Long-shot Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang did not hit the required thresholds set by the Democratic National Committee to participate in Tuesday night’s debate, which left only white candidates onstage in Iowa. It was the continuation of a troubling trend: During the December debate, Yang was the only person of color to appear, with former candidates like Senator Cory Booker and former housing secretary Julián Castro being left on the sideline because of the DNC rules around fundraising and polling numbers.

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.”

Yang is the second Democratic presidential candidate Colbert interviewed this week, following Tuesday’s sit-down with billionaire former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg. But he’s the first to come to the CBS late-night show with an endorsement from Dave Chappelle. The comedy heavyweight came out in support of Yang this week, posing for a picture with the candidate and proclaiming himself part of the “Yang Gang.” How did Yang connect with Chappelle, whose most recent Netflix comedy special was criticized for his jokes about Michael Jackson and Louis C.K., among other third-rail issues?

“He’s a parent; I’m a parent,” Yang told Colbert. “We both are really concerned about the way the country is going. We want to be able to do better and say to our kids, we did everything we could to actually leave a country we’re proud of for them.”

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