It could be worse. At least Times Square isn’t constantly filled with an inch of water, creating the perfect microclimate to sprout 50 species of delicious underground mushroom. It is, however, in normal times filled with a dense crush of humanity so unrelenting, you could pick your feet up off the ground and be carried all the way to the dressing rooms of the Loft on Broadway. In his full interview on Ziwe, New York City mayoral candidate Andrew Yang comes out strong with a contentious favorite subway-station pick, but in his defense, he likes it because “it’s my stop,” and isn’t that everyone’s favorite station, in the end?
While a teaser clip for the episode, which aired Sunday, showed Yang grasping at straws to remember his favorite Jay-Z song, he eventually lands on “Numb/Encore” by Linkin Park featuring Jay-Z and “N——s in Paris” with Kanye West. He also weighs in on his four favorite billionaires: Mike Bloomberg (“He’s done a lot for the environment. He made it so that people don’t smoke in restaurants and bars around New York City”), Oprah (“She seems tremendous; I have not spoken to her”), Michael Jordan (“He was my childhood idol growing up”), and either The Rock or LeBron James, depending on who cracks a billion first.
As for his “favorite racial stereotypes,” the former presidential candidate goes with “benign” clichés about Asian people he feels he can relate to, like being really into food, loving bubble tea, and having a love/fear relationship with your parents. Yang also doubles down on his call for more police in the subway, sidesteps Ziwe’s question about his “stance on apartheid” with regards to Palestine and Israel, and reminisces about Jeremy Lin–induced “Linsanity.”
So was Andrew Yang, in the long tradition of Ziwe interviews, actually Baited? Or is he, in fact, Unbaitable? And when will he weigh in on the sheer number of Lids in and around Times Square? How could there be more than one?!