black woman at her publishing company. She is thrilled when Hazel, who is also Black, is hired — though things soon take a sinister turn for the worse in this much-anticipated satirical horror.
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| Enigmatic librarian Sayuri can tell exactly what each library visitor is searching for and provides just the right book recommendation to change their life in Michiko Aoyama’s new novel. Chlöe’s Tiny Desk concert is a whole party; the singer moves between R&B and afrobeats as she showcases her stunning vocal range. We’re officially in scary season: Pablo Larraín‘s gothic alt-history “El Conde,” in which Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet returns as a 250-year-old vampire, is out now. BTS’ V drops a new music video for “Slow Dancing,” infused with dreamy summer nostalgia.
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| TikTok of the Day: Tennis Barbie
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