Andrew Yang, an entrepreneur and outsider candidate among the Democrats vying for the White House in 2020, has decided to end his self-imposed boycott of MSNBC.
According to the Daily Caller, the 2020 hopeful said in a tweet on Friday that his “message is too important” for it not to be shared with MSNBC’s audience.
“I am sitting down for a remote interview with Chris Hayes from South Carolina tonight,” Yang revealed in his Friday tweet. “Chris, and other MSNBC journalists, have reached out to me and the team in the past days. I decided that I’d prefer to speak to as many Americans as possible — our message is too important.”
Yang went on thank his supporters before calling on them to help “get our message out to as many people as possible and shock the world” on Feb. 3, 2020, when Iowa will hold the nation’s first presidential primary contest.
A self-imposed boycott
Yang’s boycott of MSNBC began on Nov. 23 when the 2020 hopeful announced via tweet that he would no longer engage with the network due to the disparate manner in which it had treated him compared to other Democrat candidates, some of whom he was outperforming in the polls.
“Was asked to appear on [MSNBC] this weekend — and told them that I’d be happy to after they apologize on-air, discuss and include our campaign consistent with our polling, and allow surrogates from our campaign as they do other candidates’,” Yang tweeted in a four-part thread last month. “They think we need them. We don’t.”
He went on:
They’ve omitted me from their graphics 12+ times, called me John Yang on air, and given me a fraction of the speaking time over 2 debates despite my polling higher than other candidates on stage. At some point you have to call it.
— Andrew Yang🧢 (@AndrewYang) November 23, 2019
According to the Daily Caller, Yang’s complaints were largely accurate; his name had been missing from many lists of candidates, and the network’s own polling had excluded him, as well. The network even went so far as to invite him on air, only to cut away from his scheduled appearance to show another candidate, according to the Daily Caller.
The Daily Caller also noted that some reports have claimed MSNBC privately apologized to Yang over the issue, but Yang denied that in November and has not offered an update.
He doesn’t fit the mold
The most recent RealClearPolitics average of Democratic primary polls places Yang in a tie for sixth place with Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), both of whom have the support of 3.6% of voters. Some polls placed Yang as high as 6%.
But as he has lamented on Twitter, Yang has still been mysteriously absent from many mainstream media reports. Could it be because he doesn’t always tout the party line?
While Yang is certainly no fan or supportive of President Donald Trump, he also isn’t virulent in his opposition to him, either. In fact, the entrepreneur has on multiple occasions called out fellow Democrats for their obsession with the president, including his ongoing impeachment and nonsense allegations about collusion with Russia.
Still, it is highly unlikely that Yang will win the Democratic Party’s nomination in 2020 — even if he does try to use MSNBC to his advantage.
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